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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30483 ***
+
+OUTSIDE INN
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "If--if you've made a woman really care"]
+
+
+
+
+OUTSIDE INN
+
+By
+
+ETHEL M. KELLEY
+
+Author of
+
+Over Here, Turn About Eleanor, Etc.
+
+With Frontispiece by
+
+W. B. KING
+
+INDIANAPOLIS
+
+THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright 1920
+
+The Bobbs-Merrill Company
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO.
+
+BOOK MANUFACTURERS
+
+BROOKLYN, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE
+        I A GOOD LITTLE DREAM                                        1
+       II APPLICANTS FOR BLUE CHAMBRAY                              19
+      III INAUGURATION                                              33
+       IV CINDERELLA                                                49
+        V SCIENCE                                                   69
+       VI AN ELEEMOSYNARY INSTITUTION                               84
+      VII CAVE-MAN STUFF                                            93
+     VIII SCIENCE APPLIED                                          113
+       IX SHEILA                                                   134
+        X THE PORTRAIT                                             151
+       XI BILLY AND CAROLINE                                       166
+      XII MORE CAVE-MAN STUFF                                      180
+     XIII THE HAPPIEST DAY                                         198
+      XIV BETTY                                                    209
+       XV CLOUDS OF GLORY                                          220
+      XVI CHRISTMAS SHOPPING                                       236
+     XVII GOOD-BY                                                  248
+    XVIII TAME SKELETONS                                           259
+      XIX OTHER PEOPLE'S TROUBLES                                  271
+       XX HITTY                                                    288
+      XXI LOHENGRIN AND WHITE SATIN                                299
+
+
+
+
+OUTSIDE INN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GOOD LITTLE DREAM
+
+
+"I Elijah Peebles Martin, of the city and county of Harrison, in the
+state of Rhode Island, being of sound and disposing mind and memory,
+do make and declare the following, as and for, my last will and
+testament.' ... I wish you'd take your head out of that barrel, Nancy,
+and listen to the document that is going to make you rich beyond the
+dreams of avarice."
+
+"I was beyond them anyway." The young woman in blue serge made one
+last effectual dive into the depths of excelsior, the topmost billows
+of which were surging untidily over the edge of a big crate in the
+middle of the basement floor, and secured a nest of blue and rose
+colored teacups, which she proceeded to unwrap lovingly and display on
+a convenient packing box. "Not one single thing broken in this whole
+lot, Billy.... What is a disposing mind and memory, anyhow?"
+
+"You don't deserve to know," the blond young man in the Norfolk jacket
+assured her, adjusting himself more firmly to the idiosyncrasies of
+the rackety step-ladder he was striding. "You're not human about this.
+Here you are suddenly in possession of a fortune. Money enough to make
+you independently wealthy for the rest of your life--money you didn't
+know the existence of, two weeks ago--fed to you by a gratuitous
+providence. A legacy is a legacy, and deserves to be treated as such,
+and I propose to see that it gets what it deserves, without any more
+shilly-shallying."
+
+"I'm a busy woman," Nancy groaned, "and I've hammered my finger to a
+pulp, trying to open this crate, while you perch on a broken
+step-ladder and prate to me of legacies. The saucers to these cups may
+be in here, and I can't wait to find out. I'm perfectly crazy about
+this ware. It's English--Wedgewood, you know."
+
+"I didn't know." Billy resignedly let himself to the floor, and
+appropriated the screwdriver. "I thought Wedgewood was dove color, and
+consisted chiefly of ladies in deshabille, doing the tango on a parlor
+ornament. I smashed one in my youth, so I know. There, it's open now.
+I may as well unpack what's here. These seem to be demi-tasses.
+
+    'You may tempt your upper classes,
+    With your villainous demi-tasses.
+    But Heaven will protect the working girl,'"
+
+he finished lugubriously, in a wailing baritone, taking an imaginary
+encore by bowing a head picturesquely adorned with a crop of excelsior
+curls, accumulated during his activities in and about the barrel.
+
+"The trouble with the average tea-room, or Arts and Crafts table
+d'hôte," Nancy said, sinking into the depths of a broken armchair in
+the corner of the dim, overcrowded interior, "is that when the pinch
+comes, quantity is sacrificed to quality. Smaller portions of food,
+and chipped chinaware. People who can't keep a place up, let it run
+down genteelly. They won't compromise on quality. I should never be
+like that. I should go to the ten-cent stores and replenish my whole
+establishment, if I couldn't make it pay with imported ware and
+Colonial silver. I'd never go to the other extreme. I'd never be so
+perceptibly second-rate, but in the matter of furnishings as well as
+food values, I'd find my perfect balance between quality and quantity,
+and keep it."
+
+"I believe you would. You are a thorough child, when you set about a
+thing. I'll bet you know the restaurant business from A to Z."
+
+"I do. You know, I studied the organization of every well-run
+restaurant in New York, when I was doing field work from Teachers'
+College. I've read every book on the subject of Diet and Nutrition and
+Domestic Economy that I could get my hands on. I'm just ready now for
+the practical application of all my theories."
+
+"Nancy Calory Martin is your real name. I don't blame you for
+hating to give up this tea-room idea. You've dug so deep into the
+possibilities of it, that you want to go through. I get that."
+
+Nancy's eyes widened in satiric admiration.
+
+"You could understand almost anything, couldn't you, Billy?" she
+mocked.
+
+"All I want now," Billy continued imperturbably, "is a chance to make
+_you_ understand something." He smote the document in his left hand.
+"Of course, your uncle's lawyer has explained all the details in his
+letters to you, but if you won't read the letters or familiarize
+yourself with the contents of this will, somebody has got to explain
+it to you in words of one syllable. My legal training, slight as it
+is--"
+
+"Sketchy is the better word, don't you think so, Billy?"
+
+"Slight as it is"--except for a prodigious frown, Billy ignored the
+interruption, though he took advantage of her suddenly upright
+position to encircle her neatly with a barrel hoop, as if she were the
+iron peg in a game of quoits--"enables me to put the fact before you
+in a few short, sharp, well-chosen sentences. I won't again attempt to
+read the document--"
+
+"You'd better not," Nancy interrupted witheringly, "your delivery is
+poor. Besides, I don't want to know what is in that will. If I had, it
+stands to reason that I would have found out long before this. I've
+had it three days."
+
+"You've had it three days and never once looked into it?" Billy
+groaned. "Who started all this scandal about the curiosity of women,
+anyway?"
+
+"I don't want to know what's in it," Nancy insisted. "As long as I'm
+not in possession of any definite facts, I can ignore it. I've got the
+kind of mind that must deal with concrete facts concretely."
+
+Billy grinned. "I'd hate the job of trying to subpoena you," he said,
+"but you'd make a corking good witness, on the stand. Of course, you
+can proceed for a certain length of time on the theory that what you
+don't know can't hurt you, but take it from me, little girl, what you
+ought to know and don't know is the thing that's bound to hurt you
+most tremendously in the long run. What are you afraid of, anyway,
+Nancy?"
+
+"I'm not _afraid_ of anything," Nancy corrected him, with some heat.
+"I just plain don't want to be interrupted at this stage of my career.
+I consider it an impertinence of Uncle Elijah, to make me his heir. I
+never saw him but once, and I had no desire to see him that time. It
+was about ten years ago, and I caught a grippe germ from him. He told
+me between sneezes that I was too big a girl to wear a mess of hair
+streaming down my back like a baby. I stuck out my tongue at him, but
+he was too near-sighted to see it. Why couldn't he have left his money
+to an eye and ear infirmary? Or the Sailors' Snug Retreat? Or--or--"
+
+"If you really don't want the money," Billy said, "it's your privilege
+to endow some institution--"
+
+"You know very well that I can't get rid of money that way," Nancy
+cried hotly. "I am at least a responsible person. I don't believe in
+these promiscuous, eleemosynary institutions. It would be against
+all my principles to contribute money to any such philanthropy. I know
+too much about them--but he didn't. He could have disposed of his
+money to any one of a dozen of these mid-Victorian charities, but
+no--he was just one of those old parties that want to shift their
+responsibilities on to young shoulders, and so he chose mine."
+
+"You don't speak very kindly of your dear dead relative."
+
+"I don't feel very kindly toward him. He was a meddling old creature.
+He never gave any member of the family a cent when they wanted it and
+needed it. Now that I've just got my life in shape, and know what I
+want to do with it without being beholden to anybody on earth, he
+leaves me a whole lot of superfluous money."
+
+"If I weren't engaged to Caroline, who is a jealous woman, though I
+say it as shouldn't, I'd be tempted to undertake the management of
+your fortune myself," Billy said reflectively; "as it is--honor--"
+
+"I know what I want to do with my life," Nancy continued, as if he had
+not spoken. "I want to run an efficiency tea-room and serve dinner and
+breakfast and tea to my fellow men and women. I want the perfectly
+balanced ration, perfectly served, to be my contribution to the cause
+of humanity."
+
+She looked about her ruefully. The sun, through the barred dusty
+windows, struck in long slant rays, athwart the confusion of the
+cellar, illuminating piles upon piles of gay, blue latticed
+chinaware,--cups set out methodically in rows on the lids and bottoms
+of packing boxes; assorted sizes of plates and saucers, graded
+pyramidically, rising from the floor. There were also individual
+copper casseroles and serving dishes, and a heterogeneous assortment
+of Japanese basketry tangled in excelsior and tissue. A wandering
+sunbeam took her hair, displaying its amber, translucent quality.
+
+"I've just got capital enough to get it going right; to swing it for
+the first year, even if I don't make a cent on it. It's my one big
+chance to do my share in the world, and to work out my own salvation.
+This legacy is a menace to all my dreams and plans."
+
+"I see that," Billy said. "What I don't see is what you gain by
+refusing to let it catch up with you."
+
+"You're not it till you're tagged. That's all. If I don't know whether
+my income is going to be five thousand dollars or twenty-five thousand
+a year, I can go on unpacking teacups with--"
+
+Billy whistled.
+
+"Five thousand or twenty-five--my darling Nancy! You'll have fifty
+thousand a year at the very lowest estimate. The actual money is more
+than five hundred thousand dollars. The stock in the Union Rubber
+Company will amount to as much again, maybe twice as much. You're a
+real heiress, my dear, with wads of real money to show for it. That's
+what I'm trying to tell you."
+
+"Fifty thousand a year!" Nancy turned a shocked face, from which the
+color slowly drained, leaving it blue-white. "Fifty thousand a year!
+You're mad. It can't be!"
+
+"Yes'um. Fifty thousand at least."
+
+Nancy's pallor increased. She closed her eyes.
+
+"Don't do that," Billy said sharply. "No woman can faint on me just
+because she's had money left her. You make me feel like the ghost of
+Hamlet's father."
+
+Nancy clutched at his sleeve.
+
+"Don't, Billy!" she besought. "I'm past joking now. Fifty thousand a
+year! Why, Uncle Elijah bought fifteen-dollar suits and fifteen-cent
+lunches. How could a retired sea captain get all that money by
+investing in a little rubber, and getting to be president of a little
+rubber company?"
+
+"That's how. Be a good sensible girl, and face the music."
+
+"I'll have to give up the tea-room."
+
+Billy laid a consolatory arm over her shoulder, and patted her
+awkwardly.
+
+"Cheer up," he said, "there's worse things in this world than money.
+The time may come when you'll be grateful to your poor little old
+uncle, for his nifty little fifty thousand per annum."
+
+Nancy turned a tragic face to him.
+
+"I tell you I'm not grateful to him," she said, "and I doubt if I ever
+will be. I don't want the stupid money. I want to work life out in my
+own way. I know I've got it in me, and I want my chance to prove it. I
+want to give myself, my own brain and strength, to the job I've
+selected as mine. Now, it's all spoiled for me. I'm subsidized. I'm
+done for, and I can't see any way out of it."
+
+"You can give the money away."
+
+"I can't. Giving money away is a special science of itself. If I
+devote my life to doing that as it should be done, I won't have time
+or energy for anything else. I'm not a philanthropist in that sense. I
+wanted my restaurant to be philanthropic only incidentally. I wanted
+to cram my patrons with the full value of their money's worth of good
+nourishing food; to increase the efficiency of hundreds of people who
+never suspected I was doing it, by scientific methods of feeding.
+That's my dream."
+
+"A good little dream, all right."
+
+"To make people eat the right food; to help them to a fuller and more
+effective use of themselves by supplying them with the proper fuel for
+their functions."
+
+"You could buy a chain of restaurants with the money you've got."
+
+"I don't want a chain of restaurants."
+
+"You can endow a perpetual diet squad. You can buy out the whole Life
+Extension Institute. If you would only stop to think of the advantages
+of having all the money you wanted to spend on anything you wanted,
+you'd--"
+
+"Billy," Nancy said solemnly, "I've been through all that. If I had
+thought I would have been a better person with a great deal of money
+at my disposal, I--I might have--"
+
+"Married Dick," Billy finished for her. "I forgot that interesting
+possibility. I suppose to a girl who has just turned down a cold five
+millions, this meager little proposition"--he flourished the crumpled
+document in his hand--"has no real allure. Lord! What a world this is.
+You'll marry Dick yet. Them as has--_gits_. It never rains but it
+pours. To the victor belong the spoils, _et cetera, et cetera_--"
+
+"Money simply does not interest me."
+
+"Dick interests you. I don't know to what extent, but he interests
+you."
+
+"Don't be sentimental, Billy. Just because you're in love with
+Caroline, you can't make all your other friends marry each other. Tell
+me what to do about this legacy. What is customary when you get a lump
+of money like that? I suppose I'll have to begin to get rid of all
+_this_ immediately." There was more than a hint of tears in her voice,
+but she smiled at Billy bravely. "I'm so perfectly crazy about
+these--these cups and saucers, Billy. See the lovely way that rose is
+split to fit into the design. Oh, when do I come into possession,
+anyway?"
+
+"You don't come into possession right away, you know. You don't
+inherit for a couple of years, under the Rhode Island law. The
+formalities will take--"
+
+"Billy Boynton, do you mean to say that I won't have to do a blessed
+thing about this money for two years?" Nancy shrieked.
+
+"Why, no. It takes a certain amount of red tape to settle an estate,
+to probate a will, etc., and the law allows a period of time, varying
+in different states--"
+
+"Oho! Is there anything in all this universe so stupid as a man?"
+Nancy interrupted fervently. "Why didn't you tell me that before? Do
+you suppose I care how much money I have two years from now? Two years
+of freedom, why, that's all I want, Billy. There you've been sitting
+up winking and blinking at me like a sympathetic old owl, when all I
+needed to know was that I had two years of grace. Of course, I'll go
+on with my tea-room, and not a soul shall know the difference."
+
+"While the feminine temperament has my hearty admiration and my most
+cordial endorsement," Billy murmured, "there are things about it--"
+
+"I won't have to tell anybody, will I?"
+
+"There's no law to that effect. If your friends don't know it from
+you, they're not likely to hear it."
+
+"I haven't mentioned it," Nancy said. "I only told you, because it
+seemed rather in your line of work, and I was getting so much mail
+about it, I thought it would be wise to have some one look it over."
+
+"I've given up my law practice and Caroline for three days in your
+service."
+
+"You've done more than well, Billy, and I'm grateful to you. Of
+course, you would have saved me days of nervous wear and tear if it
+had only occurred to you to tell me the one simple little thing that
+was the essential point of the whole matter. If I had known that I
+didn't inherit for two years, I wouldn't have cared _what_ was in that
+will."
+
+Billy stared at her feelingly.
+
+"A peculiar sensation always comes over me," he said musingly, "after
+I spend several hours uninterruptedly in the society of a woman who is
+using her mind in any way. I couldn't explain it to you exactly. It's
+a kind of impression that my own brain has begun to disintegrate, and
+to--"
+
+"Don't be too hard on yourself, Billy." Nancy soothed him sweetly,--Billy
+was not one of the people to whom she habitually allowed full
+conversational leeway: "Swear you won't tell Caroline or Betty--or Dick."
+
+"I swear."
+
+Nancy held out her hand to him.
+
+"You're a good boy," she said, "and I appreciate you, which is more
+than Caroline does, I'm afraid. Run along and see her now--I don't
+need you any more, and you're probably dying to."
+
+Billy bowed over her hand, lingeringly and politely, but once
+releasing it, he shook his big frame, and straightening up, drew a
+long deep breath of something very like relief.
+
+"With all deference to your delightful sex," he said, "the only
+society that I'm dying for at the present moment is that of the old
+family bar-keep."
+
+As Billy left her, Nancy turned to her basement window, and stood
+looking out at the quaint stone court he had to cross in order to
+reach the high gate that guarded the entrance to the marble worker's
+establishment, under the shadow of which it was her intention to open
+her out-of-door tea-room. She watched him dreamily is he made his way
+among the cinerary urns, the busts and statues and bas-reliefs that
+were a part of the stock in trade of her incongruous business
+associate.
+
+In her investigation of the various sorts and conditions of
+restaurants in New York, she characteristically hit upon the garden
+restaurant, a commonplace in the down-town table d'hôte district, as
+the ideal setting for her adventure in practical philanthropy, while
+the ubiquitous tea-room and antique-shop combination gave her the
+inspiration to stage her own undertaking even more spectacularly. Her
+enterprise was destined to flourish picturesquely in the open court
+during the fair months of the year, and in the winter months, or in
+the event of a bad storm, to be housed under the eaves in the rambling
+garret of the old brick building, the lower floor of which was given
+over to traffic in marbles.
+
+She sighed happily. Billy, extricating himself from the grasp of an
+outstretched marble hand, which bad seemed to clutch desperately at
+his elbow, and narrowly escaping a plunge into a too convenient bird's
+bath, turned to see her eyes following him, and waved gaily, but she
+scarcely realized that he had done so. It was rather with the eye of
+her mind that she was contemplating the dark, quadrangular area
+outstretched before her. In spirit she was moving to and fro among the
+statuary, bringing a housewifely order out of the chaos that
+prevailed,--placing stone ladies draped in stone or otherwise;
+cherubic babies, destined to perpetual cold water bathing; strange
+mortuary furniture, in the juxtaposition that would make the most
+effective background for her enterprise.
+
+She saw the gritty, gray paving stones of the court cleared of their
+litter, and scoured free from discoloration and grime, set with dozens
+of little tables immaculate in snowy napery and shiny silver, and
+arranged with careful irregularity at the most alluring angle. She saw
+a staff of Hebe-like waitresses in blue chambray and pink ribbons, to
+match the chinaware, and all bearing a marked resemblance to herself
+in her last flattering photograph, moving among a crowd of well
+brought up but palpably impoverished young people,--mostly social
+workers and artists. They were _all_ young, and most of them very
+beautiful. In all her twenty-five years, she had never before been so
+close to a vision realized, as she was at that moment.
+
+"Outside Inn," she said to herself, still smiling. "It's a perfect
+name for it, really. Outside Inn!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+APPLICANTS FOR BLUE CHAMBRAY
+
+
+Ann Martin was an orphan of New England extraction. Her father, the
+eldest child of a simple unpretentious country family in Western
+Massachusetts, had been a brilliant but erratic throw-back to
+Mayflower traditions and Puritan intellectualism. He had married a
+girl with much the same ancestry as his own, but herself born and
+brought up in New York, and of a generation to which the assumption of
+prerogative was a natural rather than an acquired characteristic. The
+possession of a comfortable degree of fortune and culture was a matter
+of course with Ann Winslow, while to poor David Martin education in
+the finer things of life, and the opportunity to indulge his taste in
+the choice of surroundings and associates, were hard-won privileges.
+
+Both parents had been killed in a railroad accident when Ann, or Nancy
+as her mother had insisted on calling her from the day of her
+christening, was about seven years old. She had been placed in the
+care of a maternal aunt, and had flourished in the heart of a well
+ordered establishment of the mid-Victorian type, run by a vigorous,
+rather worldly old lady.
+
+From her lovely mother--Ann Winslow had been more than a merely
+attractive or pretty woman; she had the real grace and distinction,
+and purity of profile that placed her in the actual category of
+beauty,--Nancy had inherited a healthy and equitable outlook on life,
+while her father, irresistible and impracticable being that he was,
+had endowed her with a certain eccentric and adventurous spirit in the
+investigation of it.
+
+She had been educated in a boarding-school, forty minutes' run from
+New York, and had specialized in the domestic sciences and basket
+ball; and on attaining her majority had taken up a course or two at
+Columbia, rather more to put off the evil day of assuming the
+responsibility of the stuffy, stately old house in Washington Square
+than because she ever expected to make any use of her superfluous
+education. She was conceded by every one to be her aunt's heir, but
+old Miss Winslow died intestate, very suddenly in Nancy's twenty-third
+year; and the beneficiaries of this accident, most of them extremely
+well-to-do themselves, combined to make Nancy a regular allowance
+until she was twenty-five. On her twenty-fifth birthday fifteen
+thousand dollars was deposited to her account in the Trust Company
+which conserved the family fortunes of the Winslows, and Nancy
+understood that they considered their duty by her to be done. It was
+with this fifteen thousand dollars that she was to inaugurate her
+darling enterprise,--Outside Inn.
+
+Money, as she had truthfully told Billy, meant nothing to her. Her
+aunt, living and giving generously, had furnished her with a
+background of comfortable, unostentatious well being, against which
+the rather vivid elements that went to make up her intimate social
+circle--she was a creature of intimates--stood out in alluring relief.
+She had literally never wanted for anything. Her tastes, to be sure,
+were modest, but the wherewithal to gratify them had always been
+almost stultifyingly near at hand. The excitement and adventure of an
+income to which there was attached some uncertainty had never been
+hers, and she was too much her father's daughter to be interested in
+the playing of any game in which she could not lose. With all she
+possessed staked against her untried business acumen she was for the
+first time in her life concerned with her financial situation, and
+quite honestly resentful of any interruption of her experiment. Her
+life was closely associated with her mother's family. Her father's
+people had at no time entered into her scheme of living,--her uncle
+Elijah less than any member of it, and she found his post-obit
+intervention in her affairs embarrassing in a dozen different
+connections.
+
+The best friend she had in the world, before he had made the tactical
+error of asking her to marry him, was Richard Thorndyke. He was still,
+thanks to his immediate skill in trying to retrieve that error, a very
+good friend indeed. Nancy would normally have told him everything that
+happened to her in the exact order of its occurrence; but partly
+because she did not wish to exaggerate her eccentricity in eyes that
+looked upon her so kindly, and partly because she had the instinct to
+spare him the realization that there was no way in which he might come
+to her rescue in the event of disaster,--she did not inform him of her
+legacy. She knew that he was shrewdly calculating to stand behind her
+venture, morally and practically, and that the chief incentive of his
+encouragement and helpfulness was the hidden hope that through her
+experiment and its probable unfortunate termination she would learn to
+depend on _him_. Nancy was so sure of herself that this attitude of
+Dick's roused her tenderness instead of her ire.
+
+The two girls who were closest to her, Caroline Eustace and Betty
+Pope, had been actively enlisted in the service of Outside Inn and the
+ideals that it represented. Betty, a dimpling, dynamic little being,
+who took a sporting interest in any project that interested her,
+irrespective of its merits, was to be associated with Nancy in the
+actual management of the restaurant. Caroline, who took herself more
+seriously, and was busy with a dozen enterprises that had to do with
+the welfare of the race, was concerned chiefly with the humanitarian
+side of the undertaking and willing to deflect to it only such energy
+as she felt to be essential to its scientific betterment. She was
+tentatively engaged to Billy Boynton,--for what reason no one--not
+even Billy--had been able to determine; since she systematically
+disregarded him in relation to all the interests and activities that
+went to make up her life.
+
+The affairs of the Inn progressed rapidly. It was in the first week of
+May that Nancy and Billy had their memorable discussion of her
+situation. By the latter part of June, when she could be reasonably
+sure of a succession of propitious days and nights, for she had set
+her heart on balmy weather conditions, Nancy expected to have her
+formal opening,--a dinner which not only initiated her establishment,
+but submitted it to the approval of her own group of intimate friends,
+who were to be her guests on that occasion.
+
+Meantime, the most extensive and discriminating preparations were
+going forward. Billy and Dick were present one afternoon by special
+request when Betty and Nancy were interviewing a contingent of
+waitresses.
+
+"We've got three perfectly charming girls already," Nancy said, "that
+is, girls that look perfectly charming to me, but a man's point of
+view on a woman's looks is so different that I thought it would be a
+good plan to have you boys look over this lot. They are all very
+high-class and competent girls. The Manning Agency doesn't send any
+other kind."
+
+"Trot 'em along," Billy said; "where are they anyway?"
+
+"In the room in front." They were in the smallest of the nest of attic
+rooms that Nancy planned to make her winter quarters. "Michael
+receives them, and shows them in here one by one."
+
+"You like Michael then?" Dick asked. "I always said his talents were
+hidden at our place. He has a soul above the job of handy man on a
+Long Island farm."
+
+"He's certainly a handy man here," Nancy said; "I couldn't live
+without him."
+
+"The lucky dog," Billy said, with a side glance at Dick.
+
+"You see," Betty explained, "the girl comes in, and we ask her
+questions. Then if I don't like her I take my pencil from behind my
+ear, and rap against my palm with it. If Nancy doesn't like her she
+says, 'You're losing a hairpin, Betty.' If we like her we rub our
+hands together."
+
+"It's a good system," Billy said, "but I don't see why Nancy doesn't
+take her pencil from behind her ear, or why you don't say to her--"
+
+"I wouldn't put a pencil behind my ear," Nancy said scathingly.
+
+"And she never loses a hairpin," Betty cut in. "If I approve this
+system of signals I don't see what you have to complain of. Nancy
+couldn't get a pencil behind her ear even if she wanted to. It's only
+a criminal ear like mine that accommodates a pencil."
+
+"Speaking of ears," Dick said, looking at his watch, "let's get on
+with the beauty show. I have to take my mother to see _Boris_
+to-night, and she has an odd notion of being on time."
+
+"Aw right," Betty said. "Here's Michael. Bring in the first one
+immediately, Michael."
+
+"Sure an' I will that, Miss Pope." The old family servitor of the
+Thorndykes pulled a deliberate lid over a twinkling left eye by way of
+acknowledging the presence of his young master. "There's quite a
+display of thim this time."
+
+The first applicant, guided thus by Michael, appeared on the
+threshold and stood for a moment framed in the low doorway. Seeing
+two gentlemen present she carefully arranged her expression to meet
+that contingency. She was a blonde girl with masses of doubtfully
+tinted hair and no chin, but her eyes were very blue and matched a
+chain of turquoise beads about her throat, and she radiated a peculiar
+vitality.
+
+Betty took her pencil from behind her ear.
+
+"You're losing a hair--" Nancy began, but Dick and Billy exchanged
+glances and began rubbing their hands together energetically and
+enthusiastically.
+
+"I'm sorry," Nancy said crisply, "but you're a little too tall for our
+purpose."
+
+"And too blonde," Betty added with a bland dismissing smile. "We're
+looking for a special type of girl."
+
+"I understood you were looking for a waitress," the girl said pertly,
+with her eyes on Billy.
+
+"I was," Billy answered, "but I'm not now. My--my wife won't let me."
+He waved an inclusive hand in the direction of Nancy and Betty.
+
+"If you don't behave," Nancy said, while they waited for Michael to
+bring in the next girl, "you can't stay. If that is the kind of girl
+you men find attractive then my restaurant is doomed from the
+beginning. I wouldn't have that girl in my employ for--"
+
+Before she could begin again, applicant number two stood before
+them,--a comfortable, kind-eyed girl, no longer very young but with
+efficiency written all over her, despite the shyness that beset her.
+
+Nancy rubbed her hands with satisfaction and looked at Betty, who
+beamed back at her. The girl, encouraged by Nancy's kindly smile took
+a step forward, and began to recite her qualifications for the
+position. Dick fumbled with a fountain-pen which he placed elaborately
+behind his ear for an instant, and then as ostentatiously removed.
+
+"I think you're losing a hairpin, Dick," Billy suggested solicitously,
+as Nancy, ignoring their existence entirely, proceeded to make terms
+with the newcomer.
+
+The next girl created a diversion--being palpably an adventuress out
+of a job and impressing none of the quartette as being interesting
+enough to deserve one,--but the two girls who followed her were bright
+and sprightly creatures, disarmingly graceful and ingenuous, of whom
+the entire quartette approved. They were twin sisters, they said,
+Dolly and Molly, and they had always had places together ever since
+they had begun working out.
+
+"Tell me, pretty maiden, _are_ there any more at home _like_--" Billy
+was addressing Molly gravely when Dick slipped a friendly but firm
+hand over his jugular region, and cut off his utterance.
+
+"He's not feeling quite himself," he explained suavely to Dolly,
+"but we'll bring him around soon.--I think you'll find Miss Martin
+an ideal person to work for, and the salary and the hours unusually
+satisfactory."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Molly and Dolly together, in the English manner
+which showed the excellence of their training.
+
+There were several other dubby creatures so much out of the picture
+that they were not even considered, and then Michael brought in what
+he called "a grand girl," and left her standing statuesquely in their
+midst.
+
+"With large lovely arms and a neck like a tower," Dick quoted in his
+throat.
+
+Nancy engaged her without enthusiasm.
+
+"She'll draw," she said briefly. "Personally, I dislike these Alma
+Tadema girls."
+
+"What the men see," Betty said, curling around the better part of two
+straight dining chairs, in the moment of relaxation that followed the
+final disposition of the business of the day, "in a girl like that
+first one is one of the mysteries of existence."
+
+"I know it," Nancy agreed, with New England colloquialism. "You feel
+reasonably allied to them as a sex, and then suddenly they show some
+vulgar preference for a woman like that, and it's all off."
+
+"This from the woman who thinks my chauffeur is an ideal of manly
+beauty," Dick scoffed, "a dimpled man with a little finger ring."
+
+"He can run a car, though," Nancy retorted.
+
+"I'll bet little blue eyes could run a restaurant."
+
+"That was just the trouble,--she would have been running mine in
+twenty-four hours. Oh! I think what you men really like is a bossy
+woman."
+
+"Now, what a woman really likes in a man--" Betty began, "is--is--"
+
+"Quality," Nancy finished for her succinctly.
+
+"I wonder--" Dick mused. "I should have said finish."
+
+"Almost any kind of finish so long as it is smooth enough," Billy
+supplemented. "Look at the way they eat up this artistic and poetic
+veneer."
+
+"Look at the way they mangle their metaphors," Nancy complained to
+Betty.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I know what I really like in a woman," Dick whispered to Nancy, as he
+helped her into her coat just before they started out together, "and
+you know what I like, too. That's one of the subjects that needs no
+discussion between us."
+
+Betty and Billy walking up the avenue ahead of them,--Outside Inn was
+located in one of the cross-streets in the thirties,--were discussing
+their relation to one another.
+
+"I wonder sometimes if Nancy's got it in her really to care for a
+man," Betty argued; "she's as fond as she can be of Dick, but she'd
+sacrifice him heart, soul and body for that restaurant of hers. She's
+a perfect darling, I don't mean that; she's the very essence of
+sweetness and kindness, but she doesn't seem to understand or
+appreciate the possibilities of a devotion like Dick's. Do you think
+she's really capable of loving anybody--of putting any man in the
+world before all her ideas and notions and experiments?"
+
+"Lord, yes," said Billy, accelerating his pace, suggestively in the
+hope of getting Betty home in good time for him to dress to keep his
+engagement with Caroline.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+INAUGURATION
+
+
+Nancy's heart was beating heavily when she woke on the memorable
+morning of the day that was to inaugurate the activities of Outside
+Inn. A confused dream of her Uncle Elijah in tatters on a park bench,
+which was instantly metamorphosed into one of the rustic seats she had
+arranged against the wall along the side of some of the bigger tables
+in the marble worker's court, was ostensibly the cause of the
+disturbance in her cardiac region. She had, it seemed, in the
+interminable tangle of nightmare, given Molly and Dolly and the Alma
+Tadema girl instructions to throw out the unwelcome guest, and she was
+standing by with Michael, who was assuring her that the big blonde was
+"certain a grand bouncer," when she was smitten with a sickening
+dream-panic at her own ingratitude. "He has given me everything he had
+in the world, poor old man," she said to herself, and approached him
+remorsefully; but when she looked at him again she saw that he had the
+face and figure of a young stranger, and that the garments that had
+seemed to her to be streaming and unsightly rags, were merely the
+picturesque habiliments of a young artist, apparently newly translated
+from the Boulevard Montparnasse. At the sight of the stranger a
+heart-sinking terror seemed to take possession of her, and so, quaking
+and quavering in mortal intimidation,--she woke up.
+
+She laughed at herself as she brushed the sleep out of her eyes, and
+drew the gradual long breaths that soothed the physical agitation that
+still beset her.
+
+"I'm scared," she said, "I'm as excited and nervous as a youngster on
+circus day.--Oh! I'm glad the sun shines."
+
+Nancy lived in a little apartment of her own in that hinterland of
+what is now down-town New York, between the Rialto and its more
+conventional prototype, Society,--that is, she lived east of Broadway
+on a cross-street in the forties. The maid who took care of her had
+been in her aunt's employ for years, and had seen Nancy grow from her
+rather spoiled babyhood to a hoydenish childhood, and so on to
+soft-eyed, vibrant maturity. She was the only person who tyrannized
+over Nancy. She brought her a cup of steaming hot water with a pinch
+of soda in it, now.
+
+"You were moaning and groaning in your sleep," she said, in the
+strident accents of her New England birthplace, "so you'll have to
+drink this before I give you a living thing for your breakfast."
+
+"I will, Hitty," Nancy said, "and thank you kindly. Now I know you've
+been making pop-overs, and are afraid they will disagree with me. I'm
+glad--for I need the moral effect of them."
+
+"I dunno whether pop-overs is so moral, or so immoral if it comes to
+that. I notice it's always the folks that ain't had much to do with
+morals one way or the other that's so almighty glib about them."
+
+"There's a good deal in what you say, Hitty. If I had time I would go
+into the matter with you, but this is my busy day." Nancy sat up in
+bed, and began sipping her hot water obediently. She looked very
+childlike in her straight cut, embroidered night-gown, with a long
+chestnut pig-tail over either shoulder. "I feel as if I were going to
+be married, or--or something. I'm so excited."
+
+"I guess you'd be a good sight more excited if you was going to be
+married"--Hitty was a widow of twenty-five years' standing--"and
+according to my way of thinking 'twould be a good deal more suitable,"
+she added darkly. "I don't take much stock in this hotel business. In
+my day there warn't no such newfangled foolishness for a girl to take
+up with instead o' getting married and settled down. When I was your
+age I was working on my second set o' baby clothes."
+
+"Don't scold, Hitty," Nancy coaxed. "I could make perfectly good baby
+clothes if I needed to. Don't you think I'll be of more use in the
+world serving nourishing food to hordes of hungry men and women than
+making baby clothes for one hypothetical baby?"
+
+"I dunno about the hypothetical part," Hitty said, folding back the
+counterpane, inexorably. "What I do know is that a girl that's getting
+to be an old girl--like you--past twenty-five--ought to be bestirring
+herself to look for a life pardner if she don't see any hanging around
+that suits her, instead of opening up a hotel for a passel of perfect
+strangers. If ever I saw a woman spoiling for something of her own to
+fuss over--"
+
+"If ever there was a woman who _had_ something of her own to fuss
+over," Nancy cried ecstatically, "I'm that woman to-day, Hitty. You're
+a professional Puritan, and you don't understand the broader aspects
+of the maternal instinct." She sprang out of bed, and tucked her bare
+pink toes into the fur bordered blue mules that peeped from under the
+bed, and slipped into the wadded blue silk bathrobe that lay on the
+chair beside her. "Is my bath drawn, Hitty?"
+
+"Your bath is drawed," Hitty acknowledged sourly, "and your breakfast
+will be on the table in half an hour by the clock."
+
+"I suppose I must require that corrective New England influence,"
+Nancy said to herself, as she tried the temperature of her bath and
+found it frigid, "just as some people need acid in their diet. If my
+mother were alive, I wonder what she would have said to me this
+morning."
+
+Nancy spent a long day directing, planning, and arranging for the
+great event of the evening, the first dinner served to the public at
+Outside Inn.
+
+From the basement kitchen to the ground-floor serving-room in the
+rear, space cunningly coaxed from the reluctant marble worker, the
+mechanism of Nancy's equipment was as perfect as lavish expenditure
+and scientific management could make it. The kitchen gleamed with
+copper and granite ware; huge pots for soup and vegetables, mammoth
+double boilers of white enamel,--Nancy was firm in her conviction that
+rice and cereal could be cooked in nothing but white enamel,--rows
+upon rows of shelves methodically set with containers and casseroles
+and odd-shaped metal serving-dishes, as well as the ubiquitous blue
+and rose-color chinaware presenting its gay surface from every
+available bit of space.
+
+Presiding over the hooded ranges, two of gas and one coal for toasting
+and broiling, there was to be a huge Franco-American man-cook,
+discovered in one of the Fifth Avenue pastry shops in the course of
+Nancy's indefatigable tours of exploration, who was the son of a
+French _chef_ and a Virginian mother, and could express himself in the
+culinary art of either his father's or his mother's nativity. His
+staff of helpers and dishwashers had been chosen by himself, with what
+Nancy considered most felicitous results, while her own galaxy of
+waitresses, who operated the service kitchen up-stairs, proved
+themselves to a woman almost unbelievably superior and efficient.
+
+The courtyard itself was a brave spectacle in its final aspect of
+background for the detail and paraphernalia of polite dining. The more
+unself-conscious of the statues, the nymphs and nereids and Venuses,
+she managed either to relegate to the storehouse within, or to add a
+few cunningly draped vines to the nonchalance of their effect, while
+the gargoyles and Roman columns and some of the least ambitious of the
+fountain-models she was able to adapt delightfully to her outrageous
+ideal of arrangement. Dick had denuded several smart florist shops to
+furnish her with field flowers enough to develop her decorative
+scheme, which included strangely the stringing of half a dozen huge
+Chinese lanterns that even in the daylight took on a meteoric light
+and glow.
+
+The night was clear and soft, and Fifth Avenue, ingratiatingly swept
+and garnished, stretched its wake of summer allure before the never
+unappreciative eyes of Billy and Caroline, and Betty and Dick
+respectively, who had met at the Waldorf by appointment, and were now
+making their way, thus ceremoniously and in company, to the formal
+opening dinner of Nancy's Inn.
+
+Two nondescript Pagan gentlemen of Titanesque proportions had joined
+the watch of the conventional leonine twins, and the big gate now
+stood hospitably open, over it swinging the new sign in gallant
+crimson and white, that announced to all the world that Outside Inn
+was even at that moment, at its most punctilious service.
+
+Molly and Dolly, in the prescribed blue chambray, their cheeks several
+shades pinker than their embellishment of pink ribbon, and panting
+with ill-suppressed excitement, rushed forward to greet the four and
+ushered them solemnly to their places,--the gala table in the center
+of the court, set with a profusion of fleur de lis, with pink ribbon
+trainers. Thanks to Dick's carefully manipulated advertising campaign
+and personal efforts among his friends and business associates, they
+were not by any means the first arrivals. Half a dozen laughing groups
+were distributed about the round tables in the center space, while
+several tête-à-tête couples were confidentially ensconced in corners
+and at cozy tables for two, craftily sheltered by some of the most
+imposing of the marble figures and columns.
+
+"It seems like a real restaurant," Caroline said wonderingly.
+
+"What did you think it would seem like?" Betty asked argumentatively.
+"Just because Nancy is the best friend you have in the world, and
+you're familiar with her in pig-tails and a dressing-gown doesn't
+argue that she is incapable of managing an undertaking like this as
+well as if she were a perfect stranger."
+
+"I don't suppose it does," Caroline mused, "but someway I'd feel
+easier about a perfect stranger investing her last cent in such a
+venture. I don't see how she can possibly make it pay, and I don't
+feel as if I could ever have a comfortable moment again until I knew
+whether she could or not.--What are you looking so guilty about,
+Billy?"
+
+"I was regretting your uncomfortable moments, Caroline," Billy said,
+"and wishing it were in my power to do away with them, but it isn't. I
+was also musing sadly, but quite irrelevantly, on the tangled web we
+weave when first we practise to deceive."
+
+"Are you deceiving Caroline in some way?" Dick inquired.
+
+"No, he isn't," Caroline answered for him, "though he has full
+permission to if he wants."
+
+"The time may come when he will avail himself of that permission,"
+Betty said; "you ought to be careful how you tempt Fate, Caroline."
+
+"She ought to be," Billy groaned, "but the fact is that I am not one
+of the things she is superstitious about. Pipe the dame at the corner
+table with the lorgnette. Classy, isn't she?"
+
+"Friend of my aunt's," Dick said, acknowledging the lady's salute.
+
+"And the Belasco adventuress in the corner."
+
+"My stenographer," Dick explained, bowing again.
+
+"I've got a bunch of men coming," Billy said; "if they put the place
+on the bum you've got to help me bounce them, Dick."
+
+"Up-stairs in the service kitchen," Betty was explaining to Caroline,
+"they keep all the dishes that don't have to be heated for serving,
+also the silver and daily linen supply. When we seat ourselves at a
+table like this, the waitress to whom it is assigned goes in and gets
+a basket of bread--I think it's a pretty idea to serve the bread in
+baskets, don't you?--and whatever silver is necessary, and a bottle of
+water. When she places those things she asks us what our choice of a
+meat course is,--there is a choice except on chicken night--and gives
+that order in the kitchen when she goes to get our soup."
+
+"Who serves the things,--puts the meat on the plates, and dishes up
+the vegetables?"
+
+"The cook--Nancy won't let me call him the _chef_--because she is
+going to make a specialty of the southern element of his education. He
+has a serving-table by his range and he cuts up the meat and fowl, and
+dishes up the vegetables. In a bigger establishment he would have a
+helper to do that."
+
+"Why can't Michael help him?" Dick asked.
+
+"Michael calls him the Haythan Shinee. He is rather a _glossy_ man,
+you know, and he says when the time comes for him, Michael, to dress
+like a street cleaner and pilot a gravy boat, he'll let us know."
+
+"Respect for his superiors is not one of Michael's most salient
+characteristics," Dick twinkled. "Nancy and I have a scheme for making
+a match between him and Hitty."
+
+"Here's the soup," Betty announced. "Nancy's idea is to have
+everything perfectly simple, and--and--"
+
+"Simply perfect," Billy assisted her.
+
+"Isn't she going to eat with us?" Dick asked.
+
+"She can't. She's busy getting it going just at present. She may
+appear later."
+
+"Somebody's got to direct this pageant, old top," Billy reminded him.
+
+"The soup is perfect," Caroline said seriously. "It is simple--with
+that deceptive simplicity of a Paris morning frock."
+
+"French home cooking is all like that," Dick said. "I like purée of
+forget-me-nots!"
+
+"Molly or Dolly, I can't tell the difference between you," Billy said,
+"extend our compliments to Miss Martin, and tell her that this course
+is a triumph."
+
+"Wait till you see the roast, sir."
+
+"It's the very _best_ sirloin," Dick announced at the first mouthful,
+"and these assorted vegetables all cut down to the same size are as
+pretty as they are good, as one says of virtuous innocence."
+
+"This variety of asparagus is expensive," Caroline said; "she can't do
+things like this at seventy-five cents a head. She'll ruin herself."
+
+"I don't see how she can," Dick said thoughtfully, "with the price of
+foodstuffs soaring sky-high."
+
+"I never for a moment expected it to pay," Betty said, "but think of
+the run she will have for her money, and the experience we'll get out
+of it."
+
+"You're in it for the romance there is in it, Betty. I must confess it
+isn't altogether my idea of a good time," Caroline said.
+
+"I know, you would go in for military training for women, and that
+sort of thing. There's a woman over there asking for more olives, and
+she's eaten a plate full of them already."
+
+"They're as big as hen's eggs anyhow," Caroline groaned, "and almost
+as extravagant. I don't see how Nancy'll go through the first month at
+this rate. There she comes now. Doesn't she look nice in that color of
+green?"
+
+"How do you like my party?" Nancy asked, slipping into the empty chair
+between Dick and Billy; "isn't the food good and nourishing, and
+aren't there a lot of nice-looking people here?"
+
+"Very much, and it is, and there are," Dick answered with affectionate
+eyes on her.
+
+"The salad is alligator pear served in half sections, with French
+dressing," she said dreamily. "I'm too happy to eat, but I'll have
+some with you. Look at them all, don't they look relaxed and soothed
+and refreshed? Every individual has a perfectly balanced ration of the
+most superlatively good quality, slowly beginning to assimilate within
+him."
+
+"I don't see many respectable working girls," Billy said.
+
+"There are though,--from the different shops and offices on the
+avenue. There is a contingent from the Columbia summer school coming
+to-morrow evening. This group coming in now is newspaper people."
+
+"Who's the fellow sitting over in the corner with that Vie de Bohême
+hat? He looks familiar, but I can't seem to place him."
+
+"The man in black with the mustache?" Dick asked. "He's an artist,
+pretty well known. That impressionistic chap--I can't think of his
+name--that had that exhibition at the Palsifer galleries."
+
+"Does he sell?" Caroline asked.
+
+"No, they say he's awfully poor, refuses to paint down to the public
+taste. What the deuce is his name--oh! I know, Collier Pratt--do you
+know him, Nancy? Lived in Paris always till the war. He'll appreciate
+Ritz cooking at Riggs' prices if anybody will."
+
+Nancy looked fixedly at the small side-table where the stranger had
+just placed himself as if he were etched upon the whiteness of the
+wall behind him. He sat erect and brooding,--his dark, rather
+melancholy eyes staring straight ahead, and a slight frown wrinkling
+his really fine forehead. He wore an Inverness cape slung over one
+shoulder.
+
+"Looks like one of Rembrandt's portraits of himself," Caroline
+suggested.
+
+"He looks like a brigand," Betty said. "Nancy's struck dumb with the
+privilege of adding fuel to a flame of genius like that. Wake up and
+eat your peach Melba, Nancy."
+
+Nancy started, and took perfunctorily the spoon that Molly was holding
+out to her, which she forgot to lift to her lips even after it was
+freighted with its first delicious mouthful.
+
+"I dreamed about that man," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CINDERELLA
+
+
+Nancy shut the door of her apartment behind her, and slipped out into
+the dimly lit corridor. From her sitting-room came a burst of
+concerted laughter, the sound of Betty's sweet, high pitched voice
+raised in sudden protest, and then the echo of some sort of a physical
+struggle; and Caroline took the piano and began to improvise.
+
+"They won't miss me," Nancy said to herself, "I must have air." She
+drew a long breath with a hand against her breast, apparently to
+relieve the pressure there. "I can't stay shut up in a _room_," she
+kept repeating as if she were stating the most reasonable of premises,
+and turning, fled down the two flights of stairs that led to the
+outside door of the building.
+
+The breath of the night was refreshingly cool upon her hot cheeks, and
+she smiled into the darkness gratefully. Across the way a row of
+brownstone houses, implacably boarded up for the summer, presented
+dull and dimly defined surfaces that reflected nothing, not even the
+lights of the street, or the shadow of a passing straggler. Nancy
+turned her face toward the avenue. The nostalgia that was her
+inheritance from her father, and through him from a long line of
+ancestors that followed the sea whither it might lead them, was upon
+her this night, although she did not understand it as such. She only
+thought vaguely of a strip of white beach with a whiter moon hung high
+above it, and the long silver line of the tide,--drawing out.
+
+"I wish I had a hat on," she said. There was a night light in the
+chemist's shop at the corner, and the panel of mirror obligingly
+placed for the convenience of the passing crowd, at the left of the
+big window, showed her reflection quite plainly. She was suddenly
+inspired to take the soft taffeta girdle from the waist of her dark
+blue muslin gown, and bind it turban-wise about her head. The effect
+was pleasingly modish and conventional, and she quickened her
+steps--satisfied. There was a tingle in the air that set her blood
+pleasantly in motion, and she established a rhythm of pace that made
+her feel almost as if she were walking to music. Insensibly her mind
+took up its responsibilities again as the blood, stimulated from its
+temporary inactivity, began to course naturally through her veins.
+
+"There is plenty of beer and ginger ale in the ice-box," she
+thought, "and I've done this before, so they won't be unnaturally
+disturbed about me. Billy wanted to take Caroline home early, and
+Dick can go on up-town with Betty, without making her feel that she
+ought to leave him alone with me for a last tête-à-tête. It will hurt
+Dick's feelings, but he understands really. He has a most blessed
+understandingness, Dick has."
+
+She had the avenue almost entirely to herself, a silent gleaming
+thoroughfare with the gracious emptiness that a much lived in street
+sometimes acquires, of a Sunday at the end of an adventurous season.
+It was early July, the beginning of the actual summer season in New
+York. Nancy had never before been in town so late in the year, nor for
+that matter had Caroline or Betty, but Betty's interest in the affairs
+of the Inn was keeping her at Nancy's side, while Caroline had just
+accepted a secretarial position in one of the big Industrial Leagues
+recently organized by women for women, that would keep her in town all
+summer. Billy and Dick, by virtue of their respective occupations,
+were never away from New York for longer than the customary two weeks'
+vacation.
+
+"My soul smoothed itself out, a long cramped scroll,"--her conscience
+placated on the score of her deserted guests, Nancy was quoting
+Browning to herself, as she widened the distance between herself and
+them. "I wonder why I have this irresistible tendency to shake the
+people I love best in the world at intervals. I am such a really
+well-balanced and rational individual, I don't understand it in
+myself. I thought the Inn was going to take all the nonsense out of
+me, but it hasn't, it appears," she sighed; "but then, I think it is
+going to take the nonsense out of a lot of people that are only
+erratic because they have never been properly fed. I guess I'll go and
+have a look at the old place in its Sunday evening calm. Already it
+seems queer not to be there at nine o'clock in the evening, but I
+don't really think there are people enough in New York now on Sundays
+to make it an object."
+
+Nancy's feet turned mechanically toward the arena of her most serious
+activities. Like most of us who run away, she was following by
+instinct the logical periphery of her responsibilities.
+
+The big green latticed gate was closed against all intruders. Nancy
+had the key to its padlock in her hand-bag, but she had no intention
+of using it. The white and crimson sign flapped in the soft breeze
+companionably responsive to the modest announcement, "Marble Workshop,
+Reproductions and Antiques, Garden Furniture," which so inadequately
+invited those whom it might concern to a view of the petrified
+vaudeville within. Through the interstices of the gate the courtyard
+looked littered and unalluring;--the wicker tables without their fine
+white covers; the chairs pushed back in a heterogeneous assemblage;
+the segregated columns of a garden peristyle gaunt against the dark,
+gleamed a more ghostly white than the weather-stained busts and
+figures less recently added to the collection. It seemed to Nancy
+incredible that the place would ever bloom again with lights and
+bouquets and eager patrons, with her group of pretty flower-like
+waitresses moving deftly among them. She stared at the spot with the
+cold eye of the creator whose handiwork is out of the range of his
+vision, and the inspiration of it for the moment, gone.
+
+"I feel like Cinderella and her godmother rolled into one," she
+thought disconsolately. "I waved my wand, and made so many things
+happen, and now that the clock has struck, again here I am outside in
+the cold and dark,"--the wind was taking on a keener edge, and she
+shivered slightly in her muslins--"with nothing but a pumpkin shell to
+show for it. Hitty says that getting what you want is apt to be
+unlikely business, and I'm inclined to think she's right."
+
+It seemed to her suddenly that the thing she had wanted,--a
+picturesque, cleverly executed restaurant where people could be fed
+according to the academic ideals of an untried young woman like
+herself was an unthinkable thing. The power of illusion failed for the
+moment. Just what was it that she had hoped to accomplish with this
+fling at executive altruism? What was she doing with a French cook in
+white uniform, a competent staff of professional dishwashers and
+waitresses and kitchen helpers? How had it come about that she owned
+so many mounds and heaps and pyramids of silver and metal and linen?
+What was this Inn that she had conceived as a project so unimaginably
+fine? Who were these shadow people that came and went there? Who was
+she? Why with all her vitality and all her hungry yearning for life
+and adventure couldn't she even believe in her own substantiality and
+focus? Wasn't life even real enough for a creature such as she to
+grasp it,--if it wasn't--
+
+She saw a figure that was familiar to her turn in from the avenue, a
+tall man in an Inverness with a wide black hat pulled down over his
+eyes. For the moment she could not remember who he was, but by the
+time he had stopped in front of the big gate, giving utterance to a
+well delivered expletive, she knew him perfectly, and stood waiting,
+motionless, for him to turn and speak to her. She was sure that he
+would have no recollection of her. He turned, but it was some seconds
+before he addressed her.
+
+"Doubt thou the stars are fire," he said at last, with a shrug that
+admitted her to the companionship of his discomfiture. "Doubt thou the
+sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt that your
+favorite New York restaurant will be closed on a Sunday night."
+
+"Oh! _is_ it your favorite New York restaurant?" Nancy cried, her
+heart in her throat. "It's mine, you know, my--my favorite."
+
+"So I judged, or you wouldn't be beating against the gate so
+disconsolately." It was too dark to see his face clearly, but Nancy
+realized that he was looking down at her quizzically through the
+darkness.
+
+"Do you really like this restaurant?" she persisted.
+
+"In some ways I like it very much. The food is quite possible as you
+know, very American in character, but very good American, and it has
+the advantage of being served out-of-doors. I am a Frenchman by
+adoption, and I like the outdoor café. In fact, I am never happy
+eating inside."
+
+"The surroundings are picturesque?" Nancy hazarded.
+
+The stranger laughed. "According to the American ideal," he said,
+"they are--but I do admit that they show a rather extraordinary
+imagination. I've often thought that I should like to make the
+acquaintance of the woman,--of course, it's a woman--who conceived the
+notion of this mortuary tea-room."
+
+"Why, of course, is it a woman?"
+
+"A man wouldn't set up housekeeping in--in _Père Lachaise_."
+
+"Why not, if he found a really domestic-looking corner?"
+
+"He _wouldn't_ in the first place, it wouldn't occur to him, that's
+all, and if he did he couldn't get away with it. The only real
+drawback to this hostelry is, as you know, that they don't serve
+spirits of any kind. I'm accustomed to a glass or two of wine with my
+dinner, and my food sticks in my throat when I can't have it, but I've
+found a way around that, now."
+
+"Oh! have you?" said Nancy.
+
+"Don't give me away, but there's a man about the place here whose name
+is Michael, and he possesses that blend of Gallic facility with Celtic
+canniness that makes the Irish so wonderful as a race. I told my
+trouble to Michael,--with the result that I get a teapot full of
+Chianti with my dinner every night, and no questions asked."
+
+"Oh! you do?" gasped Nancy.
+
+"You see Michael is serving the best interests of his employer, who
+wants to keep her patrons, because if I couldn't have it I wouldn't be
+there. He couldn't trouble the lady about it, naturally, because it is
+technically an offense against the law. Come, let's go and find a
+quiet corner where we can continue our conversation comfortably.
+There's a painfully respectable little hotel around the corner here
+that looks like the Café L'avenue when you first go in, but is a place
+where the most bourgeoise of one's aunts might put up."
+
+"I--I don't know that I can go," said Nancy.
+
+"There's no reason why you shouldn't, you know. My name is Collier
+Pratt. I'm an artist. The more bourgeoise of my aunts would introduce
+me if she were here. She's a New Englander like so many of your own
+charming relatives."
+
+"How did you know that?" Nancy asked, as she followed him with a
+docility quite new to her, past the big green gate, and the row of
+nondescript shops between it and the corner of Broadway.
+
+"I was _born_ in Boston," Collier Pratt said a trifle absently. "I
+know a Massachusetts product when I see one. Ah! here we are."
+
+He led her triumphantly to a table in the far corner of the
+practically empty restaurant, waved away the civilities of a swarthy
+and somewhat badly coordinated waiter, and pulled out her chair for
+her himself.
+
+"Now, let me have a look at you," he said; "why, you've nothing on but
+muslin, and you're wearing your belt for a turban."
+
+"A sop to the conventions," Nancy said, blushing burningly. She was
+not quite able yet to get her bearings with this extraordinary man,
+who had assumed charge of her so cavalierly, but she was eager to find
+her poise in the situation. "I ran away, and I thought it would look
+better to have something like a hat on."
+
+"Looks," said Collier Pratt, "looks! That's New England, always the
+looks of a thing, never the feel of it. Mind you I don't mean the
+_look_ of a thing, that's something different again."
+
+"Yes, I know, the conventional slant as opposed to the artistic
+perspective."
+
+"Good! It isn't necessary to have my remarks followed intelligently,
+but it always adds piquancy to the situation when they are. Speaking
+of artistic perspective, you have a very nice coloring. I like a ruddy
+chestnut hair with a skin as delicately white and pink as yours." He
+spoke impersonally with the narrowing eye of the artist. "I can see
+you either in white,--not quite a cream white, but almost,--against a
+pearly kind of Quakerish background, or flaming out in the most crude,
+barbaric assemblage of colors. That's the advantage of your type and
+the environment you connote--you can be the whole show, or the veriest
+little mouse that ever sought the protective coloring of the
+shadows."
+
+"You aren't exactly taking the quickest way of putting me at my ease,"
+Nancy said. "I'm very much embarrassed, you know. I'd stand being
+looked over for a few minutes longer if I could,--but I can't. I'm not
+having one of my most equable evenings."
+
+"I beg your pardon," Collier Pratt said.
+
+For the first time since she had seen his face with the light upon it,
+he smiled, and the smile relieved the rather empiric quality of his
+habitual expression. Nancy noticed the straight line of the heavy
+brows scarcely interrupted by the indication of the beginning of the
+nose, and wondering to herself if it were not possible for a person
+with that eyebrow formation to escape the venality of disposition that
+is popularly supposed to be its adjunct,--decided affirmatively.
+
+"I'm not used to talking to American girls very much. I forget how
+daintily they're accustomed to being handled. I'm extremely anxious to
+put you at your ease," he added quietly. "I appreciate the privilege
+of your company on what promised to be the dullest of dull evenings. I
+should appreciate still more," he bowed, as he handed her a bill of
+fare of the journalistic proportions of the usual hotel menu, "if you
+would make a choice of refreshment, that we may dispense with the
+somewhat pathological presence of our young friend here," he indicated
+the waiter afflicted with the jerking and titubation of a badly strung
+puppet. "I advise Rhine wine and seltzer. I offer you anything from
+green chartreuse to Scotch and soda. Personally I'm going to drink
+Perrier water."
+
+"I'd rather have an ice-cream," Nancy said, "than anything else in the
+world,--coffee ice-cream, and a glass of water."
+
+"I wonder if you would, or if you only think it's--safer. At any rate
+I'm going to put my coat over your shoulders while you eat it. I never
+leave my rooms at this hour of the night without this cape. If I can
+find a place to sit out in I always do, and I'm naturally rather
+cold-blooded."
+
+"I'm not," said Nancy, but she meekly allowed him to drape her in the
+folds of the light cape, and found it grateful to her.
+
+"Bring the lady a big cup of coffee, and mind you have it hot,"
+Collier Pratt ordered peremptorily, as her ice-cream was served by the
+shaking waiter. "Coffee may be the worst thing in the world for you,
+nervously. I don't know,--it isn't for me, I rather thrive on it, but
+at any rate I'm going to save you from the combination of organdie and
+ice-cream on a night like this. What is your name?" he inquired
+abruptly.
+
+"Ann Martin."
+
+"Not at my service?"
+
+"I don't know, yet."
+
+"Well, I don't know,--but I hope and trust so. I like you. You've got
+something they don't have--these American girls,--softness and
+strength, too. I imagine you've never been out of America."
+
+"I--I have."
+
+"With two other girls and a chaperon, doing Europe, and staying at all
+the hotels doped up for tourist consumption."
+
+Nancy was constrained to answer with a smile.
+
+"You don't like America very much," she said presently.
+
+"I like it for itself, but I loathe it--for myself. My way of living
+here is all wrong. I can't get to bed in this confounded city. I can't
+get enough to eat."
+
+"Oh! can't you?" Nancy cried.
+
+"In Paris, or any town where there is a café life one naturally gets
+fed. The technique of living is taken care of much better over there.
+Your _concierge_ serves you a nourishing breakfast as a matter of
+course. When you've done your morning's work you go to your favorite
+café--not with the one object in life--to cram a _Châteaubriand_ down
+your dry and resisting throat because he who labors must live,--but to
+see your friends, to read your daily journals, to write your letters,
+and do it incidentally in the open air while some diplomat of a waiter
+serves you with food that assuages the palate, without insulting your
+mood. That's what I like about the little restaurant in the court
+there. It's out-of-doors, and you may stay there without feeling your
+table is in requisition for the next man. It's a very polite little
+place."
+
+"You didn't expect to get in there to-night."
+
+"I had hopes of it. I've not dined, you see."
+
+"Not dined?" Nancy's eyes widened in dismay.
+
+"There's no use for me to dine unless I can eat my food tranquilly, in
+some accustomed corner. Getting nourished with me is a spiritual, as
+well as a physical matter. It is with all sensitive people. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"I suppose so. I--I hadn't thought of it that way. Couldn't you eat
+something now--an oyster stew, or something like that?"
+
+"Nothing in any way remotely connected with that. An oyster stew is to
+me the most barbarous of concoctions. I loathe hot milk,--an oyster is
+an adjunct to a fish sauce, or a preface to a good dinner."
+
+"You ought to have something," Nancy urged, "even ice-cream is more
+nourishing than mineral water, or coffee with cream in it."
+
+"I like coffee after dinner, not before."
+
+"If you only eat when it's convenient, or the mood takes you," Nancy
+cried out in real distress, "how can you ever be sure that you have
+calories enough? The requirement of an average man at active labor is
+estimated at over three thousand calories. You must have something
+like a balanced ration in order to do your work."
+
+"Must I?" Collier Pratt smiled his rare smile. "Well, at any rate, it
+is good to hear you say so."
+
+She finished her ice-cream, and Collier Pratt drank his mineral water
+slowly, and smoked innumerable cigarettes of Virginia tobacco. The
+conversation which had proceeded so expeditiously to this point seemed
+for no apparent reason, suddenly to become gratuitous. Nancy had never
+before begun on the subject of the balanced ration without being
+respectfully allowed to go through to the end. She had not been
+allowed to feel snubbed, but she was a little bewildered that any
+conversation in which she was participating, could be so gracefully
+stopped before it was ended by her expressed desire.
+
+Collier Pratt took his watch out of his pocket, and looked at it
+hastily.
+
+"By jove," he said, "I had entirely forgotten. I have a child in my
+charge. I must be about looking after her."
+
+"A child?" Nancy cried, astonished.
+
+"Yes, a little girl. She's probably sitting up for me, poor baby. Can
+you get home alone, if I put you on a bus or a street-car?"
+
+"If you'll call a taxi for me--" Nancy said.
+
+She noticed that the check was paid with change instead of a bill. In
+fact, her host seemed not to have a bill of any denomination in his
+pocket, but to be undisturbed by the fact. He parted from her
+casually.
+
+"Good-by, child," he said with his head in the door after he had given
+the chauffeur her street number; "with the permission of _le bon
+Dieu_, we shall see each other again. I feel that He is going to give
+it to us."
+
+"Good-by," Nancy said to his retreating shoulder.
+
+At her own front door was Dick's big Rolls-Royce, and Dick sitting
+inside of it, with his feet comfortably up, feigning sleep.
+
+"You didn't think I'd go home until I saw you safe inside your own
+door, did you?" he demanded.
+
+"Where's Betty?" Nancy asked mechanically.
+
+"I sent Williams home with her. Then he came back here, and left the
+car with me."
+
+"You needn't have waited," Nancy said, "I'm sorry, Dick, I--I had to
+have air. I had to get out. I couldn't stay inside a minute longer."
+
+"You need never explain anything to me."
+
+"Don't you want to know where I've been?"
+
+Dick looked at her carefully before he made his answer. Then he said
+firmly.
+
+"No, dear."
+
+"I might have told you," she said, "if you had wanted to know." She
+felt her knees sagging with fatigue, and drooped against the
+door-frame.
+
+"Come and sit in the car, and talk to me for a minute," he suggested.
+"Do you good, before you climb the stairs."
+
+He opened the car door for her ingratiatingly, but she shook her
+head.
+
+"I've done unconventional things enough for one evening," she said.
+"Unlock the door for me. Hitty'll be waiting up to take care of me."
+
+"What's that queer thing you're wearing?" he asked her, as he held the
+door for her to pass through, "I never remember seeing you wear that
+before."
+
+Nancy looked down wonderingly at the folds of the Inverness still
+swinging from her shoulders. She had been subconsciously aware of the
+grateful warmth in which she was encased ever since she snuggled
+comfortably into the depths of the taxi-cab into which Collier Pratt
+had tucked her.
+
+"No, I never _have_ worn it before," she said, answering Dick's
+question.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SCIENCE
+
+
+The activities of the day at Outside Inn began with luncheon and the
+preparation for it. Nancy longed to serve breakfast there, but as yet
+it had not seemed practicable to do so. Most of the patrons of the
+restaurant conducted the business of the day down-town, but had their
+actual living quarters in New York's remoter fastnesses,--Brooklyn,
+the Bronx or Harlem. Nancy was satisfied that the bulk of her
+patronage should be the commuting and cliff dwelling contingent of
+Manhattanites,--indeed it was the sort of patronage that from the
+beginning she had intended to cater to.
+
+Nancy did most of the marketing herself at first, but Gaspard--the big
+cook--gradually coaxed this privilege away from her.
+
+"You see," he said, "we sit--us together, and talk of eating"--he
+prided himself on his use of English, and never used his native tongue
+to help him out, except in moments of great excitement. "It is
+immediately after breakfast. Yes! I am full of milk-coffee sopped with
+bread, and you of bacon with eggs and marmalade. We say, what shall we
+give to our custom for its dinner and its luncheon? We think sadly--we
+who have but now brushed away the crumbs of breakfast--of those who
+must sit down so soon to the table groaning with viands. Therefore we
+say, 'Market delicately. Have the soup clear, the entrée light and the
+salad green with plenty of vinegar.' Even your calories--they do not
+help us much. They are in quantities so unexpected in the food that
+weighs nothing in the scales. We say you shall go to market and buy
+these things, and you go. I stir and walk about, and grow restless for
+my _déjeuner_, and when you return from market, hungry too, we are not
+the same people who had thought our soup should be clear, and our
+entrée more beautiful than nutritious. If I go to market myself _late_
+I am inspired there to buy what is right, because by that hour I have
+a proper relish and understanding of what all the world should eat."
+
+"I know he is right," Nancy said to Billy afterward in reporting the
+conversation, "I hate to admit it, but even my notion of what other
+people should eat is colored by my own relation to food. I never
+realized before how little use an intellect is in this matter of food
+values. I can actually get up a meal that according to the tables is
+scientifically correct that wouldn't feed anybody if they were
+hungry."
+
+"One banana is equal to a pound and three-quarters of steak," Billy
+misquoted helpfully.
+
+"The trouble is that it _isn't_," Nancy said, "except technically."
+
+"You can't eat it and grow thin."
+
+"You can't eat it and grow _fat_ unless it happens to be the peculiar
+food to which you are idiosyncratic."
+
+"If that's really a word," Billy said, "I'll overlook your trying it
+out on me. If it isn't you'll have to take the consequences." He went
+through the pantomime of one preparing to do physical violence.
+
+"Oh! it's a word. Ask Caroline." Nancy's eyes still held their look of
+being focussed on something in the remote distance. "The trouble with
+all this dietetic problem is that the individual is dependent on
+something more than an adjustment of values. His environment and his
+heredity play an active part in his diet problem. Some people can eat
+highly concentrated food, others have to have bulk, and so on. You
+can't substitute cheese and bananas for steak and do the race a
+service no matter what the cost of steak may soar to. You can't even
+substitute rice for potatoes."
+
+"Not unless your patronage is more Oriental than Celtic."
+
+"Healthy people have to have honest fare of about the type to
+which their environment has accustomed them, but intelligently
+supervised,--that's the conclusion I've come to."
+
+"You may be right," Billy said, "my general notion has always been
+that everybody ate wrong, and that everybody who would stand for it
+ought to be started all over again. I wouldn't stand for it, so I've
+never looked into the matter."
+
+"People don't eat wrong, that's the really startling discovery I've
+made recently. I mean healthy people don't."
+
+"I don't believe it," said Billy; "the way people eat is one of the
+most outrageous of the human scandals. I read the newspapers."
+
+"The newspapers don't know," Nancy said; "the individual usually has
+an instinctive working knowledge of the diet that is good for him, and
+his digestional experiences have taught him how to regulate it to some
+extent."
+
+"How do you account for the clerk that orders coffee and sinkers at
+Child's every day?"
+
+"That's exactly it," Nancy said. "He knows that he needs bulk and
+stimulation. He's handicapped by his poverty, but he gets the nearest
+substitute for the diet that suits him that he can get. If he could
+afford it he would have a square meal that would nourish him as well
+as warm and fill him."
+
+"I don't see but what this interesting theory lets you out altogether.
+Why Outside Inn, with its foxy table d'hôte, if what's one man's meat
+is another man's poison, and natural selection is the order of the
+day?"
+
+"Outside Inn is all the more necessary to the welfare of a nation
+that's being starved out by the high cost of living. All I need to do
+is to have a little more variety, to have all the nutritive
+requirements in each meal, and such generous servings that every
+patron can make out a meal satisfying to himself."
+
+"Everybody knows that all fat people eat all the sweets that they can
+get, and all thin people take tea without sugar with lemon in it."
+
+"These people aren't healthy. That's where the intelligent supervision
+comes in."
+
+"What do you intend to do about them?"
+
+"Watch over them a little more carefully. Regulate their servings
+craftily. Be sure of my tables. I have lots of schemes. I'll tell you
+about them sometime."
+
+"_Sometime_,--for this relief much thanks," murmured Billy; "just now
+I've had as much of these matters as I can stand. I don't see how you
+are going to run this thing on a profit, though."
+
+"I'm not," Nancy said, "I'm losing money every minute. That fifteen
+thousand dollars is almost gone now, of course. Billy, do you think it
+would be perfectly awful if I didn't try to make money at all?"
+
+"I think it would be a good deal wiser. I'll raise all the money you
+want on your expectations."
+
+"All right then. I'm not going to worry."
+
+Billy looked down into the courtyard from the room up-stairs in which
+they had been talking. Already the preparations for lunch were under
+way. The girls were moving deftly about, laying cloths and arranging
+flower vases and silver.
+
+"Can I get right down there and sit down at one of those tables and
+have my lunch," Billy inquired, "or do I have to go out of the back
+door and come in the front like a regular customer?"
+
+"Whichever you prefer. There's Caroline coming in at the gate now."
+
+"Well, then, I know which I prefer," Billy said, swimming realistically
+toward the stairs.
+
+"You are getting fat, Billy," Caroline informed him critically after
+the amenities were over, and the meal appropriately begun. "You ought
+to watch your diet a little more carefully."
+
+"No," Billy said firmly, "I don't need to watch my diet, I'm perfectly
+healthy, and therefore my natural cravings will point the way to my
+most judicious nourishment. Nancy has explained all to me."
+
+"That's a very interesting theory of Nancy's," Caroline said, "but I
+don't altogether agree with it."
+
+"I do," said Billy, then he added hastily, "but I agree with you, too,
+Caroline. You are to all other women what moonlight is to sunlight, or
+I mean--what sunlight is to moonlight. In other words--you are the
+goods."
+
+"Don't be silly, Billy."
+
+"There's only one thing in all this wide universe that you can't say
+to me, Caroline, and 'don't be silly, Billy,' is that thing,--express
+this same thing in _vers libre_ if you must say it! Look at the
+handsome soup you're getting. What is the name of that soup, Molly?"
+
+He smiled ingratiatingly at the little waitress, who always beamed at
+any one of Nancy's particular friends that came into the restaurant,
+and made a point of serving them if she could possibly arrange it.
+
+"Cream of spinach," she said, "it's a special to-day."
+
+"Beautiful soup so rich and green," Billy began in a soulful baritone,
+"waiting in a hot tureen. Where's mine, Molly?"
+
+"Dolly's bringing your first course, sir."
+
+Billy gazed in perplexity at the half of a delicious grapefruit set
+before him by the duplicate of the pretty girl who stood smiling
+deprecatingly behind Caroline's chair.
+
+"Where's my soup, Dolly?" Billy asked with a thundering sternness of
+manner.
+
+"I'm sorry, sir," Dolly began glibly, "but the soup has given out.
+Will you be good enough to allow the substitution of--"
+
+"That's a formula," Billy said. "The soup can't be out. We're the
+first people in the dining-room. Go tell Miss Nancy that I will be
+served with some of that green soup at once, or know the reason why."
+
+The two waitresses exchanged glances, and went off together
+suppressing giggles, to return almost immediately, their risibility
+still causing them great physical inconvenience.
+
+"Intelligent supervision, she says." Dolly exploded into the miniature
+patch of muslin and ribbon that served her as an apron.
+
+"She says that's the reason why," Molly contributed,--following her
+sister's example.
+
+"Nancy doesn't serve soup to a fat man if she can possibly avoid it.
+That's part of her theory," Caroline explained. "There's no use making
+a fuss about it, because you won't get it."
+
+Billy sat looking at his grapefruit for some seconds in silence. Then
+he began on it slowly.
+
+"Well, I'll be damned," he said.
+
+Nancy was learning a great many things very rapidly. The practical
+application of her theories of feeding mankind to her actual
+experiments with the shifting population of New York, revolutionized
+her attitude toward the problem almost daily. She had started in with
+a great many ideas and ideals of service, with preconceived notions of
+balanced rations, and exact distribution of fuel stuffs to the human
+unit. She had come to realize very shortly, that the human unit was a
+quantity as incalculable in its relation to its digestive problems as
+its psychological ones. She had believed vaguely that in reference to
+food values the race made its great exception to its rule of working
+out toward normality; but she changed that opinion very quickly as she
+watched her fellow men selecting their diet with as sure an instinct
+for their nutritive requirements as if she had coached them personally
+for years.
+
+From the assumption that she lived in a world gone dietetically mad,
+and hence in the process of destroying itself, she had gradually come
+to see that in this phase of his struggle for existence, as well as in
+every other, the instinct of man operated automatically in the
+direction of his salvation. This new attitude in tie matter relieved
+her of much of her responsibility, but left her not less anxious to do
+what she could for her kind in the matter of calories. She was, as she
+had shown in her treatment of Billy, not entirely blinded by her
+growing predilection in favor of the doctrine of natural selection.
+
+Every day she had Gaspard make, in addition to his regular table
+d'hôte menu, dozens of nutritive custards, quarts of stimulating
+broths and jellies and other dishes containing the maximum of
+easily digested and highly concentrated nutriment, and these she
+managed to have Molly or Dolly or even Hildeguard--the Alma Tadema
+girl--introduce into the luncheon or dinner service in the case of
+those patrons who seemed to need peculiarly careful nourishing. Let a
+white-faced girl sink into a seat within the range of Nancy's
+vision,--she always ensconced herself in the doorway screened with
+vines at the beginning of a meal,--and she gave orders at once for
+the crafty substitution of invalid broth for soup, of rich nut
+bread for the ordinary rolls and crackers, of custards or specially
+made ice-cream for the dessert of the day. No overfed, pasty-faced
+man ever escaped from Outside Inn until an attempt at least had been
+made to introduce a portion of stewed prunes into his diet; and
+all such were fed the minimum of bread and other starchy foods, and
+the maximum of salad and green vegetables. Nancy had gluten bread made
+in quantities for the stouter element of her patronage, and in
+nine cases out of ten she was able to get it served and eaten
+without protest. Some of her regular patrons began to change weight
+gradually, a heavy man or two became less heavy, and a wraithlike
+girl now and then took on a new bloom and substantiality. These were
+the triumphs for which Nancy lived. Her only regret was that she
+was not able to give to each her personal time and attention, and
+establish herself on a footing with her patrons where she might learn
+from their own lips the secrets of their metabolism.
+
+She was not known as the proprietor of the place. In fact, the
+management of the restaurant was kept a careful secret from those who
+frequented it and with the habitual indifference of New Yorkers to the
+power behind the throne, so long as its affairs were manipulated in
+good and regular order, they soon ceased to feel any apparent
+curiosity about it. Betty, who sometimes rebelled at remaining so
+scrupulously incognita, defiantly took the limelight at intervals and
+moved among the assembled guests with an authoritative and possessive
+air, adjusting and rearranging small details, and acknowledging the
+presence of _habitués_, but since her attentions were popularly
+supposed to be those of a superior head waitress, she soon tired of
+the gesture of offering them.
+
+Nancy's intention had been to allow the restaurant to speak for
+itself, and then at the climactic moment to allow her connection with
+it to be discovered, and to speak for it with all the force and
+earnestness of which she was capable. She had meant to stand sponsor
+for the practical working theory on which her experiment was based,
+and she had already partially formulated interviews with herself in
+which she modestly acknowledged the success of that experiment, but
+the untoward direction in which it was developing made such a
+revelation inexpedient.
+
+There was one regular patron to whom she was peculiarly anxious to
+remain incognita. Collier Pratt made it his almost invariable habit to
+come sauntering toward the table in the corner, under the life-sized
+effigy of the _Vênus de Medici_, at seven o'clock in the evening, and
+that table was scrupulously reserved for him. To it were sent the
+choicest of all the viands that Outside Inn could command. Michael was
+tacitly sped on his way with his teapot full of claret. Gaspard did
+amazing things with the breasts of ducks and segments of orange, with
+squab chicken stuffed with new corn, with _filets de sole a la
+Marguery_. Nancy craftily spurred him on to his most ambitious
+achievements under pretense of wishing her own appetite stimulated,
+and the big cook, who adored her, produced triumph after triumph of
+his art for her delectation, whereupon the biggest part of it was
+cunningly smuggled out to the artist. From behind her screen of vines
+Nancy watched the fine features of her quondam friend light with the
+rapture of the _gourmet_ as be sampled Gaspard's sauce _verte_ or
+Hollandaise or lifted the glass cover from the mushrooms _sous cloche_
+and inhaled their delicate aroma.
+
+"I wonder if he finds our food very American in character, now," she
+said to herself, with a blush at the memory of the real southern
+cornbread and candied sweet potatoes that were offered him in the
+initial weeks of his patronage. Gaspard still made these delicacies
+for luncheon, but they had been almost entirely banished from the
+dinner menu. Afternoon tea at the Inn was famous for the wonderful
+waffles produced with Parisian precision from a traditional Virginian
+recipe, but Collier Pratt never appeared at either of these meals to
+criticize them for being American.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AN ELEEMOSYNARY INSTITUTION
+
+
+One night during the latter part of July Betty had a birthday, and
+according to immemorial custom Caroline and Nancy and Dick and Billy
+helped her to celebrate it at one of the old-fashioned down-town
+hotels where they had ordered practically the same dinner for her
+anniversaries ever since they had been grown up enough to celebrate
+them unchaperoned. Caroline's brother, Preston, had made a sixth
+member of the party for the first two or three years, but he had been
+located in London since then, in charge of the English office of his
+firm, to which he had been suddenly appointed a month after he and
+Betty, who had been sweethearts, had had a spectacular quarrel.
+
+Nancy stayed by the celebration until about half past nine, and
+then Dick put her into a taxi-cab, and she fled back to her
+responsibilities as mistress of Outside Inn, agreeing to meet the
+others later for the rounding out of the evening. As she drew up
+before the big gate the courtyard seemed practically deserted. The
+waitresses were busy clearing away the few cluttered tables left
+by the last late guests, and in one sheltered corner a man and a girl
+were frankly holding hands across the table, while they whispered
+earnestly of some impending parting. The big canopy of striped awning
+cloth had been drawn over the tables, as the rather heavy air of
+the evening bad been punctured occasionally by a swift scattering
+of rain. Nancy was half-way across the court before she realized
+that Collier Pratt was still occupying his accustomed seat under the
+shadow of the big Venus. She had not seen him face to face or
+communicated with him since the day she had looked him up in the
+telephone book and sent his cape to him by special messenger. She
+stopped involuntarily as she reached his side, and he looked up and
+smiled as he recognized her.
+
+"You're late again, Miss Ann Martin," he said, rising and pulling out
+a chair for her opposite his own. "I think perhaps I can pull the
+wires and procure you some sustenance if you will say the word."
+
+"I've no word to say," Nancy said, "but how do you do? I've just
+dined elsewhere. I only stopped in here for a moment to get
+something--something I left here at lunch."
+
+"In that case I'll offer you a drop of Michael's tea in my water
+glass." He poured a tablespoonful or so of claret from the teapot into
+the glass of ice-water before him, and added several lumps of sugar to
+the concoction, which he stirred gravely for some time before he
+offered it to her. "I never touch water myself. This is _eau rougie_
+as the French children drink it. It's really better for you than
+ice-cream and a glass of water."
+
+"And less American," Nancy murmured with her eyes down.
+
+"And less American," he acquiesced blandly.
+
+Nancy sipped her drink, and Collier Pratt stirred the dregs in his
+coffee cup--Nancy had overheard some of her patrons remarking on the
+curious habits of a man who consumed a pot of tea and a pot of coffee
+at one and the same meal--and they regarded each other for some time
+in silence. Michael and Hildeguard, Molly and Dolly and two others of
+the staff of girls were grouped in the doorway exactly in Nancy's
+range of vision, and whispering to one another excitedly concerning
+the phenomenon that met their eyes.
+
+"The little girl?" Nancy said, trying to ignore the composite scrutiny
+to which she was being subjected, by turning determinedly to her
+companion, "the little girl that you spoke of--is she well?"
+
+"She's as well as a motherless baby could be, subjected to the
+irregularities of a life like mine. Still she seems to thrive on it."
+
+"Is she yours?" Nancy asked.
+
+"Yes, she's mine," Collier Pratt said, gravely dismissing the subject,
+and leaving Nancy half ashamed of her boldness in putting the
+question, half possessed of a madness to know the answer at any cost.
+
+"I've discovered something very interesting," Collier Pratt said,
+after an interval in which Nancy felt that he was perfectly cognizant
+of her struggle with her curiosity; "in fact, it's one of the most
+interesting discoveries that I have made in the course of a not
+unadventurous life. Do you come to this restaurant often?"
+
+"Quite often," Nancy equivocated, "earlier in the day. For luncheon
+and for tea."
+
+"I come here almost every night of my life," Collier Pratt declared,
+"and I intend to continue to come so long as _le bon Dieu_ spares me
+my health and my epicurean taste. You know that I spoke of the food
+here before. The character of it has changed entirely. It's
+unmistakably French now, not to say Parisian. Outside of Paris or
+Vienna I have never tasted such soups, such sauce, such delicate and
+suggestive flavors. My entire existence has been revolutionized by the
+experience. I am no longer the lonely and unhappy man you discovered
+at this gate a short month ago. I can not cavil at an America that
+furnishes me with such food as I get in this place.
+
+    "Man may live without friends, and may live without books.
+    But civilized man can not live without cooks,"
+
+Nancy quoted sententiously.
+
+"Exactly. The whole point is that the cooking here is civilized. Oh!
+you ought to come here to dinner, my friend. I don't know what the
+luncheons and teas are like--"
+
+"They're very good," Nancy said.
+
+"But not like the dinners, I'll wager. The dinners are the very last
+word! I don't know why this place isn't famous. Of course, I do my
+best to keep it a secret from the artistic rabble I know. It would be
+overrun with them in a week, and its character utterly ruined."
+
+"I wonder if it would."
+
+"Oh! I'm sure of it."
+
+"What is your discovery?" Nancy asked.
+
+Collier Pratt leaned dramatically closer to her, and Nancy instinctively
+bent forward across the tiny table until her face was very near to his.
+
+"Do you know anything about the price of foodstuffs?" he demanded.
+
+"A little," Nancy admitted.
+
+"You know then that the price of every commodity has soared
+unthinkably high, that the mere problem of providing the ordinary
+commonplace meal at the ordinary commonplace restaurant has become
+almost unsolvable to the proprietors? Most of the eating places in New
+York are run at a loss, while the management is marking time and
+praying for a change in conditions. Well, here we have a restaurant
+opening at the most crucial period in the history of such enterprises,
+offering its patrons the delicacies of the season most exquisitely
+cooked, at what is practically the minimum price for a respectable
+meal."
+
+"That's true, isn't it?"
+
+"More than that, there are people who come here, who order one thing
+and get another, and the thing they get is always a much more
+elaborate and extravagant dish than the one they asked for. I've seen
+that happen again and again."
+
+"Have you?" Nancy asked faintly, shrinking a little beneath the
+intentness of his look. "How--how do you account for it?"
+
+"There's only one way to account for it."
+
+"Do you think that there is an--an unlimited amount of capital behind
+it?"
+
+"I think that goes without saying," he said; "there must be an
+unlimited amount of capital behind it, or it wouldn't continue to
+flourish like a green bay tree; but that's not in the nature of a
+discovery. Anybody with any power of observation at all would have
+come to that conclusion long since."
+
+"Then, what is it you have found out?" Nancy asked, quaking.
+
+"My discovery is--" Collier Pratt paused for the whole effect of his
+revelation to penetrate to her consciousness, "that this whole outfit
+is run _philanthropically_."
+
+"Philanthropically?"
+
+"Don't you see? There can't be any other explanation of it. It's an
+eleemosynary institution. That's what it is."
+
+Nancy met his expectant eyes with a trifle of wildness in her own, but
+he continued to hold her gaze triumphantly.
+
+"Don't you see," he repeated, "doesn't everything point to that as the
+only possible explanation? It's some rich woman's plaything. That
+accounts for the food, the setting,--everything in fact that has
+puzzled us. Amateur,--that's the word; effective, delightful but
+inexperienced. It sticks out all over the place."
+
+"The food isn't amateur," Nancy said, a little resentfully.
+
+"Nothing is amateur but the spirit behind it, through which we profit.
+Don't you see?"
+
+"I'm beginning to see," Nancy admitted, "perhaps you are right. I
+guess the place is run philanthropically. I--I hadn't quite realized
+it before."
+
+"What did you think?"
+
+"I knew that the--one who was running it wasn't quite sure where she
+was coming out, but I didn't think of it is an eleemosynary
+institution."
+
+"Of course, it is."
+
+"It's an unscrupulous sort of charity, then," Nancy mused, "if it's
+masquerading as self-respecting and self-supporting. I--I've never
+approved of things like that."
+
+"Why quarrel with a scheme so beneficent?"
+
+"Don't you care?" Nancy asked with a catch in her voice that was very
+like an appeal.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Why should I?" he smiled.
+
+"Then I don't care, either," she decided with an emphasis that was
+entirely lost on the man on the other side of the table.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CAVE-MAN STUFF
+
+
+"Cave-man stuff," Billy said to Dick, pointing a thumb over his
+shoulder toward the interior of the Broadway moving-picture palace at
+the exit of which they had just met accidentally. "It always goes big,
+doesn't it?"
+
+"It does," Dick agreed thoughtfully, "in the movies anyhow."
+
+"Caroline says that the modern woman has her response to that kind of
+thing refined all out of her." Billy intended his tone to be entirely
+jocular, but there was a note of anxiety in it that was not lost on
+his friend.
+
+Dick paused under the shelter of a lurid poster--displaying a fierce
+gentleman in crude blue, showing all his teeth, and in the act of
+strangling an early Victorian ingenue with a dimple,--and lit a
+cigarette with his first match.
+
+"Caroline may have," he said, puffing to keep his light against the
+breeze, "but I doubt it."
+
+"Rough stuff doesn't seem to appeal to her," Billy said, quite
+humorously this time.
+
+"She's healthy," Dick mused, "rides horseback, plays tennis and all
+that. Wouldn't she have liked the guy that swung himself on the roof
+between the two poles?" He indicated again the direction of the
+theater from which they had just emerged.
+
+"She would have liked him," Billy said gloomily, "but the show
+would have started her arguing about this whole moving-picture
+proposition,--its crudity, and its tremendous sacrifice of artistic
+values, and so on and so on."
+
+"Sure, she's a highbrow. Highbrows always cerebrate about the movies
+in one way or another. Nancy doesn't get it at just that angle, of
+course. She hasn't got Caroline's intellectual appetite. She's not
+interested in the movies because she hasn't got a moving-picture house
+of her own. The world is not Nancy's oyster--it's her lump of putty."
+
+"I don't know which is the worst," Billy said. "Caroline won't listen
+to anything you say to her,--but then neither will Nancy."
+
+"Women never listen to anything," Dick said profoundly, "unless
+they're doing it on purpose, or they happen to be interested. I
+imagine Caroline is a little less tractable, but Nancy is capable of
+doing the most damage. She works with concrete materials. Caroline's
+kit is crammed with nothing but ideas."
+
+"Nothing _but_--" Billy groaned.
+
+"As for this cave-man business--theoretically, they ought to react to
+it,--both of them. They're both normal, well-balanced young ladies."
+
+"They're both runnin' pretty hard to keep in the same place, just at
+present."
+
+"Nancy isn't doing that--not by a long shot," Dick said.
+
+"She's not keeping in the same place certainly," Billy agreed.
+"Caroline is all eaten up by this economic independence idea."
+
+"It's a good idea," Dick admitted; "economic conditions are
+changing. No reason at all that a woman shouldn't prove herself
+willing to cope with them, as long as she gets things in the order
+of their importance. Earning her living isn't better than the
+Mother-Home-and-Heaven job. It's a way out, if she gets left, or
+gets stung."
+
+"I'm only thankful Caroline can't hear you." Billy raised pious eyes
+to heaven but he continued more seriously after a second, "It's all
+right to theorize, but practically speaking both our girls are getting
+beyond our control."
+
+"I'm not engaged to Nancy," Dick said a trifle stiffly.
+
+"Well, you ought to be," Billy said.
+
+Dick stiffened. He was not used to speaking of his relations with
+Nancy to any one--even to Billy, who was the closest friend he
+had. They walked up Broadway in silence for a while, toward the
+cross-street which housed the university club which was their common
+objective.
+
+"I know I ought to be," Dick said, just as Billy was formulating an
+apology for his presumption, "or I ought to marry her out of hand.
+This watchful waiting's entirely the wrong idea."
+
+"Why do we do it then?" Billy inquired pathetically.
+
+"I wanted Nancy to sow her economic wild oats. I guess you felt the
+same way about Caroline."
+
+"Well, they've sowed 'em, haven't they?"
+
+"Not by a long shot. That's the trouble,--they don't get any forrider,
+from our point of view. I thought it would be the best policy to stand
+by and let Nancy work it out. I thought her restaurant would either
+fail spectacularly in a month, or succeed brilliantly and she'd make
+over the executive end of it to somebody else. I never thought of her
+buckling down like this, and wearing herself out at it."
+
+"There's a pretty keen edge on Caroline this summer."
+
+"I'm afraid Nancy's in pretty deep," Dick said. "The money end of it
+worries me as much as anything."
+
+"I wouldn't let that worry me."
+
+"She won't take any of mine, you know."
+
+"I know she won't. See here, Dick, I wouldn't worry about Nancy's
+finances. She'll come out all right about money."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"I know so. We've got lots of things in the world to worry about,
+things that are scheduled to go wrong unless we're mighty delicate in
+the way we handle 'em. Let's worry about _them_, and leave Nancy's
+financial problems to take care of themselves."
+
+"Which means," Dick said, "that you are sure that she's all right. I'm
+not in her confidence in this matter--"
+
+"Well, I am," Billy said, "I'm her legal adviser, and with all due
+respect to your taste in girls, it's a very difficult position to
+occupy. What with the things she won't listen to and the things she
+won't learn, and the things she actually knows more about than I
+do--"
+
+The indulgent smile of the true lover lit Dick's face, as if Billy had
+waxed profoundly eulogistic. Unconsciously, Billy's own tenderness
+took fire at the flame.
+
+"Why don't we run away with 'em?" he said, breathing heavily.
+
+Dick stopped in a convenient doorway to light his third cigarette, end
+on.
+
+"It's the answer to you and Caroline," he said.
+
+"Why not to you and Nancy?"
+
+"It may be," Dick said, "I dunno. I've reached an _impasse_. Still
+there is a great deal in your proposition."
+
+They turned in at the portico that extended out over the big oak doors
+of their club. An attendant in white turned the knob for them, with
+the grin of enthusiastic welcome that was the usual tribute to these
+two good-looking, well set up young men from those who served them.
+
+"I'll think it over," Dick added, as he gave up his hat and stick,
+"and let you know what decision I come to."
+
+In another five minutes they were deep in a game of Kelly-pool from
+which Dick emerged triumphantly richer by the sum of a dollar and
+ninety cents, and Billy the poorer by the loss of a quarter.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a town in Connecticut, within a reasonable motoring distance
+from New York that has been called the Gretna Green of America. Here
+well-informed young couples are able to expedite the business of
+matrimony with a phenomenal neatness and despatch. Licenses can be
+procured by special dispensation, and the nuptial knot tied as
+solemnly and solidly as if a premeditated train of bridesmaids and
+flower girls and loving relatives had been rehearsed for days in
+advance.
+
+Dick and his Rolls-Royce had assisted at a hymeneal celebration or
+two, where a successful rush had been made for the temporary altars of
+this beneficent town with the most felicitous results, and he knew the
+procedure. When he and Billy organized an afternoon excursion into
+Connecticut, they tacitly avoided all mention of the consummation they
+hoped to bring about, but they both understood the nature and
+significance of the expedition. Dick,--who was used to the easy
+accomplishment of his designs and purposes, for most obstacles gave
+way before his magnetic onslaught,--had only sketchily outlined his
+scheme of proceedings, but he trusted to the magic of that inspiration
+that seldom or never failed him. He was the sort of young man that the
+last century novelists always referred to as "fortune's favorite," and
+his luck so rarely betrayed him that he had almost come to believe it
+to be invincible.
+
+His general idea was to get Nancy and Caroline to drive into the
+country, through the cool rush of the freer purer air of the suburbs,
+give them lunch at some smart road-house, soothingly restful and dim,
+where the temperature was artificially lowered, and they could powder
+their noses at will; and from thence go on until they were within the
+radius of the charmed circle where modern miracles were performed
+while the expectant bridegroom waited.
+
+"Nancy, my dear, we are going to be married,"--that he had formulated,
+"we're going to be done with all this nonsense of waiting and doubting
+the evidence of our own senses and our own hearts. We're going to put
+an end to the folly of trying to do without each other,--your folly of
+trying to feed all itinerant New York; my folly of standing by and
+letting you do it, or any other fool thing that your fancy happens to
+dictate. You're mine and I'm yours, and I'm going to take you--take
+you to-day and prove it to you." This was to be timed to be delivered
+at just about the moment when they drew up in front of the office of
+the justice of the peace, who was Dick's friend of old. "Hold up your
+head, my dear, and put your hat on straight; we're going into that
+building to be made man and wife, and we're not coming out of it until
+the deed has been done." In some such fashion, he meant to carry it
+through. Many a time in the years gone by he had steered Nancy through
+some high-handed escapade that she would only have consented to on the
+spur of the moment. She was one of these women who responded
+automatically to the voice of a master. He had failed in mastery this
+last year or so. That was the secret of his failure with her, but the
+days of that failure were numbered now. He was going to succeed.
+
+On the back seat of the big car he expected Billy and Caroline to be
+going through much the same sort of scene.
+
+"We've come to a show-down now, Caroline,--either I sit in this
+game, or get out." He could imagine Billy bringing Caroline bluntly
+to terms with comparatively little effort. That was what she
+needed--Caroline--a strong hand. Billy's problem was simple.
+Caroline had already signified her preference for him. She wore his
+ring. Billy had only to pick her up, kicking and screaming if need
+be, and bear her to the altar. She would marry him if he insisted.
+That was clear to the most superficial of observers,--but Nancy was
+different.
+
+The day was hot, and grew steadily hotter. By the time Nancy and
+Caroline were actually in the car, after an almost superhuman effort
+to assemble them and their various accessories of veils and wraps, and
+to dispose of the assortment of errands and messages that both girls
+seemed to be committed to despatch before they could pass the
+boundaries of Greater New York, the two men were very nearly
+exhausted. It was only when the chauffeur let the car out to a speed
+greatly in excess of the limitations on some clear stretch of road,
+that the breath of the country brought them any relief whatsoever.
+
+Dick looked over his shoulder at the two in the back seat, and noted
+Caroline's pallor, and the fact that she was allowing a listless hand
+to linger in Billy's; but when he turned back to Nancy he discovered
+no such encouraging symptoms. She was sitting lightly relaxed at his
+side, but there was nothing even negatively responsive in her
+attitude. Her color was high; her breath coming evenly from between
+her slightly parted lips. She looked like a child oblivious to
+everything but some innocent daydream.
+
+"You look as if you were dreaming of candy and kisses, Nancy,--are
+you?" he asked presently.
+
+"No, I'm just glad to be free. It's been a long time since I've played
+hooky."
+
+"I know it." The "dear" constrained him, and he did not add it:
+"You've been working most unholy hard. I--I hate to have you."
+
+"But I was never so happy in my life."
+
+"That's good." His voice hoarsened with the effort to keep it steady
+and casual. "Is everything going all right?"
+
+"Fine."
+
+"Is--is the money end of it all right?"
+
+"Yes, that is, I am not worrying about money."
+
+"You're not making money?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are not losing any?"
+
+"I am--a little. That was to be expected, don't you think so?"
+
+"How much are you losing?"
+
+"I don't know exactly."
+
+"You ought to know. Are you keeping your own books?"
+
+"Betty helps me."
+
+"Are you losing a hundred a month?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Five hundred?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"A thousand?"
+
+"I don't really know."
+
+"A thousand?" he insisted.
+
+"Yes," Nancy answered recklessly, "the way I run it."
+
+"It doesn't make any difference, of course;" Dick said, "you've got
+all my money behind you."
+
+"I haven't anybody's money behind me except my own."
+
+"You had fifteen thousand dollars. Do you mean to say that you have
+any of that left to draw on?"
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"Do you mind telling me how you are managing?"
+
+"Billy borrowed some money for me."
+
+"On what security?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Why didn't he come to me?"
+
+"I told him not to."
+
+"Nancy, do you realize that you're the most exasperating woman that
+ever walked the face of this earth?" the unhappy lover asked.
+
+Nancy managed to convey the fact that Dick's asseveration both
+surprised and pained her, without resorting to the use of words.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't spoil this lovely party," she said to him a few
+seconds later. "I'm extremely tired, and I should like to get my mind
+off my business instead of going over these tiresome details with
+anybody."
+
+"You look very innocent and kind and loving," Dick said desperately,
+"but at heart you're a little fraud, Nancy."
+
+She interrupted him to point out two children laden with wild flowers,
+trudging along the roadside.
+
+"See how adorably dirty and happy they are," she cried. "That little
+fellow has his shoestrings untied, and keeps tripping on them, he's so
+tired, but he's so crazy about the posies that he doesn't care. I
+wonder if he's taking them home to his mother."
+
+"You're devoted to children, Nancy, aren't you?" Dick's voice
+softened.
+
+"Yes, I am, and some day I'm going to adopt a whole orphan asylum,"--her
+voice altered in a way that Dick did not in the least understand. "I
+could if I wanted to," she laughed. "Maybe I will want to some day. So
+many of my ideas are being changed and modified by experience."
+
+The road-house of his choice, when they reached it, proved to have
+deteriorated sadly since his last visit. The cool interior that he
+remembered had been inopportunely opened to the hottest blast of the
+day's heat, and hermetically sealed again, or at least so it
+seemed to Dick; and the furniture was all red and thickly, almost
+suffocatingly, upholstered. Nancy had no comment on the torrid air of
+the dining-room,--she rarely complained about anything. Even the
+presence of a fly in her bouillon jelly scarcely disturbed her
+equanimity, but Dick knew that she was secretly sustained by the
+conviction that such an accident was impossible under her system
+of supervision at Outside Inn, and resented her tranquillity
+accordingly.
+
+Caroline, behaving not so well, seemed to him a much more human and
+sympathetic figure, though her nose took on a high shine unknown to
+Nancy's demurer and more discreetly served features; but Billy
+evidently preferred Nancy's deportment, which was on the surface calm
+and reassuring.
+
+"Nancy's a sport," he pointed out to Caroline enthusiastically, "no
+fly in the ointment gets her goat. She enjoys herself even when she's
+perfectly miserable."
+
+"She doesn't feel the heat the way I do," Caroline snapped.
+
+"I feel the heat," Nancy said, "but I--"
+
+"She's got a system," Dick cut in savagely: "she stands it just as
+long as she can, and then she takes it out of me in some diabolical
+fashion."
+
+Nancy's gray-blue eyes took on the far-away look that those who loved
+her had learned to associate with her most baffling moments.
+
+"Just by being especially nice to Dick," she said thoughtfully, "I can
+make him more furious with me than in any other way."
+
+Nancy and Caroline finished their sloppy ices at the table together
+while Dick and Billy sought the solace of a pipe in the garage
+outside.
+
+"I don't understand coming into Connecticut to-day," Nancy said as
+soon as they were alone; "it seems like such a stupid excursion for
+Dick to make. He's usually pretty good at picking out places to go. In
+fact, he has a kind of genius for it."
+
+"He slipped up this time," Caroline said, "I'm so hot."
+
+"So am I," said Nancy, slumping limply into the depths of her red
+velour chair. "I want to get back to New York. Oh! what was it you
+told me the other day that you had been saving up to tell me?"
+
+Caroline brightened.
+
+"Oh, yes! Why, it was something Collier Pratt said about you. You know
+Betty has scraped up quite an acquaintance with him. She goes and sits
+down at his table sometimes."
+
+"She's going to be stopped doing _that_," Nancy said.
+
+"Well, you remember the night when you went home early with a
+headache, and passed by his table going out?"
+
+"Yes, but I didn't know he saw me."
+
+"He sees everything, Betty says."
+
+"He didn't suspect me?"
+
+"He didn't know you came out of the interior. He said to Betty, 'It's
+curious that Miss Martin never stays here to dine in the evening,
+though she so often drops in.' Betty is pretty quick, you know. She
+said, 'I think Miss Martin is a friend of the proprietor.'"
+
+"So I am," said Nancy, "the best friend she's got. Go on, dear."
+
+"Then he said slowly and thoughtfully, 'It's a crime for a woman like
+that not to be the mother of children. If ever I saw a maternal type,
+Miss Ann Martin is the apotheosis of it. Why some man hasn't made her
+understand that long ago I can not see.'"
+
+Nancy's cheeks burned crimson and then white again.
+
+"How dare Betty?" she said.
+
+"Wait till you hear. You know Betty doesn't care what she says. Her
+reply to that was peculiarly Bettyish. She sighed and cast down her
+eyes,--the little imp! 'The course of true love never does run
+smooth,' she said; 'perhaps Ann has discovered the truth of that old
+saying in some new connection.' She didn't mean to be a cat, she was
+only trying to create a romantic interest in your affairs, doing as
+she would be done by. The effect was more than she bargained for
+though. Collier Pratt's eyes quite lit up. 'I can imagine no greater
+crime than frustrating the instincts of a woman like that,' he said.
+Imagine that--the instincts--whereupon Betty, of course, flounced off
+and left him."
+
+"She would," Nancy said. Then a storm of real anger surged through
+her. "I'll turn her out of my place to-morrow. I'll never look at her
+or speak to her again."
+
+"I think it would be more to the point," Caroline said, "to turn out
+Collier Pratt. That was certainly an extraordinary way for him to
+speak of you to a girl who is a stranger to him."
+
+"Caroline, you're almost as bad as Betty is. You're both of you
+hopelessly--helplessly--provincially American. I don't think that was
+extraordinary or impertinent even," Nancy said. "I--I understand how
+that man means things."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The car drove up in front of the office of the justice of the peace in
+the town beyond that in which they had had their unauspicious luncheon
+party.
+
+"Are we stopping here for any particular reason?" Caroline said.
+
+Nancy had not spoken in more than a monosyllable since they had
+resumed their places in the car again.
+
+"Not now," Dick said wearily. "I thought I'd point out the sights of
+the town. This place is called the Gretna Green of America, you know.
+A great many runaway couples come out here to be married. The man
+inside that office, the one with whiskers and no collar, is the one
+that marries them."
+
+"Does he?" Billy asked a trifle uncertainly.
+
+Nancy turned to Dick with a real appeal in her voice. It was the first
+time during the day that she had addressed him with anything like her
+natural tenderness and sweetness.
+
+"Oh! Dick, can't we start on?" she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+SCIENCE APPLIED
+
+
+Gaspard was ill--very ill. He lay in the little anteroom at the top of
+the stairs and groaned thunderously. He had a pain in his back and a
+roaring in his head, and an extreme disorder in the region of his
+solar plexus.
+
+"Sure an' he's no more nor less than a human earthquake," Michael
+reported after an examination.
+
+Nancy applied ice caps and hot-water bags to the afflicted areas
+without avail. The stricken man had struggled from his bed in the
+Twentieth Street lodging-house that he had chosen for his habitation,
+and staggered through the heavy morning heat to his post in the
+basement kitchen of Nancy's Inn, there to collapse ignominiously
+between his cooking ranges. With Molly and Dolly and Hildeguard at his
+feet and herself and Michael and a dishwasher at his head they had
+managed to get him up the two short flights of stairs. It developed
+that it would be necessary to remove him in an ambulance later in the
+day, but for the time being he lay like a contorted Colossus on the
+fragile-looking cot that constituted his improvised bed of pain: "Like
+the great grandfather," to quote Michael again, "of all of them
+Zeus'es and gargoyles, and other cavortin' gentlemen in the yard
+down-stairs."
+
+With the luncheon menu before her, Nancy decided that the hour had
+come for her to prove herself. She had assumed the practical
+management of the business of the Inn only to have the responsibility
+and much of the authority of her position taken from her by the very
+efficiency of her staff. She was far too good a business woman not to
+realize that this condition was distinctly to her advantage, and to
+encourage it accordingly, but there was still so much of the child in
+her that she secretly resented every usurpation of privilege.
+
+With Gaspard ill she was able to manipulate the affairs of the kitchen
+exactly as she chose, and even in the moment of applying the "hot at
+the base of the brain and the cold at the forehead" that the doctor
+had prescribed as the most effective method for relieving the pressure
+of blood in the tortured temples of the suffering man, she had been
+conscious of that thrill of triumph that most human beings feel when
+the involuntary removal of the man higher up invests them with power.
+
+Michael did the marketing, and the list went through as Gaspard had
+planned it, with some slight adaptations to the exigency, such as the
+substitution of twenty-five cans of tomato soup for the fresh
+vegetables with which Gaspard had planned to make his tomato bisque,
+and brandied peaches in glass jars instead of peach soufflé.
+
+"If I allow myself a little handicap in the matter of details," she
+said, "I know I can put everything else through as well as Gaspard;"
+whereupon she enveloped herself in a huge linen apron, tucked her hair
+into one of the chef's white caps, and attacked the problem of
+preparing luncheon for from sixty-five to two hundred people, who were
+scheduled to appear at uncertain intervals between the hours of twelve
+and two-thirty. Later she must be ready to serve tea and ices to a
+problematical number of patrons, but she tried not to think beyond the
+immediate task.
+
+She could make a very good tomato bisque by adding one cup of milk and
+a dash of cream to one half-pint can of MacDonald's tomato soup,
+enough to serve three people adequately, and she proceeded to multiply
+that recipe by twenty-five. She didn't think of getting large cans
+till Michael in the process of opening the half-pint tins made the
+belated suggestion, which she greeted with some hauteur.
+
+"I'm not the person to mind a little extra work, Michael, when I am
+sure of my results. Precision--that's the secret of the difference
+between American and French cooking."
+
+"An' sure and I fail to see the difference between the preciseness of
+a quart can and four half-pint ones, but I suppose it's my ignorance
+now."
+
+"Your supposition is correct, Michael," she said airily, but out of
+the corner of her eye she saw him smiling to himself over the growing
+heap of half-pint tins, and reddened with mortification at her naiveté
+in the matter.
+
+She looked at the vat of terra-cotta purée with considerable dismay
+when she had stirred in the last measure of cream. Twenty-five pints
+of tomato bisque is a rather formidable quantity of a liquid the chief
+virtue of which is its sparing and judicious introduction into the
+individual diet scheme. Nancy hardly felt that she wanted to be alone
+with it.
+
+"They'll soon lick it all up, and be polishing their plates like so
+many Tom-cats," Michael said, indicating their potential patronage by
+waving his hand toward the courtyard. "Here comes Miss Betty, now.
+She'll be after lending a hand in the cooking."
+
+"Keep her away, Michael," Nancy cried; "go out and head her off. Make
+her go up-stairs and sit with Gaspard,--anything, but don't let her
+come in here. If she does I won't answer for the consequences.
+I'll--I'll--I don't know what I'll do to her."
+
+"Throw her in the soup kettle, most likely," Michael chuckled. "Faith,
+an' I never saw a woman yet that wasn't ready to scratch the eyes out
+of the next one that got into her kitchen."
+
+"She isn't safe," Nancy said darkly. "I need every bit of brain and
+self-control I have to put this luncheon through. You keep Miss
+Betty's mind on something else--anything but me and the way I am doing
+the cooking."
+
+"'Tis done," said Michael; "sure an' I'll protect her from you, if I
+have to abduct her myself!"
+
+"I wish he would," Nancy said to herself viciously, "before she gets
+another chance at Collier Pratt.--Creamed chicken and mushrooms. It's
+a lucky thing that Gaspard diced the chicken last night, and fixed
+that macédoine of vegetables for a garnish.--She's a dangerous woman;
+she might wreck one's whole life with her unfeeling, histrionic
+nonsense.--I wonder if thirteen quarts of cream sauce is going to be
+enough."
+
+It turned out to be quite enough after the crises in which the butter
+basis got too brown, and the flour after melting into it smoothly
+seemed unreasonably inclined to lump again as Nancy stirred the cold
+milk into it, but the result after all was perfectly adequate, except
+for the uncanny brown tinge that the whole mixture had taken on. Nancy
+was unable to restrain herself from taking a sample of it to Gaspard's
+bedside.
+
+"_Mais_--but I can not eat it now," he cried, misunderstanding the
+purpose of her visit, "nor again--nor ever again. _Jamais!_"
+
+"I don't want you to eat it, Gaspard, I want you to look at it, and
+tell me what makes it that color. It turned tan, you see. I don't want
+to poison any one."
+
+"I am too miserable," Gaspard said. "The sauce--you have made into
+Béchamel with the browning butter, _voilà tout_. It is better so,--it
+would not hurt any one in the world but me--and me it would kill."
+
+"Poor thing," sighed Nancy, as she took her place by the kitchen
+dresser again, trying to remember where she had last seen brown eyes
+that reflected the look of stricken endurance that glazed Gaspard's
+velvet orbs, recalled with a start that Dick had gazed at her in
+much the same helpless fashion on their drive home from their
+recent motor trip in Connecticut. She had been too absorbed in her
+own distresses to consider anybody's state of mind but her own, on
+that occasion, but now Dick's expression came back to her vividly,
+and she nearly ruined a big bowl of French dressing, at the crucial
+moment of putting in the vinegar, trying to imagine which one of
+the events of that inauspicious day might conceivably have caused it.
+
+After the actual serving of the meal began, however, she had very
+little time for reflection or reminiscence. The distribution of
+food to the waitresses as they called for it required the full
+concentration of her powers. Molly and Dolly coached her, and with
+their assistance she was soon able to fill the bewilderingly rapid
+orders from the line of girls stretching from the door to the open
+space in front of her serving-table, which never seemed to diminish
+however adequately its demands were met.
+
+Mechanically she took soup and meat dishes from the hooded shelves at
+the top of the range where they were kept warming, and ladled out the
+brick-colored bisque, the creamed chicken and garnishing of the
+individual orders. The chicken looked delicious with its accompaniment
+of vari-colored vegetables,--Nancy had done away with the side dish
+long since--and each serving was assembled with special reference to
+its decorative qualities. The girls went up-stairs to put the salad on
+the plates, where the desserts were already dished in the quaint blue
+bowls in which stewed fruits and the more fluid sweets were always
+served.
+
+In her mind's eye Nancy could see the picture. At noon the court was
+almost entirely in the shade, and instead of the awning top, which
+shut out the air, there were gay striped umbrellas at the one or two
+tables that were imperfectly protected from the sun. She had recently
+invested in some table-cloths with bright blue woven borders. Flowers
+were arranged in low bowls and baskets on respective tables. Nancy
+instinctively grouped tired young business men in blue serge and soft
+collars at the tables decorated with the baskets of blue flowers; and
+pale young women in lingerie blouses before the bowls of roses. She
+could see them,--those big-eyed girls with delicate blue veins
+accentuating the pallor of their white faces--sinking gratefully into
+the wicker seats and benches, and sniffing rapturously at the faint
+far-away fragrance of the woodland blossoms.
+
+"I hope they will steal a great many of them," she thought, for her
+patrons were given to despoiling her flower vases in a way that
+scandalized the good Hildeguard, who was a just but ungenerous soul in
+spite of her ample proportions and popular qualities. Molly and Dolly
+were rather given to encouraging the vandals, knowing that they had
+Nancy's tacit approval.
+
+Automatically dipping the huge metal ladle--one filling of which was
+enough for a service--into the big soup kettle, she stood for a moment
+gazing into its magenta depths oblivious to everything but the
+rhapsodic consideration of her realized dream. Now for the first time
+she was contributing directly her own strength and energy to the
+public which she served. She had prepared with her own hands the meal
+which her grateful patrons were consuming. The little girls with the
+tired faces, the jaded men, the smart, weary business women--buyers
+and secretaries and modistes,--who were occupied in the neighborhood
+were all being literally nourished by her. She had actually
+manufactured the product that was to sustain them through the weary
+day of heat and effort.
+
+"How do they like the lunch, Molly?" she asked, as she deftly
+deposited the forty-fifth serving of chicken with Béchamel sauce on
+the exact center of the plate before her. "Are they pleased with the
+soup? Are they saying complimentary things about the chicken?"
+
+"Some of them is, Miss Nancy. Some of them is complaining that they
+can't get any other kind of soup. Them that usually gets invalid broth
+don't understand our running out of it."
+
+"I forgot about the specials," Nancy cried.
+
+"That red-haired girl that we feed on custards and nut bread and that
+special cocoa Gaspard makes for her, she acted real bad. They get
+expecting certain things, and then they want them."
+
+"I'm sorry," Nancy said; "I'll make all those things to-morrow."
+
+"The old feller that always has the stewed prunes is terrible pleased
+though. I give him two helps of the peaches, and he wanted another. He
+was pleased to get white bread too. He complains something dreadful
+about his bran biscuit every day."
+
+"I meant to send to the woman's exchange for different kinds of health
+bread, but I forgot it," Nancy moaned. "Do they like the peaches at
+all?"
+
+"Most of them likes them too well. There was one old lady that got one
+whiff of them, and pushed back her chair and left. I guess she had
+took the pledge, and the brandy went against her principles."
+
+"I never thought of that. I only thought that brandied peaches would
+be a treat to so many people who didn't have them habitually served at
+home."
+
+The picture in Nancy's mind changed in color a trifle. She could see
+sour-faced spinsters at single tables pushing back their chairs,
+overturning the rose bowls in their hurry to shake the dust of her
+restaurant from their feet.
+
+"Don't accept any money from people who don't like their luncheon,"
+she admonished Molly, who was next in line with several orders to be
+filled at once. "Tell them that the proprietor of Outside Inn prefers
+not to be paid unless the meal is entirely satisfactory."
+
+"I'm afraid there wouldn't never be any satisfactory meals if I told
+them that, Miss Nancy."
+
+"I don't want any one ever to pay for anything he doesn't like," Nancy
+insisted. "Slip the money back in their coat pockets if you can't
+manage it any other way."
+
+"There's lots of complaints about the soup," Dolly said; "so many
+people don't like tomato in the heat. Gaspard, he always had a choice
+even if it wasn't down on the menu. I might deduct, say fifteen cents
+now, and slip it back to them with their change."
+
+"Please do," Nancy implored. "Tell Molly and Hildeguard."
+
+"Hilda would drop dead, but Molly'd like the fun of it."
+
+It was hot in the kitchen. The soup kettle bad been emptied of more
+than half its contents, but the liquid that was left bubbled thickly
+over the gas flame that had been newly lit to reheat it. The pungent,
+acrid odor of hot tomatoes affronted her nostrils. She had a vision
+now of the pale tired faces of the little stenographers turning in
+disgust from the contemplation of the flamboyant and sticky purée on
+their plates, annoyed by the color scheme in combination with the soft
+wild-rose pink of the table bouquets, if not actually sickened by the
+fluid itself. For the first time since his abrupt seizure that morning
+she began to hope in her heart that Gaspard's illness might be a
+matter of days instead of weeks. She served Hildeguard and one of the
+other waitresses with more soup, and then began to boil some eggs to
+eke out the chicken, which, owing to her unprecedented generosity in
+the matter of portions, seemed to be diminishing with alarming
+rapidity.
+
+From the kitchen closet beyond came the clatter of dishwashing, the
+interminable splashing of water, and stacking of plates, punctuated by
+the occasional clang of smashing glass or pottery. She had discharged
+two dishwashers in less than two weeks' time, with the natural feeling
+that any change in that department must be for the better, but the
+present incumbent was even more incompetent than his predecessors.
+Even Nancy's impregnable nerves began to feel the strain of the
+continual clamorous assault on them.
+
+Betty appeared in the doorway that led directly from the restaurant
+stairs.
+
+"I'm sorry to intrude," she said. "Don't blame Michael, I'm breaking
+my parole to get in here. He locked me in and made me swear I'd keep
+out of the kitchen before he'd let me out at all, but I had to tell
+you this. The tomato soup has curdled and you ought not to serve it
+any more."
+
+"Well, I thought it looked rather funny," Nancy moaned.
+
+"It won't do anybody any harm, you know. It just looks bad, and a lot
+of people are kicking about it. Did Molly tell you about the old
+fellow that got tipsy on the peaches?"
+
+"No, she didn't. I sent Michael out for some ripe peaches and other
+fruit to serve instead."
+
+"That's a good idea. How's the food holding out? There are lots of
+people you know up-stairs," she rattled on, for Nancy, who was getting
+more and more distraught with each disquieting detail, made no
+pretense of answering her. "Dolly has probably kept you informed.
+Dick's aunt is here, and that terribly highbrow cousin of Caroline's;
+and that good-looking young surgeon that suddenly got so famous last
+winter, and admired you so much. Dr. Sunderland--isn't that his name?
+I never saw Collier Pratt here for lunch before. There's a little girl
+with him, too."
+
+"Collier Pratt?" Nancy cried, "Oh, Betty, he isn't here. He couldn't
+be. Don't frighten me with any such nonsense. He never comes here in
+the day-time."
+
+"He is though," Betty said, "and a queer-looking little child with
+him, a dark-eyed little thing dressed in black satin."
+
+"It seems a good deal to me as if you were making that up," Nancy
+cried in exasperation; "it's so much the kind of thing you do make
+up."
+
+"I know it," Betty said, unexpectedly reasonable, "but as it happens
+I'm not. Collier Pratt really is up-stairs with a poor little orphan
+in tow. Ask any one of the girls."
+
+At this moment Dolly, her ribbons awry and her china-blue eyes widened
+with excitement, appeared with a dramatic confirmation of Betty's
+astonishing announcement.
+
+"There's a little girl took sick from the peaches, and moved up-stairs
+in the room next to Gaspard's," she cried breathlessly. "The doctor
+that was sitting at the next table, had her moved right up there. He
+wants to see the lady that runs the restaurant, and he wants a lot of
+hot water in a pitcher, and some baking soda."
+
+"You see," Betty said, "go on up, I'll take your place here. Dolly,
+get the things the doctor asked for."
+
+Nancy stripped off her cap and her apron and resigned her spoons and
+ladles to Betty without a word. She was still incredulous of what she
+would find at the top of the three flights of creaking age-worn stairs
+that separated her from the nest of rooms that were the storm quarters
+of her hostelry, now converted by a sudden malevolence on the part of
+fate into a temporary hospital. As she took the last flight she could
+hear Gaspard's stertorous breathing coming at the regular intervals of
+distressful slumber, and through that an ominous murmur of grave and
+low-voiced conference, such as one hears in the chambers of the dead.
+The convulsive application of a powder puff to the tip of her burning
+nose--her whole face was aflame with exertion and excitement--was
+merely a part of her whole subconscious effort to get herself in hand
+for the exigency. Her mind, itself, refused any preparation for the
+scene that awaited her.
+
+On one of the cushioned benches against the wall in the most
+decorative of the dining-rooms of the up-stairs suite, a little girl
+was lying stark against the brilliant blue of the upholstery. She was
+a child of some seven or eight, lightly built and delicate of features
+and dressed all in black. Her eyes were closed, but the long lashes
+emphasizing the shadows in which they were set, prepared you for the
+revelation of them. Nancy understood that they were Collier Pratt's
+eyes, and that they would open presently, and look wonderingly up at
+her. She recognized the presence of Dr. Sunderland, of Michael and
+several of the waitresses, and a flighty woman in blue taffeta--an
+ubiquitous patron,--but she made her way past them at once, and sank
+on her knees before the prostrate child.
+
+"It's nothing very serious, Miss Martin," the young surgeon reassured
+her, "delicate children of this type are likely to have these
+seizures. It's not exactly a fainting fit. It belongs rather to the
+family of hysteria."
+
+"Wasn't it the peaches?" Nancy asked fearfully. "They--they had a
+little brandy in them."
+
+"They may have been a contributing cause," Dr. Sunderland acknowledged,
+"but the child's condition is primarily responsible. Let her alone
+until she rouses,--then give her hot water with a pinch of soda in it
+at fifteen-minute intervals. Keep her feet hot and her head cold and
+don't try to move her until after dark, when it's cooler."
+
+"All right," Nancy said, "I'll take care of her."
+
+"Here comes her poor father, now," the lady in taffeta announced with
+the dramatic commiseration of the self-invited auditor. "He thought an
+iced towel on her head might make her feel better. Is the dear little
+thing an orphan--I mean a half orphan?"
+
+The assembled company seeming disinclined to respond, she repeated her
+inquiry to Collier Pratt himself, as with the susceptive grace that
+characterized all his movements, he swung the compress he was carrying
+sharply to and fro to preserve its temperature in transit. "Is the
+poor little thing a half orphan?"
+
+"The poor little thing is nine-tenths orphan, madam," said Collier
+Pratt, "that is--the only creature to whom she can turn for protection
+is the apology for a parent that you see before you. Would you mind
+stepping aside and giving me a little more room to work in?"
+
+"Not at all." Irony was wasted on the indomitable sympathizer in blue.
+"Hasn't she really anybody but you to take care of her?"
+
+Collier Pratt arranged the towel precisely in position over the little
+girl's forehead, smoothing with careful fingers the cloud of dusky
+hair that fell about her face.
+
+"She has not," he answered with some savagery.
+
+"Hasn't she any women friends or relatives that would be willing to
+take charge of her?"
+
+"No, madam."
+
+"Then some woman that has no child of her own to care for ought to
+adopt her, and relieve you of the responsibility. It's a shame and
+disgrace the way these New York women with no natural ties of their
+own go around crying for something to do, when there are sweet little
+children like this suffering for a mother's care. I'd adopt her myself
+if I was able to. I certainly would."
+
+"I'm perfectly willing to give over the technical part of her bringing
+up to some one of the women whom you so feelingly describe," Collier
+Pratt said. "The trouble is to find the woman--the right woman. The
+vicarious mother is not the most prevalent of our modern types, I
+regret to say."
+
+The little girl on the couch stirred softly, and the hand that Nancy
+was holding, a pathetic, thin, unkempt little hand, grew warm in hers.
+The lids of the big eyes fluttered and lifted. Nancy looked into their
+clouded depths for an instant. Then she turned to Collier Pratt
+decisively.
+
+"I'll take care of your little girl for you, if you will let me," she
+said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SHEILA
+
+
+"I had _mal de mer_ when I was on the steamer," the child said, in her
+pretty, painstaking English--she spoke French habitually. "I do not
+like to have it on the land. The gentleman in there," she pointed to
+the room beyond where Gaspard was again distressfully sleeping the
+sleep of the spent after a period of the most profound physical
+agitation, "he does not like to have it, too,--I mean either."
+
+Nancy had propped the little girl up on improvised pillows made of
+coats and wraps swathed in towels and covered her with some strips of
+canton flannel designed to use as "hushers" under the table
+covers. As soon as the intense discomfort and nausea that had
+followed the first period of faintness had passed, Nancy had
+slipped off the shabby satin dress, made like the long-sleeved
+kitchen apron of New England extraction, and attired the child in a
+craftily simulated night-gown of table linen. Collier Pratt had
+worked with her, deftly supplementing all her efforts for his little
+girl's comfort until she had fallen into the exhausted sleep from
+which she was only now rousing and beginning to chatter. Her father
+had left her, still sleeping soundly, in Nancy's care, and gone
+off to keep an appointment with a prospective picture buyer. He had
+made no comment on Nancy's sudden impulsive offer to take the child
+in charge, and neither she nor he had referred to the matter again.
+
+"Are you comfortable now, Sheila?" Nancy asked. She had expected the
+child to have a French name, Suzanne or Japonette or something equally
+picturesque, but she realized as soon as she heard it that Sheila was
+much more suitable. The cloudy blue-black hair, and steel-blue eyes,
+the slight elongation of the space between the upper lip and nose, the
+dazzling satin whiteness of the skin were all Irish in their
+suggestion. Was the child's mother--that other natural protector of
+the child, who had died or deserted her--Nancy tried not to wonder too
+much which it was that she had done,--an Irish girl, or was Collier
+Pratt himself of that romantic origin?
+
+"_Oui_, Mademoiselle, I mean, yes, thank you. I do not think I will
+say to you Miss Martin. We only say their names like that to the
+people with whom we are not _intime_. We are _intime_ now, aren't we,
+now that I have been so very sick _chez vous_? In Paris the
+_concierge_ had a daughter that I called Mademoiselle Cherie, and we
+were _very intime_. I think I would like to call you Miss Dear in
+English after her."
+
+"I should like that very much," Nancy said.
+
+"I am glad the sick gentleman is called Gaspard. So many _messieurs_--I
+mean gentlemen in Paris are called Gaspard, and hardly any in the
+United States of America. American things are very different from
+things in Paris, don't you think so, Miss Dear?"
+
+"I'm afraid they are," Nancy acquiesced gravely.
+
+"I'm afraid they are too," the child said, "but afraid is what I try
+not to be of them. My father says America is full of beasts and
+devils, but he does not mind because he can paint them."
+
+"Do you live in a studio?" Nancy asked after a struggle to prevent
+herself from asking the question. She felt that she had no right to
+any of the facts about Collier Pratt's existence that he did not
+choose to volunteer for himself.
+
+"Yes, Miss Dear, but not like Paris. There we had a door that opened
+into a garden, and the birds sang there, and I was allowed to go and
+play. Here we have only a fire-escape, and the _concierge_ is only a
+janitor and will not allow us to keep milk bottles on it. I do not
+like a janitor. _Concierges_ have so much more _politesse_. Now, no
+one takes care of me when father goes out, or brings me soup or
+_gâteaux_ when he forgets."
+
+"Does he forget?" Nancy cried, horrified.
+
+"Sometimes. He forgets himself, too, very often except dinner. He
+remembers that because he likes to come to this Outside Inn
+restaurant, where the cooking is so good. He brought me here to-day
+because it was my birthday. I think the cooking is very good except
+that I was so sick of eating it, but father swore to-day that it was
+not."
+
+"Swore?"
+
+"He said damn. That is not very bad swearing. I think _nom de Dieu_ is
+worse, don't you, Miss Dear?"
+
+"I'm going to take you up in my arms," said Nancy with sudden passion.
+"I want to feel how thin you are, and I want to feel how you--feel."
+
+"Why, your eyes are wetting," the little girl exclaimed as she nestled
+contentedly against Nancy's breast, where Nancy had gathered her,
+converted table-cloth and all.
+
+"It's your not having enough to eat," Nancy cried. "Oh! baby child,
+honey. How could they? It's your calling me Miss Dear, too," she said.
+"I--I can't stand the combination."
+
+The child patted her cheek consolingly.
+
+"Don't cry," she said; "my father cries because I get so hungry, when
+he forgets, but he does forget again as soon."
+
+"Would you like to come and live with me, Sheila?" Nancy asked.
+
+"I think so, Miss Dear."
+
+"Then you shall," Nancy said devoutly.
+
+Collier Pratt found his child in Nancy's arms when he again mounted
+the stairs to the third floor of Outside Inn. The place was curiously
+cool to one who had been walking the sun-baked streets, and he gave an
+appreciative glance at the dim interior and the tableau of woman and
+child. Nancy's burnished head bent gravely over the shadowy dark one
+resting against her bosom.
+
+"All right again, is she?" he inquired with the slow rare smile that
+Nancy had not seen before that day.
+
+"Yes," Nancy said, "she's better. She's under-nourished, that's what
+the trouble is."
+
+"I suspected that," Collier Pratt said ruefully. "I'm not specially
+talented as a parent. I feed her passionately for days, and then I
+stop feeding her almost entirely. Artists in my circumstances eat
+sketchily at best. The only reason that I am fed with any regularity
+is that I have the habit of coming to this restaurant of yours. By the
+way, is it yours? I found you in charge to-day to my amazement."
+
+"I am in charge to-day," Nancy acknowledged; "in fact I have taken
+over the management of it for--for a friend."
+
+"The mysterious philanthropist."
+
+"Ye-es."
+
+"Then I will refrain from any comment on the lunch to-day."
+
+"Oh! that--that was a mistake," Nancy cried, "an experiment. Gaspard
+the _chef_--was ill."
+
+"He was very ill, father, dear," Sheila added gravely, "like crossing
+the Channel, much sicker than I was. I was only sick like crossing the
+ocean, you know."
+
+"These fine distinctions," Collier Pratt said, "she's much given to
+them." His eyes narrowed as they rested again on the picture Nancy
+made--the cool curve of her bent neck, the rise and fall of the
+breast in which the breathing had quickened perceptibly since his
+coming,--the child swathed in the long folds of white linen outlined
+against the Madonna blue of the dress that she was wearing. Nancy
+blushed under the intentness of his gaze, understanding, thanks to
+Caroline's report of his conversation with Betty, something of
+what was in his mind about her.
+
+"Gaspard is going to be taken away in an ambulance," the child said,
+"to the hospital."
+
+"Then who is going to cook my dinner?" Collier Pratt asked.
+
+"Good lord, I don't know," Nancy cried, roused to her responsibilities.
+
+She looked at the watch on her wrist, a platinum bracelet affair with
+an octagonal face that Dick had persuaded her to accept for a
+Christmas present by giving one exactly like it to Betty and Caroline.
+It was twenty-five minutes of five. Dinner was served every night
+promptly at half past six, and there was absolutely no preparation
+made for it, not so much as a loaf of bread ordered. Instead of doing
+the usual marketing in the morning she had sent Michael out for the
+things that she needed in the preparation of luncheon, and planned to
+make up a list of things that she needed for dinner just as soon as
+her midday duties in the kitchen had set her free. She thought that
+she would be more like Gaspard, "inspired to buy what is right" if she
+waited until the success of her luncheon had been assured. The ensuing
+events had driven the affairs of her cuisine entirely out of her mind.
+She was constrained by her native tendency to concentrate on the
+business in hand to the exclusion of all other matters, big and
+little. She had dismissed Betty during the excitement that followed
+Sheila's illness, and Betty had seemed unnaturally willing to leave
+the hectic scene and go about her business. Michael had made several
+ineffectual attempts to speak to her, but she had waved him away
+impatiently. She knew that neither he nor any one else on the
+restaurant staff would believe that she hadn't made some adequate and
+mysterious provision for the serving of the night meal. She had never
+failed before in the smallest detail of executive policy. She set the
+child back upon the cushion, and arranged her perfunctorily in
+position there.
+
+"I don't know _what_ you are going to have for dinner," she said,
+"much less who's going to cook it for you."
+
+"Perhaps I had better arrange to have it elsewhere, since this seems
+to be literally the cook's day out."
+
+"There'll be dinner," said Nancy uncertainly.
+
+Dick came up the stairs three at a time, and in his wake she heard the
+murmur of women's voices--Caroline's and Betty's.
+
+"I heard you were in difficulties," Dick said, "so I made Sister Betty
+and Caroline give up their perfectly good trip into the country, in
+order to come around and mix in."
+
+"I didn't know Betty was going driving with you," Nancy said. "She
+didn't say so. Oh! Dick, there isn't any dinner. I forgot all about
+it. This is Mr. Collier Pratt and his little daughter,--Mr. Richard
+Thorndyke. She's coming to live with me soon, I hope, and let Hitty
+take care of her."
+
+The two men shook hands.
+
+"Hold on a minute," Dick said, "that paragraph is replete with
+interest, but I want to get it assimilated. Sure, Betty was going
+driving with me. I told her to ask you if she thought it would be any
+use, but she allowed it wouldn't. I am delighted to meet Mr. Pratt,
+and pleased to know that his daughter is coming to live with you, but
+isn't that rather sudden? Also, what's this about there not being any
+dinner?"
+
+"There isn't," Nancy was beginning, when she realized that Caroline
+and Betty, who had followed closely on Dick's footsteps, were looking
+at her with faces pale with consternation and alarm. She could see the
+anticipatory collapse of Outside Inn writ large on Caroline's
+expressive countenance. Caroline was the type of girl who believed
+that in the very nature of things the undertakings of her most
+intimate friends were doomed to failure. "There isn't any dinner yet,"
+Nancy corrected herself, "but you go up to my place, Dick, and get
+Hitty. Tell her she's got to cook dinner for this restaurant to-night.
+She can cook three courses of anything she likes, and have _carte
+blanche_ in the kitchen. You have more influence with her than
+anybody, so, no matter what she says, make her do it. Then when she
+decides what she wants to cook, drive her around until she collects
+her ingredients. She won't let anybody do the marketing for her."
+
+"All right," Dick said, "I'll do my best."
+
+"You'll have to do more than that," Betty laughed as he started off,
+"but you're perfectly capable of it. How do you do, Mr. Pratt? This is
+Miss Eustace, pale with apprehension about the way things are going,
+but still recognizable and answering to her name." Betty always
+enjoyed introducing Caroline with an audacious flourish, since
+Caroline always suffered so much in the process.
+
+"And this is little Miss Sheila Pratt," Nancy supplemented.
+
+"_Enchanté_," the little girl said, "I mean, I am very pleased to meet
+you. I was very sick, but I am better now, and I am going to live with
+Miss Dear."
+
+"It seems to be settled," her father said, shrugging.
+
+"Would you mind it so very much?" Nancy asked.
+
+"I wouldn't mind it at all," Collier Pratt said. "I think it would be
+a delightful arrangement,--if I'm to take you seriously."
+
+"Nancy is always to be taken seriously," Betty put in. "What she
+really wants of the child is to use her for dietetic experiment, I'm
+sure."
+
+"That's what she's used to, poor child," Collier Pratt said ruefully.
+
+The removal of Gaspard created a diversion. Nancy took Sheila in to
+bid him good-by, and the great creature was so touched by the farewell
+kiss that she imprinted on his forehead, and the revelation of the
+fact that a fellow being had been suffering kindred throes in the
+chamber just beyond his own that he was of two minds about letting
+himself be moved at all from her proximity. A group of waitresses
+collected on the second landing, and Nancy and her friends stood
+together at the head of the stairs while the white-coated intern from
+the hospital rolled his great bulk upon a fragile-looking stretcher,
+and with the assistance of all the male talent in the establishment,
+managed to head him down the stairs, and so on across the court and
+into the waiting ambulance.
+
+Nancy's eyes filled with inexplicable tears, and she caught Collier
+Pratt regarding them with some amusement.
+
+"He's such a dear," she said somewhat irrelevantly. "I really didn't
+care whether he was sick or not this morning,--but you get so fond of
+people that are around all the time."
+
+"I don't," said Collier Pratt,--he spoke very lightly, but there was
+something in his tone that made Nancy want to turn and look at him
+intently. She seemed to see for the first time a shade of defiant
+cruelty in his face,--"I don't," he reiterated.
+
+"I do," Nancy repeated stubbornly, but as she met his slow smile, the
+slight impression of unpleasantness vanished.
+
+"We artists are selfish people," he said. "I'm going to run away now,
+and leave my daughter to cultivate your charming friends. Will you
+come and eat your dinner at my little table to-night, and talk,
+discuss this matter of her visit to you?"
+
+"I will if there is any dinner," Nancy said, putting out a throbbing
+hand to him.
+
+There was a dinner. It was Hitty's conception of an emergency
+meal--the kind of thing that her mother before her had prepared on
+wash-day when an unexpected relative alighted from the noon train, and
+surprised her into inadvertent hospitality. It began with steamed
+clams and melted butter sauce. Hitty knew a fish market where the
+clams were imported direct from Cape Cod by the nephew of a man who
+used to go to school with her husband's brother, and he warranted
+every clam she bought of him. They were served in soup plates and the
+drawn butter in demi-tasses, but Hitty would have it no other way. The
+_pièce de résistance_ was ham and eggs, great fragrant crispy slices
+of ham browned faintly gold across their pinky surface, and
+eggs--Hitty knew where to get country eggs, too--so white, so
+golden-yolked, so tempting that it was difficult to associate them
+with the prosaic process of frying, but fried they were. With them
+were served boiled potatoes in their jackets,--no wash-day cook ever
+removed the peeling from an emergency potato,--and afterward a course
+of Hitty's famous huckleberry dumplings, the lightest, most ephemeral
+balls of dumplings that were ever dipped into the blue-black deeps of
+hot huckleberry--not blueberry, but country huckleberry--sauce.
+
+"Where's the coffee?" Nancy asked Dolly miserably, when the
+humiliating meal was drawing to its close.
+
+"She won't make coffee," Dolly whispered; "she says it will keep
+everybody awake, and they're much better off without it, but Miss
+Betty, she's watching her chance, and she's making it."
+
+Collier Pratt had received each course in silence, but had eaten
+heartily of the food that was set before him.
+
+"I suppose he was hungry enough to eat anything," Nancy thought; "the
+lunch was humiliating enough, but this surpasses anything I dreamed
+of."
+
+She had given up trying to estimate the calories that each man was
+likely to average in partaking of Hitty's menu. She noticed that a
+great many of her patrons had taken second helpings, and that threw
+her out in her calculation of quantities, while the relative
+digestibility of the protein and the fats in pork depend so much upon
+its preparation that she could not approximate the virtue of Hitty's
+bill of fare without consultation with Hitty.
+
+"That was a very excellent dinner," Collier Pratt broke through her
+painful reverie to make his pronouncement. "Astonishing, but very
+satisfactory. It reminds me of days on my grandfather's farm when I
+was a youngster."
+
+"I should think it might," Nancy said, for the first time in her
+relation with her new friend becoming ironical on her own account.
+Then she added seriously, "It's Hitty, you know, that will have all
+the real care of Sheila. I'm pretty busy down here, and I--" she
+hesitated, half expecting him to threaten to remove his child at once
+from the prospective guardianship of a creature who reverted so
+readily to the barbarism of ham and eggs.
+
+"Well, if it's Hitty that is to have the care of Sheila," Collier
+Pratt said, and Nancy was not longer puzzled as to which element of
+her parentage Sheila owed her Irish complexion, "why, more power to
+her!"
+
+Nancy dreamed that night that she was married to Dick, and that Hitty
+made and served them _pâté de foies gras_ dumplings, while Collier
+Pratt in freckles and overalls sat in a high chair, and had his dinner
+with the family. Later it was discovered that Betty had poisoned his
+bread and milk, and he died in Nancy's arms in dreadful agony,
+swearing in a beautiful Irish brogue that in all his life he had never
+looked at another woman,--which even in her dream seemed to Nancy a
+somewhat irreconcilable statement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE PORTRAIT
+
+
+To Nancy's surprise Hitty welcomed the little girl warmly, when she
+was introduced into the family circle. She liked to be busy all day,
+and her duties in taking care of Nancy were not onerous enough to keep
+her full energy employed. She liked children and family life, and she
+seemed to have the feeling that if Nancy continued to assemble the
+various parts that go to make up a family, she would end by adding to
+it the essential masculine element, though it was Dick and not Collier
+Pratt that she visualized at the head of the table cutting up Sheila's
+meat for her. Collier Pratt was to her a necessary but insignificant
+detail in Nancy's scheme of things, a poor artist who had "frittered
+away so much time in furrin parts" that he was incapable of supporting
+his only child--"poor little motherless lamb!"--in anything like a
+befitting and adequate manner. Whenever he came to see Sheila she
+treated him with the condescension of a poor relation, and served his
+tea in the second best china with the kitchen silver and linen, unless
+Nancy caught her at it in time to demand the best.
+
+Nancy had expected that Collier Pratt would try to make some business
+arrangement with her when she took Sheila in charge,--that he would
+insist on paying her at least a nominal sum a week for the child's
+board. She had lain awake nights planning the conversations with him
+in which she would overcome his delicate but natural scruples in the
+matter and persuade him to her own way of thinking. She had even fixed
+on the smallest sum--two dollars and a half a week--at which she
+thought she might induce him to compromise, if all her eloquence
+failed. She knew that he considered her the hard working, paid manager
+of Outside Inn, and took it for granted that she had no other source
+of income. She was a little disconcerted that he made no effort,
+beyond thanking her sincerely and simply for her kindness, to put the
+matter on a more concrete basis, but when he told her presently that
+he was going to do a portrait of her, she scourged herself for her New
+England perspective on an affair that he handled with so much
+delicacy.
+
+Her friends were, on the whole, pleased with her experiment in
+vicarious motherhood. Dick instinctively resented the fact that Nancy
+had taken Collier Pratt's daughter into her home and heart, but the
+child herself was a delight to him, and he spent hours romping with
+her and telling her stories, loading her with toys and sweetmeats, and
+taking her off for enchanting holiday excursions "over the Palisades
+and far away." Billy was hardly less diverted with her, and Betty
+regarded her advent as a provision on the part of Providence against
+things becoming too commonplace. Caroline, as was her wont, took the
+child very seriously, and tried to interest Nancy in all the latest
+educational theories for her development, including posture dancing,
+and potato raising.
+
+Nancy herself had loved the child from the moment the big lustrous
+gray eyes opened, on the day of her sudden illness at Outside Inn, and
+looked confidingly up into hers. For the first time in her life her
+maternal ardor--the instinct which made her yearn to nourish and
+minister to a race--had concentrated on a single human being. Sheila,
+hungry for mothering, had turned to her with the simplicity of the
+people among whom she had been brought up, taking her sympathetic
+response as a matter of course; and the two were soon on the closest,
+most affectionate terms.
+
+Sheila and Outside Inn divided Nancy's time to the practical exclusion
+of all other interests. She had, without realizing her processes,
+taken into her life artificial responsibilities in almost exact
+proportion to the normal ones of any woman who makes the choice of
+marriage rather than that of a career. She was doing housekeeping on a
+large scale,--she had a child to care for, and she felt that she had
+entirely disproved any lingering feeling in the mind of any one
+associated with her that she ought to marry,--at least that she ought
+to marry Dick.
+
+No woman ought to marry for the sake of marrying, but she was growing
+to understand now that the experiences of love and marriage might be
+necessary to the true development of a woman like herself; that there
+might even be some tragedy in missing them. She was twenty-five,
+practically alone in the world, and the growing passion of her life
+was for a child that she had borrowed, and might be constrained to
+relinquish at any moment.
+
+She was tired. The unaccustomed confinement of the long hours at the
+Inn, the strain of enduring the thick, almost unalleviated heat of an
+exceptionally humid New York summer, and the tension engendered by her
+various executive responsibilities, all told on her physically, and
+her physical condition in its turn reacted on her mind, till she was
+conscious of a nostalgia,--a yearning and a hunger for something that
+she could not understand or name, but that was none the less
+irresistible. She fell into strange moods of brooding and lassitude;
+but there were two connections in which her spirit and ambition never
+failed her. She never failed of interest in the distribution of food
+values to her unconscious patrons, and incidentally to Collier Pratt,
+or in directing the activities and diversions of Sheila.
+
+She bathed and dressed the child with her own hands every morning,
+combed out the cloudy black hair, fine spun and wavy, that framed the
+delicate face, and accentuated the dazzling white and pink of her
+coloring. She had bought her a complete new wardrobe--she was spending
+money freely now on every one but herself--venturing on one dress at a
+time in fear and trepidation lest Collier Pratt should suddenly call
+her to account for her interference with his rights as a parent, but
+he seemed entirely oblivious of the fact that Sheila had changed her
+shabby studio black for the most cobwebby of muslins and linens,
+frocks that by virtue of their exquisite fineness cost Nancy
+considerably more than her own.
+
+"I say to my father, 'See the pretty new gown that Miss Dear bought
+for me,' and my father says to me, 'Comb your hair straight back from
+your brow, and don't let your arms dangle from your shoulders.'"
+Sheila complained, "He sees so hard the little things that nobody
+sees--and big things like a dress or a hat he does not notice."
+
+"Men are like that," Nancy said. "Last night when I put on my new
+rose-colored gown for the first time, your friend Monsieur Dick told
+me he had always liked that dress best of all."
+
+"_Comme il est drôle_, Monsieur Dick," Sheila said; "he asked me to
+grow up and marry him some day. He said I should sit on a cushion and
+sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream--like
+the poetry."
+
+"And what did you say?" Nancy asked.
+
+"I said that I thought I should like to marry him if I ever got to be
+big enough,--but I was afraid I should not be bigger for a long time.
+Miss Betty said she would marry him if I was _trop petite_."
+
+"What did Dick say to that?" Nancy could not forbear asking.
+
+"He said she was very kind, and maybe the time might come when he
+would think seriously of her offer."
+
+There was a feeling in Nancy's breast as if her heart had suddenly got
+up and sat down again. Betty bore no remotest resemblance to the pale
+kind girl, practically devoid of feminine allure, that Nancy had
+visualized as the mate for Dick, and frequently exhorted him to go in
+search of.
+
+"Miss Betty was only making a joke," she told Sheila sharply.
+
+"We were all making jokes, Miss Dear," Sheila explained.
+
+"I have never loved any one in the world quite so much as I love you,
+Sheila," Nancy cried in sudden passion as the little girl turned her
+face up to be kissed, as she always did when the conversation puzzled
+her.
+
+"I like being loved," Sheila said, sighing happily. "My father loves
+me,--when he is not painting or eating. He is very good to me, I
+think."
+
+"Your father is a very wise man, Sheila," Nancy said, "he understands
+beautiful things that other people don't know anything about. He looks
+at a flower and knows all about it, and--and what it needs to make it
+flourish. He looks at people that way, too."
+
+"But he doesn't always have time to get the flower what it wants,"
+Sheila said; "my jessamine died in Paris because he forgot to water
+them."
+
+"Your father needs taking care of himself, Sheila. We must plan ways
+of trying to make him more comfortable. Don't you think of something
+that he needs that we could get for him?"
+
+"More socks--he would like," Sheila said unexpectedly. "When his socks
+get holes in them he will not wear them. He stops whatever he is doing
+to mend them, and the mends hurt him. He mends my stockings, too,
+sometimes, but I like better the holes especially when he mends them
+on my feet."
+
+Sheila could have presented no more appealing picture of her father to
+Nancy's vivid imagination. Collier Pratt with the incongruous sewing
+equipment of the unaccustomed male, using, more than likely, black
+darning cotton on a white sock--Nancy's mental pictures were always
+full of the most realistic detail--bent tediously over a child's
+stocking, while the precious sunlight was streaming unheeded upon the
+waiting canvas. She darned very badly herself, but the desire was not
+less strong in her to take from him all these preposterous and
+unbefitting tasks, and execute them with her own hands. She stared at
+the child fixedly.
+
+"You buy him some socks out of your allowance," she said at last. Then
+she added an anxious and inadequate "Oh, dear!"
+
+"Aren't you happy?" Sheila asked in unconscious imitation of Dick,
+with whom she had been spending most of her time for days, while Nancy
+superintended the additions and improvements she was making in the
+up-stairs quarters of her Inn, preparatory to moving in for the
+winter.
+
+"Yes, I'm happy," Nancy said, "but I'm sort of--stirred, too. I wish
+you were my own little girl, Sheila. I think I'll take you with me to
+the Inn to-day. You might melt and trickle away if I left you alone
+here with Hitty."
+
+"_Quelle joie!_ I mean, how nice that will be! Then I can talk about
+Paris to Gaspard, and he will give me some baba, with a _soupçon of
+maraschine_ in the sauce, if you will tell him that I may, Miss Dear."
+
+"I'll think about it." It was Nancy's dearest privilege to be asked
+and grant permission for such indulgences. "Put on that floppy white
+hat with the yellow ribbon, and take your white coat."
+
+"When I had only one dress to wear I suppose I got just as dirty,"
+Sheila reflected, "only it didn't show on black satin. Now I can tell
+just how dirty I am by looking. I make lots of washing, Miss Dear."
+
+"Yes, thank heaven," Nancy said, unaccountably tearful of a sudden.
+
+The first part of the day at the Inn went much like other days.
+Gaspard, eager to retrieve the record of the week when Hitty and a
+Viennese pastry cook had divided the honors of preparing the daily
+menus between them--for Nancy had never again attempted the
+feat--never let a day go by without making a new _plat de jour_ or
+inventing a sauce; was in the throes of composing a new casserole, and
+it was a pleasure to watch him deftly sifting and sorting his
+ingredients, his artist's eyes aglow with the inward fire of
+inspiration. Nancy called all the waitresses together and offered
+them certain prizes and rewards for all the buttermilk, and prunes
+and other health dishes that they were able to distribute among
+ailing patrons,--with the result they were over assiduous at the
+luncheon hour, and a red-headed young man with gold teeth made a
+disturbance that it took both Hilda and Michael, who appeared
+suddenly in his overalls from the upper regions where he was
+constructing window-boxes, to quell. But these incidents were not
+sufficiently significant to make the day in any way a memorable
+one to Nancy. It took a telephone message from Collier Pratt,
+requesting, nay demanding, her presence in his studio for the first
+sitting on her portrait, to make the day stand out upon her calendar.
+
+"Sheila is with me. Shall I bring her?" Nancy asked.
+
+"No," Collier Pratt said uncompromisingly, "I am not a parent at this
+hour. She would disturb me."
+
+"What shall I wear?"
+
+"What have you got on?"
+
+"That blue crêpe, made surplice,--the one you liked the other night."
+
+"That's just what I want--Madonna blue. Can you get down here in
+fifteen minutes?"
+
+"Yes, I'll send Michael up-town with Sheila."
+
+The bare, ramshackle studio on Washington Square shocked her,--it was
+so comfortless, so dingy; but the canvases on the walls, set up
+against the wainscoting, stacked on every available chair, gave her a
+new and almost appalling impression of his personality, and the
+peculiar poignant power of him. She could not appraise them, or get
+any real sense of their quality apart from the astounding revelation
+of the man behind the work.
+
+"They're wonderful!" she gasped, but "You're wonderful" were the words
+she stifled on her lips.
+
+He painted till the light failed him.
+
+"It's this diffused glow,--this gentle, faded afternoon light that I
+want," he said. "I want you to emerge from your background as if you
+had bloomed out of it that very moment. Oh! I've got you at your hour,
+you know! The prescient maternal--that's what I want. The conscious
+moment when a woman becomes aware that she is potentially a mother.
+Sheila's done that for you. She's brought it out in you. It was ready,
+it was waiting there before, but now it's come. It's wonderful!"
+
+"Yes," Nancy said, "it's--it's come."
+
+"It hasn't been done, you know. It's a modern conception, of course;
+but they all do the thing realized, or incipient. I want to do it
+_implicit_--that's what I want. I might have searched the whole world
+over and not found it."
+
+"Well, here I am," said Nancy faintly.
+
+"Yes, here you are," Collier Pratt responded out of the fervor of his
+artist's absorption.
+
+"It's rather a personal matter to me," Nancy ventured some seconds
+later.
+
+Collier Pratt turned from the canvas he was contemplating, and looked
+at her, still posed as he had placed her, upright, yet relaxed in the
+scooped chair that held her without constraining her.
+
+"Like a flower in a vase," he said; "to me you're a wonderful
+creature."
+
+"I'm glad you like me," Nancy said, quivering a little. "This is a
+rather uncommon experience to me, you know, being looked at so
+impersonally. Now please don't say that I'm being American."
+
+"But, good God! I don't look at you impersonally."
+
+"Don't you?" Nancy meant her voice to be light, and she was appalled
+to hear the quaver in it.
+
+"You know I don't." He glanced toward a dun-colored curtain evidently
+concealing shelves and dishes. "Let's have some tea."
+
+"I can't stay for tea." Nancy felt her lips begin to quiver
+childishly, but she could not control their trembling. "Oh! I had
+better go," she said.
+
+Collier Pratt took one step toward her. Then he turned toward the
+canvas. Nancy read his mind like a flash.
+
+"You're afraid you'll disturb the--what you want to paint," she said
+accusingly.
+
+"I am." He smiled his sweet slow smile, then he took her stiff
+interlaced hands and raised them, still locked together, to his lips
+where he kissed them gently, one after the other. "Will you forgive
+me?" he asked, and pushed her gently outside of his studio door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BILLY AND CAROLINE
+
+
+It was one night in middle October when Billy and Caroline met by
+accident on Thirty-fourth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
+Caroline stood looking into a drug-store window where an automatic
+mannikin was shaving himself with a patent safety razor.
+
+"There's a wax feller going to bed in an automatic folding settee, a
+little farther down the street," Billy offered gravely at her elbow;
+"and on Forty-second Street there is a real live duck pond advertising
+the advantages of electric heaters in the home."
+
+"H'lo," said Caroline, who was colloquial only in moments of real
+pleasure or excitement. "I've just written to you. I asked you to come
+and see me to-morrow evening," she added more seriously, "to talk
+about something that's weighing on my mind."
+
+"I'm going out with a blonde to-morrow, night," Billy said speciously,
+"but what's the matter with to-night? I'm free until six-fifty A. M.
+and I could spare an hour or two between then and breakfast time."
+
+"I can't to-night," Caroline said, "I promised Nancy to dine at the
+Inn."
+
+"That wasn't your line at all," Billy groaned. "Who's the blonde?--that
+was your cue. If it's only Nancy you're dining with--that can be
+fixed."
+
+"I regard an engagement with Nancy as just as sacred as--"
+
+"So do I," Billy cut in. "She is the blonde. Well, let to-morrow night
+be as it may; let's you and I call up the Nancy girl now and tell her
+that we're going batting together; she won't care."
+
+"I don't like doing that," Caroline said; "it's a nice night for a
+bat, though."
+
+"I walked down Murray Hill and saw the sun set in a nice pinky gold
+setting," Billy said artfully. Caroline liked to have him get an
+artistic perspective on New York. "Let's walk down the avenue to the
+Café des Artistes and have Emincé Bernard, and a long wide high, tall
+drink of--ginger ale," he finished lamely.
+
+"We'd have to telephone Nancy," Caroline hesitated.
+
+Billy took her by the arm and guided her into the interior of the
+drug-store to the side aisle where the telephones were, and stepped
+into the first empty booth that offered. Caroline stopped him firmly
+as he was about to shut himself inside.
+
+"I'd rather hear what you say," she said.
+
+Billy slipped his nickel in the slot and took up the receiver.
+
+"Madison Square 3403 doesn't answer," Central informed him crisply
+after an interval.
+
+"Oh! Nancy, dear," Billy replied softly into her astonished ear.
+"Caroline and I are going off by ourselves to-night, you don't care,
+do you?"
+
+"Ringing thr-r-ree-four-o-thr-r-ee, Madison Square."
+
+"That's nice of you," Billy responded heartily. "I thought you'd say
+that."
+
+"Madison Square thr-r-ree-four-o-t-h-r-r-ree doesn't answer. Hang up
+your receiver and I'll call you if I get the party."
+
+"Of course I will. You're always so tactful in the way you put things,
+always so generous and kind and thoughtful. I can't tell you how much
+I appreciate it."
+
+"What did Nancy say?" Caroline asked, as they turned away from the
+booth.
+
+"You heard my end of the conversation," Billy said blandly. "You can
+deduce hers from it."
+
+"There was something about your end of the conversation that sounded
+queer to me somehow. It was odd that Central should have returned your
+nickel to you after you had talked so long."
+
+"Yes, wasn't it?" Billy asked innocently. "Well, I suppose mistakes
+will happen in the best regulated telephone companies."
+
+"I like you," Billy said contentedly, as the lights of the avenue
+strung themselves out before them. "I like walking down this royal
+thoroughfare with you. You're a kind of a neutral girl, but I like
+you."
+
+"You're a kind of ridiculous boy."
+
+"Don't you like me a little bit?"
+
+"Yes, a little."
+
+"What did you get engaged to me for if you only like me a little?"
+
+"Ought not to be engaged to you. That's one of the things I want to
+talk to you about."
+
+"Well, you are engaged to me, and that's one of the things I don't
+care to discuss--even with you."
+
+"Oh! Billy," Caroline sighed, "why can't we be just good friends and
+see a good deal of each other without this perpetual argument about
+getting married?"
+
+"I don't know why we can't, but we can't," Billy said firmly. "What
+was the other thing you wanted to talk to me about?"
+
+"Nancy's affairs. The reckless--the criminal way she is running that
+restaurant, and the unthinkable expenditure of money involved. I can't
+sleep at night thinking of it."
+
+"And I thought this was going to be a pleasant evening," Billy cried
+to the stars.
+
+"I wish you'd be serious about this," Caroline said. "Nancy's the best
+friend I have in the world, and she doesn't seem to be quite right in
+her mind, Billy. Of course, I approve of a good part of her scheme. I
+believe that she can be of incalculable value as a pioneer in an
+enterprise of this sort. Her restaurant is based on a strictly
+scientific theory, and every person who patronizes it gets a balanced
+ration, if he has the good sense to eat it as it's served."
+
+"And not leave any protein on his plate," Billy murmured.
+
+"I don't even mind the slight extra expenditure and the deficit that
+is bound to follow her theory of stuffing all her subnormal patrons
+with additional nourishment. That is charity. I believe in devoting a
+certain amount of one's income to charity, but what I mind about the
+whole proceeding is the crazy way that Nancy is running it. She's not
+even trying to break even. She orders all the delicacies of the
+season--no matter what they are. She's paid an incredible amount for
+the new set of carved chairs she has bought for up-stairs. You'd think
+she had an unlimited fortune behind her, instead of being in a
+position where the sheriff may walk in upon her any day."
+
+"Handy men to have around the house,--sheriffs. I knew a deputy
+sheriff once that helped the lady of the house do a baby wash while he
+was standing around in charge of the place. All the servants had
+deserted, and--"
+
+"You pretend to be Nancy's friend, and you're the only thing remotely
+approaching a lawyer that she has, and yet you can shake with joy at
+the thought of her going into bankruptcy."
+
+"That isn't what I'm shaking with joy about."
+
+"Nancy must have spent at least twice the amount of her original
+investment."
+
+"Just about," Billy agreed cheerfully.
+
+Caroline turned large reproachful eyes on him.
+
+"Billy, how can you?"
+
+"Listen to me, Caroline, honey love, it will be all right. Nancy isn't
+so crazy as she seems. She is running wild a little, I admit, but
+there's no danger of the sheriff or any other disaster. She knows what
+she's doing, and she's playing safe, though I admit it's an
+extraordinary game."
+
+"She's unhappy," Caroline said. "You don't suppose she's going to
+marry Dick to get out of the scrape, and that she's suffering because
+she's had to make that compromise."
+
+"No, I don't," said Billy.
+
+"I can't imagine anything more dreadful than to give up your
+career--your independence because you were beaten before you could
+demonstrate it."
+
+"Let's go right in here," Billy said, guiding her by the arm through
+the door of the grill of the Café des Artistes which she was ignoring
+in her absorption.
+
+It was early but the place was already crowded with the assortment of
+upper cut Bohemians, Frenchmen, and other discriminating diners to
+whom the café owed its vogue. Billy and Caroline found a snowy table
+by the window, a table so small that it scarcely seemed to separate
+them.
+
+"If it's Dick that Nancy's depending on," Caroline shook out her
+mammoth napkin vigorously, "then I think the whole situation is
+dreadful."
+
+"I don't see why," Billy argued; "have him to fall back on--that's
+what men are for."
+
+"Your opinion of women, Billy Boynton, just about tallies with the
+most conservative estimate of the Middle Ages."
+
+"Charmed, I'm sure," he grinned, then his evil genius prompting, he
+continued. "Isn't that just about what you have me for--to fall back
+on? You're fond of me. You know I'll be there if the bottom drops out.
+You're sure of me, and you're holding me in reserve against the time
+when you feel like concentrating your attention on me."
+
+"Is that what you think?"
+
+"Sure, it's the way it is. If I haven't got any kick coming I don't
+see why you should have any. You're worth it to me. That's the
+point."
+
+Caroline opened her lips to speak, and then thought better of it. The
+dangerous glint in her pellucid hazel eyes was lost on Billy. He was
+watching the clear cool curve of her cheek, the smooth brown hair
+brushed up from the temple, and tucked away under the smart folds of a
+premature velvet turban.
+
+"I like those mouse-colored clothes of yours," he said contentedly.
+
+"I think the only reason a woman should marry a man is that
+she--she--"
+
+"Likes him?" Billy suggested.
+
+"No, that she can be of more use in the world married than single. She
+can't be that unless she's going to marry a man who is entirely in
+sympathy with her point of view."
+
+"That I know to be unsound," Billy said. "Caroline, my love, this is a
+bat. Can't we let these matters of the mind rest for a little? See,
+I've ordered _Petite Marmite_, and afterward an artichoke, and all the
+nice fattening things that Nancy won't let me eat."
+
+"I wish you'd tell me about Nancy," Caroline said. "It makes a lot of
+difference. You haven't any idea how much difference it makes."
+
+"See the nice little brown pots with the soup in them," Billy implored
+her. "Cheese, too, all grated up so fine and white. Sprinkle it in
+like little snow-flakes."
+
+But in spite of all Billy's efforts the evening went wrong after that.
+Caroline was wrapped in a mantle of sorrowful meditation the opacity
+of which she was not willing to let Billy penetrate for a moment.
+After they had dined they took a taxi-cab up-town and danced for an
+hour on the smooth floor of one of the quieter hotels. Billy's dancing
+being of that light, sure, rhythmic quality that should have installed
+him irrevocably in the regard of any girl who had ever danced with a
+man who performed less admirably. Caroline liked to dance and fell in
+step with an unexpected docility, but even in his arms, dipping,
+pivoting, swaying to the curious syncopation of modern dance time, she
+was as remote and cool as a snow maiden.
+
+At the table on the edge of the dancing platform where they sat
+between dances, Billy pledged her in nineteen-four _Chablis Mouton_.
+
+"This is what you look like," he said, holding up his glass to the
+light, "or perhaps I ought to say what you act like,--clear, cold
+stuff,--lovely, but not very sweet."
+
+"If it's Dick,"--Caroline refused to be diverted--"Nancy is merely
+taking the easiest way out. Just getting married because she hasn't
+the courage to go through any other way. She and Dick have hardly a
+taste in common--they don't even read the same books."
+
+"What difference does that make?"
+
+"If you don't know I can't tell you. When you see somebody else in
+danger of following the same course of action that you, yourself, are
+pursuing," she added cryptically, "it puts a new face on your own
+affairs."
+
+"Oh! let's get out of here," Billy said, signaling for his check.
+
+Caroline lived, for the summer while her family were away, in an
+elaborate Madison Avenue boarding-house. The one big room into
+which the entrance gave, dim and palatial in effect--at least in
+the light of the single gas-jet turned economically low--seemed
+scarcely to present a departure from its prototype, the great
+living hall of the private residence for which the house was
+originally designed. It was only on the second floor that the
+character of the establishment became unmistakable. Billy took
+Caroline's latchkey from her,--she usually opened the door for
+herself--and let her quietly into the dim interior. Then he
+stepped inside himself, and closed the door gently after him.
+Being a man he entirely failed to note the drift of psychological
+straws that indicated the sudden sharp turn of the wind, and the
+presage of storm in the air. He was thinking only of the illusive,
+desirable, maddening quality of the girl that walked beside him,
+filled with inexplicable forebodings for a friend, whom he knew to
+be invulnerable to misfortune. Certain phrases of Dick's were ringing
+in his ears to the exclusion of all more immediate conversational
+fragments.
+
+"Cave-man stuff--that's the answer to you and Caroline.... This
+watchful waiting's entirely the wrong idea...."
+
+Billy made a great lunge toward the figure of his fiancée, and caught
+her in his arms.
+
+"I've never really kissed you before," he cried, "now I shan't let you
+go."
+
+She struggled in his arms, but he mastered her. He covered her cool
+brow with kisses, her hands, the lovely curve of her neck where the
+smooth hair turned upward, and at last--her lips.
+
+"You're mine, my girl," he exulted, "and nothing, nothing, nothing
+shall ever take you away from me now."
+
+There was a click in the latch of the door through which they had just
+entered. Another belated boarder was making his way into the domicile
+which he had chosen as a substitute for the sacred privacy of home.
+Caroline tore herself out of Billy's arms just in time to exchange
+greetings with the incoming guest with some pretense of composure. He
+was a fat man with an umbrella which clattered against the balusters
+as he ascended the carved staircase.
+
+"Caught with the goods," Billy tried to say through lips stiffened in
+an effort at control.
+
+Caroline turned on him, her face blazing with anger, the transfiguring
+white rage of the woman whose spiritual fastnesses have been invaded
+through the approach of the flesh.
+
+"There is no way of my ever forgiving you," she said. "No way of my
+ever tolerating you, or anything you stand for again. You are
+utterly--utterly--utterly detestable in my eyes."
+
+"Is--is that so?" Billy stammered, dizzied by the suddenness of the
+onslaught.
+
+"I--I've got some decent hold on my pride and self-respect--even if
+Nancy hasn't, and I'm not going to be subjugated like a cave woman by
+mere brute force either."
+
+"Aren't you?" said Billy weakly, his mind in a whirl still from the
+lightning-like overthrow of all his theories of action.
+
+"I'm not going to do what Nancy is going to do, just out of sheer
+temperamental weakness, and--and tendency to follow the line of least
+resistance."
+
+Billy had no idea of the significance of her last phrase, and let it
+go unheeded. Caroline turned and walked away from him, her head high.
+
+"But, good lord, Nancy isn't going to do it," he called after her
+retreating figure, but all the answer he got was the silken swish of
+her petticoat as she took the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MORE CAVE-MAN STUFF
+
+
+When Nancy left Collier Pratt's studio on the day of her first sitting
+for the portrait he was to do of her, she never expected to enter it
+again. She was in a panic of hurt pride and anger at his handling of
+the situation that had developed there, and in a passion of
+self-disgust that she had been responsible for it.
+
+It was a simple fact of her experience that the men she knew valued
+her favors, and exerted themselves to win them. She had always had
+plenty of suitors, or at least admirers who lacked only a few smiles
+of encouragement to make suitors of them, and she was accustomed to
+the consideration of the desirable woman, whose privilege it is to
+guide the conversation into personal channels, or gently deflect it
+therefrom. An encounter in which she could not find her poise was as
+new as it was bewildering to her.
+
+From the moment that she had begun to realize Collier Pratt's
+admiration for her she had scarcely given a thought to any other man.
+With the insight of the artist he had seen straight into the heart of
+Nancy's secret--the secret that she scarcely knew herself until he
+translated it for her, the most obvious secret that a prescient
+universe ever throbbed with,--that a woman is not fulfilled until she
+is a mate and a mother. The nebulous urge of her spirit had been
+formulated. In Nancy's world there was no abstract sentimentality--if
+this man indulged himself in emotional regret for her frustrated
+womanhood--she called it that to herself--it must in some way concern
+him. She had never in her life been troubled by a condition that she
+was not eager to ameliorate, and she could not conceive of an
+emotional interest in an individual disassociated from a certain
+responsibility for that individual's welfare. She took Collier Pratt's
+growing tenderness for her for granted, and dreamed exultant dreams of
+their romantic association.
+
+The scene in the studio had shocked her only because he put his art
+first. He had taken a lover's step toward her, and then glancing at
+the crudely splotched canvas from which his ideal of her was presently
+to emerge, he had thought better of it, soothing her with caresses as
+if she were a child, and like a child dismissing her. She felt that
+she never wanted to see again the man who could so confuse and
+humiliate her. But this mood did not last. As the days went on, and
+she feverishly recapitulated the circumstances of the episode, she
+began to feel that it was she who had failed to respond to the
+beautiful opportunity of that hour. She had inspired the soul of an
+artist with a great concept of womanhood, and had, in effect, demanded
+an immediate personal tribute from him. He had been wise to deflect
+the emotion that had sprung up within them both. After the picture was
+done--. She became eager to show him that she understood and wanted to
+help him conserve the impression of her from which his inspiration had
+come, and when he asked her to go to the studio again the following
+week she rejoiced that she had another chance to prove to him how
+simply she could behave in the matter.
+
+She looked in the mirror gravely every night after she had done her
+hair in the prescribed pig-tails to try to determine whether or not
+the look he had discovered in her face was still there,--the look of
+implicit maternity that she had been fortunate enough to reflect and
+symbolize for him,--but she was unable to come to any decision about
+it. Her face looked to her much as it had always looked--except that
+her brow and temples seemed to have become more transparent and the
+blue veins there seemed to be outlined with an even bluer brush than
+usual.
+
+She was busier than she had ever been in her life. The volume of her
+business was swelling. With the return of the native to the city of
+his adoption--there is no native New Yorker in the strict sense of the
+word--Outside Inn was besieged by clamorous patrons. Gaspard, with the
+adaptability of his race, had evolved what was practically a perfect
+system of presenting the balanced ration to an unconscious populace,
+and the populace was responding warmly to his treatment. It had taken
+him a little time to gauge the situation exactly, to adapt the supply
+to the idiosyncrasies of the composite demand, but once he had
+mastered his problem he dealt with it inspiredly. His southern
+inheritance made it possible for him to apprehend if he could not
+actually comprehend the taste of a people who did not want the flavor
+of nutmeg in their cauliflower, and who preferred cocoanut in their
+custard pie, and he realized that their education required all the
+diplomacy and skill at his command.
+
+Nancy found him unexpectedly intelligent about the use of her tables.
+He grasped the essential fact that the values of food changed in the
+process of cooking, and that it was necessary to Nancy's peace of mind
+to calculate the amount of water absorbed in preparing certain
+vegetables, and that the amount of butter and cream introduced in
+their preparation was an important factor in her analysis. He also
+nodded his head with evident appreciation when she discoursed to him
+of the optimum amount of protein as opposed to the actual requirements
+in calories of the average man, but she never quite knew whether the
+matter interested him, or his native politeness constrained him to
+listen to her smilingly as long as she might choose to claim his
+attention. But the fact remained that there was no such cooking in any
+restaurant in New York of high or low degree, as that which Gaspard
+provided, and as time went on, and he realized that expense was not a
+factor in Nancy's conception of a successfully conducted restaurant,
+the reputation of Outside Inn increased by leaps and bounds.
+
+To Nancy's friends--with the exception, of course, of Billy, who was
+in her confidence--the whole business became more and more puzzling.
+Caroline, her susceptibility to vicarious distress being augmented by
+the sensitiveness of her own emotional state, yearned and prayed over
+her alternately. Betty, avid of excitement, spent her days in the
+pleasurable anticipation of a dramatic bankruptcy. It was on Dick,
+however, that the actual strain came. He saw Nancy growing paler and
+more ethereal each day, on her feet from morning till night
+manipulating the affairs of an enterprise that seemed to be assuming
+more preposterous proportions every hour of its existence. He made
+surreptitious estimates of expenditures and suffered accordingly,
+approximating the economic unsoundness of the Inn by a very close
+figure, and still Nancy kept him at arm's length and flouted all his
+suggestions for easing, what seemed to him now, her desperate
+situation.
+
+He managed to pick her up in his car one day with Sheila, and
+persuaded her to a couple of hours in the open. She was on her way
+home from the Inn, and had meant to spend that time resting and
+dressing before she went back to consult with Gaspard concerning the
+night meal. She had no complaint to make now of the usurpation of her
+authority or the lack of actual executive service that was required of
+her. With the increase in the amount of business that the Inn was
+carrying she found that every particle of her energy was necessary to
+get through the work of the day.
+
+"I'm worried about you," Dick said, as they took the long ribbon of
+road that unfurled in the direction of Yonkers, and Nancy removed her
+hat to let the breeze cool her distracted brow. His man Williams, was
+driving.
+
+"Well, don't tell me so," she answered a trifle ungraciously.
+
+"Miss Dear is cross to-day," Sheila explained. "The milk did not come
+for Gaspard to make the poor people's custard, _crême renversé_, he
+makes--deliciously good, and we give it to the clerking girls."
+
+"The buttermilk cultures were bad," Nancy said. "And I wasn't able to
+get any of the preparations of it, that I can trust. There are one or
+two people that ought to have it every day and their complexions show
+it if they don't."
+
+"I suppose so," Dick said, with a grimace.
+
+"These people who have worked in New York all summer have run pretty
+close to their margin of energy. You've no idea what a difference a
+few calories make to them, or how closely I have to watch them, and
+when I have to substitute an article of diet for the thing they've
+been used to, it's awfully hard to get them to take it."
+
+"I should think it might be," Dick said. "It's true about people who
+have worked in New York all summer, though. I have--and you have."
+
+"Oh! I'm all right," Nancy said.
+
+"So am I," Sheila said, "and so is Monsieur Dick, _n'est-ce pas_?"
+
+"_Vraiment, Mademoiselle."_
+
+"Father isn't very right, though. Even when Miss Dear has all the
+beautiful things in the most beautiful colors in the world cooked for
+him and sent to him, he won't eat them unless she comes and sits
+beside him and begs him."
+
+"He's very fond of _sauce verte_," Nancy said hastily, "and _apricot
+mousse_ and _cèpes et pimentos_, things that Gaspard can't make for
+the regular menu,--bright colored things that Sheila loves to look
+at."
+
+"He likes _petit pois avec laitue_ too and _haricot coupé_, and
+_artichaut mousselaine_. Sometimes when he does not want them Miss
+Dear eats them."
+
+"I'm glad they are diverted to some good use," Dick said.
+
+"I've been looking into the living conditions of my waitresses." Nancy
+changed the subject hastily. "Did you realize, Dick, that the
+waitresses have about the unfairest deal of any of the day laborers?
+They're not organized, you know. Their hours are interminable, the
+work intolerably hard, and the compensation entirely inadequate.
+Moreover, they don't last out for any length of time. I'm trying out a
+new scheme of very short shifts. Also, I'm having a certain sum of
+money paid over to them every month from my bank. If they don't know
+where it comes from it can't do them any harm. That is, I am not
+establishing a precedent for wages that they won't be able to earn
+elsewhere. I consider it immoral to do that."
+
+"You are paying them an additional sum of money out of your own
+pocket? You told me you paid them the maximum wage, anyhow, and they
+get lots of tips."
+
+"Oh! but that's not nearly enough."
+
+"Nancy," Dick said dramatically, "where do you get the money?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," Nancy said, "it comes along. The restaurant makes
+some."
+
+"Very little."
+
+"I could make it pay any time that I wanted to."
+
+"Sometimes I wonder if you are in full possession of your senses."
+
+"Caroline is affected that way, too. I feel that she is likely to get
+an alienist in at any time. She is so earnest in anything she
+undertakes. She and Billy have had a scrap, did you know it?"
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"Billy wants to marry her, and he has shocked her delicate feelings by
+suggesting it to her."
+
+"I imagine you have a good deal to do with her feelings on the
+subject," Dick said gloomily. "I suppose at heart you don't believe in
+marriage, or think you don't and you've communicated the poison to
+Caroline."
+
+"I've done nothing of the kind," Nancy insisted warmly. "I do believe
+in marriage with all my heart. I think the greatest service any woman
+can render her kind in this mix-up age is to marry one man and make
+that marriage work by taking proper scientific care of him and his
+children."
+
+"This is news to me," Dick said. "I thought that _you_ thought that
+the greatest service a woman could do was to run Outside Inn, and
+stuff all the derelicts with calories."
+
+"That's a service, too."
+
+"Sure."
+
+They were out beyond the stately decay of the up-town drive, with its
+crumbling mansions and the disheveled lawns surrounding them, beyond
+the view of the most picturesque river in the world, though,
+comparatively speaking, the least regarded, covering the prosaic
+stretch of dusty road between Van Courtland Park and the town of
+Yonkers.
+
+"I like the _Bois_ better," Sheila said, "but I like Central Park
+better than the _Champs Elyseés_. In Paris the children are not so gay
+as the grown-up people. Here it is the grown-up people who are without
+smiles on the streets."
+
+"Why is that, Dick?" Nancy asked.
+
+"That's always true of the maturer races, the gaiety of the French is
+appreciative enthusiasm,--if I may invent a phrase. The children
+haven't developed it."
+
+"I would like to have my hand held, Monsieur Dick," Sheila announced.
+"I always feel homesick when I think about Paris. I was so contente
+and so _malheureuse_ there."
+
+"Why were you unhappy, sweetest?" Nancy asked.
+
+"My father says I am never to speak of those things, and so I
+don't--even to Miss Dear, my _bien aimée_."
+
+Dick lifted Sheila into his lap, he took the hand that still clung to
+Nancy's in his warm palm, and held them both there caressingly.
+
+"My _bien aimée_," he said softly.
+
+Beyond the town a more gracious and magnificent country revealed
+itself; lovely homes set high on sweeping terraces, private parks and
+gardens and luxuriant estates, all in a blaze of October radiance with
+the glorious pigments of the season.
+
+"Isn't it time to go back?" Nancy asked.
+
+"Not yet," Dick said. "I want to show you something. There's an old
+place here I want you to see. That colonial house set way back in the
+trees there."
+
+"Williams is driving in," Nancy said as they approached it.
+
+"He's been here before."
+
+"Are we going to get out?" Sheila asked.
+
+Dick was already opening the door of the tonneau and assisting Nancy
+out of the car.
+
+"I'm going to leave Sheila with Williams, and take you over the house,
+Nancy. She'll be more interested in the grounds than she would in the
+interior. I want you to see the inside."
+
+He took a key out of his pocket, and unlocked the stately door.
+Everything about the place was gigantic, stately,--the huge columns
+that supported the roof of the porch, the big elms that flanked it,
+and the great entrance hall, as they stepped into its majestic
+enclosure.
+
+"It's a biggish sort of place, isn't it?" Nancy said.
+
+"But it's rather lovely, don't you think so?" Dick asked anxiously.
+"These old places are getting increasingly hard to find,--real old
+homes, dignified and beautiful, within a reasonable distance from
+town."
+
+"It is lovely," Nancy said, "it could be made perfectly wonderful to
+live in. I can see this big hall--furnished in mahogany or even carved
+oak that was old enough. Thank heaven, we're no longer slaves to a
+_period_ in our decorating; we can use anything that's beautiful and
+suitable and not intrinsically incongruous with a clear conscience."
+
+"Come up-stairs."
+
+Nancy lingered on the landing of the fine old staircase, white
+banistered with a mahogany hand-rail, that turned only once before it
+led into the region up-stairs.
+
+"I'd rather see the kitchen," she said.
+
+"The kitchen isn't the thing that I'm proudest of. Its plumbing is
+early English, or Scottish, I'm afraid. I think this arrangement up
+here is delightful. See these front suites, one on either side of the
+hall. Bedroom, dressing-room, sitting-room. Which do you like best? I
+thought perhaps I might take the one that overlooks the orchard."
+
+Nancy stopped still on her way from window to window.
+
+"Dick Thorndyke, whose house _is_ this?" she demanded.
+
+"Mine."
+
+"Yours--have you bought it?"
+
+"Yes, I put the deed in my safe deposit vault yesterday. Come in
+here. Isn't this a cunning little guest chamber nested in the
+trees? Be becoming to Betty's style of beauty, wouldn't it?" He
+held the door open for her ingratiatingly, and she passed under
+his arm perfunctorily.
+
+"What on earth did you buy a house like this for?"
+
+"I thought you might like it."
+
+"I--what have I to do with it?"
+
+Dick turned the rusty key in the lock deliberately, and put it in his
+pocket, thus closing them into the little musty room which had no
+other exit. A branch of flaming maple leaves tapped lightly on the
+window.
+
+"You've a whole lot to do with it, Nancy," he said. "It's yours, and
+I'm yours, and I want to know how much longer you're going to hedge."
+
+"I'm not hedging," Nancy blazed. "Take that key out of your pocket.
+This is moving-picture stuff."
+
+"I know it is. I can't get you to talk to me any other way, so I
+thought I'd try main force for a change."
+
+"Well, it is a change," she agreed. "Shall I begin to scream now, or
+do you intend to give me some other provocation?"
+
+"Don't be coarse, darling." There is a certain disadvantage in having
+known the woman who is the object of your tenderest emotions all your
+life, and to be on terms of the most familiar badinage with her. Dick
+was feeling this disadvantage acutely at the moment. He took a step
+toward her, and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Nancy, don't you
+love me?" he said, "don't you really?"
+
+"No," Nancy said deliberately, "I don't, and you know very well I
+don't. Unlock that door, and let's be sensible."
+
+"Don't you know, dear, or care that you're hurting me?"
+
+"No, I don't," Nancy said. "You say so, and I hear you, but I don't
+really believe it. If I did--"
+
+"If you did--what?"
+
+"Then I'd be sorrier."
+
+"You aren't sorry at all, as it stands."
+
+"I find it's awfully hard to be sorry for you, Dick, in any
+connection. There's really nothing pathetic about you, no matter how
+tragic you think you are being. You're rich and lucky and healthy. You
+have everything you want--"
+
+"Not everything."
+
+"And you live the way you want to, and eat the food you want to--"
+
+"The ruling passion."
+
+"And make the jokes you want to." Nancy literally stuck up a saucy
+nose at him. "There is really nothing that I could contribute to your
+happiness. I mean nothing important. You are not a poor man whom I
+could help to work his way up to the top, or a genius that needs
+fostering, or a--"
+
+"Dyspeptic that needs putting on a special diet,--but for all that I
+do need a mother's love, Nancy."
+
+"I don't believe you do," Nancy said, a trifle absently. "Unlock the
+door, Dick. I don't think Sheila put on that sweater when I told her
+to, and I'm afraid she'll get cold."
+
+"Kiss me, Nancy."
+
+"Will you unlock the door if I do?"
+
+"Yes'um."
+
+Nancy put up cool fragrant lips to meet a brother's kiss, and for the
+moment was threatened with a second salute that was very much less
+fraternal, but the danger passed. Dick unlocked the door and let her
+pass him without protest.
+
+"If you had been any other girl," he mused, as they went down the
+stairs together companionably, "you wouldn't have got away with
+that."
+
+"With what?" Nancy asked innocently.
+
+"If you don't know," Dick said, "I won't tell you. If you'd been any
+other girl I should have thrown that key out of the window when you
+began to sass me."
+
+"And then?" Nancy inquired politely.
+
+"And then," Dick replied finally and firmly.
+
+"Are there any other girls?" Nancy asked, faintly curious, as they
+stood on the deep steps of the porch waiting for Sheila and Williams
+who were emerging from the middle entrance.
+
+Dick met her glance a little solemnly, and hesitated for a perceptible
+instant.
+
+"Are there, Dick?" she insisted.
+
+"Yes, dear," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE HAPPIEST DAY
+
+
+It was thoroughly characteristic of Nancy to turn her back on the most
+significant facts of her experience, and occupy herself exclusively
+with its by-products. She refused to consider herself as an heiress
+entitled to spend money lavishly for her own uses, but she squandered
+it on her pet enterprise. She dismissed the idea that Dick, whom she
+neglected to discourage as decisively as her growing interest in
+another man would seem to warrant, had bought a country estate for the
+sole purpose of ensconcing her there as mistress. She dreamed of
+Collier Pratt and his ideal of her, and presented herself punctually
+at his studio as a model for that ideal, while ignoring absolutely the
+fact that he was nearly a hundred dollars in debt to her for meals
+served at Outside Inn. She had sufficient logic and common sense to
+apply to these matters, and sufficient imagination to handle them
+sympathetically, had she chosen to consider them at all, but she did
+not choose. She was deep in the adventure of her existence as
+differentiated from its practical working out.
+
+The day Collier Pratt finished his portrait of her she was not alone
+in the studio with him. Sheila, in a fluffy white dress with a floppy
+black satin hat framing her poignant little face, was omnipresent at
+the interview which succeeded the actual two hours of absorption when
+he put in the last telling strokes.
+
+"It's done," he said, as he set aside pigments and brushes, and
+divested himself of his painting apron. "I don't want to look at it
+now. I've got it, but I can't stand the strain of contemplating it
+till my brain cools a trifle. Let's go out and celebrate."
+
+"Where shall we go?" Nancy said. This was the moment she had dreamed
+of for weeks, the hour of fruition when the work was done, and they
+could face each other, man and woman again with no strip of canvas
+between them.
+
+"The place I always go when I've finished a picture is a little café
+under the shadow of _Notre Dame_, where I get cakes and beer and an
+excellent perspective on all my favorite gargoyles."
+
+"And the little birds flutter in the sun, and eat my crumbs and the
+great music swells out while you ask the _garçon_ for another _bock_.
+Do you remember, father dear, the day that _she_ found us there?"
+
+"I remember only that you made yourself ill eating _Madelaines_ and
+had to be taken home _en voiture_," Collier Pratt said quickly. "We
+will go and have some coffee at the Café des Artistes, and discuss
+ships and shoes and sealing wax--anything but the art of painting."
+
+"And cabbages and kings," Sheila contributed ecstatically. "I used to
+think when I was a very little girl and couldn't read English very
+well that it was really Heaven where Alice went, and it made me sad to
+think she was dead and I didn't understand it, but now Miss Dear has
+explained to me."
+
+"Miss Dear has made a good many things clear to us both," Collier
+Pratt said, but he said no more that might be even remotely construed
+as referring to the issue between them, and Nancy finished out her day
+with dragging limbs and an aching empty heart that a word of
+tenderness would have filled to running over.
+
+But after her work for the day was done, and she was back in her own
+apartment with Sheila tucked snugly in bed, and Hitty out for the
+night with a sick friend, there came the touch on her bell that she
+knew was Collier Pratt's; and she opened the door to find him standing
+on her threshold.
+
+"I knew you'd come," she said, as women always say to the man they
+have that hour given up looking for.
+
+"I wasn't sure I would," Collier Pratt said, "but I did, you see."
+
+"Why weren't you sure?" She stood beside him in her little rectangular
+hall while he divested himself of his cape, and placed his hat, stick
+and gloves in orderly sequence on the oak settee beside it. She liked
+to watch the precision with which he always arranged these things.
+
+"Why should I be sure?" He turned and faced her. "Miss Dear," he said
+to himself softly, "Miss Dear," and she saw that in his eyes which
+made the moment simpler for her to bear.
+
+She led the way into her drawing-room.
+
+"Light the candles," he said, "this firelight is too good to drown in
+a flood of electric light!"
+
+"Is that better?" she asked.
+
+They were standing before the fireplace; the embers had burned to a
+gentle glowing radiance. Of the four candles she had lighted, the wick
+of only one had taken fire and was burning. Nancy's breath caught in
+her throat, and she could not steady it. Collier Pratt took a step
+forward and held out his arms.
+
+"No, this is better," he said.
+
+"I thought there was some place in the world where I could
+be--comfortable," Nancy said, when she finally lifted her head from
+the shoulder of the shabby, immaculate black suit, "but I wasn't quite
+sure."
+
+"Are you sure now, you little wonder woman?" He held her at the length
+of his arm for a moment and gazed curiously into her face. Then he
+drew her slowly toward him again. She met his kiss bravely, so bravely
+that he understood the quality of her courage.
+
+"I didn't realize that this would be the first time," he said.
+
+"There couldn't have been any other time," Nancy breathed, "you know
+that."
+
+"I didn't know," Collier Pratt said thoughtfully. "Oh! you little
+American girls, with your strange, straight-laced little bodies and
+your fearless souls!"
+
+"Betty told you something," Nancy cried, scarcely hearing him, "but it
+wasn't true. There never has been anybody else." She put her head down
+on his shoulder again. "It is comfortable here," she said, "where I
+belong."
+
+She felt the sudden passion sweep through him,--the high avid wave of
+tenderness and desire,--and she exulted as all purely innocent women
+exult when that madness surges first through the veins of the man they
+love. He put his hands on her shoulders and pressed her into the
+armchair by the fire, and there she took his head on her breast and
+understood for all time what it means for a woman to be called the
+mother of men.
+
+"You wonder woman," he murmured again.
+
+She brushed the dark hair back from his forehead and kissed his eyes.
+"You dear," she said, "you boy, you little boy."
+
+Suddenly through the darkness came the sound of a shrill cry, and the
+thud of a fall in some room down the corridor.
+
+"It's Sheila," Nancy said, "she has those little nightmares and falls
+out of bed."
+
+"I know she does," Collier Pratt said, "but she picks herself up
+again."
+
+"Not always," Nancy said; "don't you want to come in and help me put
+her back?"
+
+"I do not," Collier Pratt said with unnecessary emphasis.
+
+Nancy was of two minds about picking the child up in her little white
+night-gown and bringing her out to her father, flushed and lovely with
+sleep as she was. It was Collier Pratt's baby she had in her arms; her
+charge, the child she loved, and the child of the man she loved, a
+part of the miracle that was slowly revealing itself to her; but a
+sudden sharp instinct warned her that her impulse was ill-timed.
+
+"I had forgotten the child was here," Collier Pratt said when she
+returned to him.
+
+"I hadn't," Nancy said happily.
+
+"I suppose she has to be somewhere, poor little wretch," he said.
+"She's an extraordinarily picturesque baby, isn't she?"
+
+Nancy crept nearer to him. He stood leaning against the mantel and
+frowning slightly, but he made no move toward her again.
+
+"She doesn't have nightmares often now," Nancy said with stiffening
+lips. "She used to have them almost every night, but by watching her
+diet carefully we have practically eliminated them."
+
+"The Hitty person doesn't like me," Collier Pratt said. "_Pas du
+tout_. She treats me as if I were a book agent."
+
+"She loves Sheila, she--she'd do anything for her."
+
+"The women who do not find me attractive are likely to find me quite
+conspicuously otherwise, I am afraid." He had been carefully avoiding
+Nancy's eyes, but her little cry at this drew his gaze. She was
+standing before him, slowly blanching as if he had struck her,
+absolutely still except for the trembling of her lips.
+
+"What am I," he said, "to hold out against all the forces of the
+Universe? Do you love me, Nancy, do you love me?"
+
+"You know," she whispered, once more in the shelter of the shabby
+shoulder.
+
+"This is madness," he swore as he kissed her; "we're both out of our
+senses, Nancy; don't you know it?"
+
+"The picture is done, anyhow," she said. "I don't know how I can ever
+bear to look it in the face, but I shall have to."
+
+"It's the best work I've ever done," he said.
+
+"I don't look like it now, do I?"
+
+He held her off to see.
+
+"No, by jove, you don't. It's gone, now--just that thing I painted."
+
+"How do I look now?"
+
+"Much more commonplace from the point of view from which I painted
+you. Much more beautiful though,--much more beautiful."
+
+"I'm glad."
+
+"I might paint you again,--like this. No, I swear I won't. I got the
+thing itself down on canvas. I'll never try to paint you again."
+
+"Is--that flattering?"
+
+"Supremely."
+
+"When am I going to have my picture?" she asked after another
+interlude. "Do you want me to send for it?"
+
+"I can't give you the picture," he said. "I intended to if I had done
+merely a portrait, but I can't part with this. It has got to make my
+fame and fortune."
+
+"I thought I was to have it," Nancy said. "I--I--" then she felt she
+was being ungenerous, unworthy, "but I couldn't take it, of course,
+it's too valuable."
+
+"Please God."
+
+"It would be wonderful, wouldn't it, if my picture did make you
+famous!"
+
+"I think it will."
+
+"I'm nothing but a grubby little working girl, and you're a great
+artist,--and you love me."
+
+"You're not a grubby little working girl to me," he said, "you're a
+glorious creature--a wonder woman. I ought to go down on my knees to
+you for what you've given me in that picture."
+
+"In the picture?" Nancy said. "I love you. I love you. That wasn't in
+the picture--I kept it out."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I won't marry him until he is ready for me," she said to herself at
+one time during the night. She lay perfectly quiet till morning, her
+hands folded upon her breast, and her little girl pig-tails pulled
+down on either side of the coverlet, wide-eyed and tranquil. She could
+not bear to sleep and forget for a moment the beautiful thing that had
+happened to her between dawn and dawn. "I'll take care of him and
+Sheila, and nourish him, and help him to sell my picture. It isn't
+every woman who would understand his kind of loving, but I understand
+it."
+
+At eight o'clock Hitty came in to her, and roused her from the light
+drowse into which she had fallen at last.
+
+"You was crying in your sleep again," she said, "your cheeks is all
+wet. I heard you the minute I put my key into the latch. You're as bad
+as Sheila, only I expect she suffers from something laying hard on her
+stummick. It's always something on your mind that starts you in."
+
+"There's nothing on my mind, Hitty," Nancy said, sitting up in bed,
+"nothing but happiness, I mean. In some ways, Hitty dear, this is the
+happiest day that I've ever waked up to."
+
+"Well, then, there's other ways that it isn't," Hitty said, opening
+the door to stalk out majestically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+BETTY
+
+
+"There's a lady waiting to see you, sir," Dick's man servant informed
+him on his arrival at his apartment one evening when he had been
+dining at his club, and was putting in a leisurely appearance at his
+own place after his coffee and cigar.
+
+"A lady?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she has been here since nine. She says it's not important,
+but she insisted on waiting."
+
+"The deuce she did."
+
+Dick's quarters were not, strictly speaking, of the bachelor variety.
+That is, he had a suite in one of the older apartment houses in the
+fifties, a building that domiciled more families and middle-aged
+married couples than sprightly young single gentlemen. Dick had fallen
+heir to the establishment of an elderly uncle, who had furnished the
+place some time in the nineties and when he grew too decrepit to keep
+his foothold in New York had retired to the country, leaving Dick in
+possession. Even if Dick had been a conspicuously rakish young
+gentleman, which he was not, the traditional dignity of his
+surroundings would have certainly protected him from incongruous
+indiscretion in their vicinity.
+
+Betty rose composedly from the pompous red velour couch that ran along
+the wall under a portrait of a gentleman that looked like a Philip of
+Spain, but was really Dick's maternal great grandfather.
+
+"Why, Betty," Dick said, "this isn't _convenable_ unless you have a
+chaperon somewhere concealed. We don't do things like this."
+
+"I do," Betty said. "I wanted to see you, so I came. In these
+emancipated days ladies call upon their men friends if they like. It's
+archaic to prattle of chaperons."
+
+"Still we were all brought up in the fear of them."
+
+"Mine were brought up in the fear of me. I like this place, Dicky. Why
+don't you give us more parties in it? You haven't had a crowd here for
+months."
+
+"Everybody's so busy," Dick said, "we don't seem to get together any
+more. I'm willing to play host any time that the rest want to come."
+
+"You mean Nancy is so busy with her old Outside Inn."
+
+"You are busy there, too."
+
+"I'm not so busy that I wouldn't come here when I was asked, Dicky."
+
+"Or even when you weren't?" Dick's smile took the edge off his
+obviously inhospitable suggestion.
+
+"Or even when I wasn't," Betty said impudently. "Won't you sit down,
+Mr. Thorndyke?"
+
+"Can't I call you a cab, Miss Pope?"
+
+"I don't wish to go away."
+
+"Betty, be reasonable," Dick said, "it's after ten o'clock. It is not
+usual for me to receive young ladies alone here, and it looks badly. I
+don't care for myself, of course, but for you it looks badly."
+
+"If it's only for me--I don't care how it looks. Come and sit down
+beside me, and talk to me, Dicky, and I'll tell you really why I
+came."
+
+Dick folded his arms and looked down at her. Betty's piquant little
+face, olive tinted, and pure oval in contour, was turned up to him
+confidently; under the close seal turban the soft brown hair framed
+the childish face, while the big dark eyes danced with mischief. She
+patted the couch by her side invitingly.
+
+"I'll go away in fifteen minutes, Dicky dear. It certainly wouldn't
+look well if you put me out immediately, after all your establishment
+knowing that I waited here an hour for you."
+
+Dick took out his watch.
+
+"Fifteen minutes, then," he said. "What's your trouble, Betty?"
+
+"Well, it's a long sad story," she temporized. "Perhaps I had better
+not begin on it now that our time is so short. You wouldn't like to
+hold my hand, would you, Dicky?"
+
+"I'm not going to, at any rate."
+
+"I thought you'd say that," she sighed. "Have you seen Nancy lately?"
+
+"Yesterday."
+
+"She's looking better, don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Preston Eustace is back."
+
+"Is that so? I didn't know he was here yet. I knew he was coming."
+
+"He's to be here six months, or so."
+
+"Have you seen him?"
+
+"No, Caroline told me." Her voice was carefully steadied but Dick
+noticed for the first time the shadows etched under the big brown
+eyes, and the flush of excitement splotched high on her cheek-bones.
+She had been engaged to Preston Eustace for three months succeeding
+her twentieth birthday.
+
+"On second thoughts I think I will hold your hand, Betty," he said,
+covering that childlike member with his own rather brawny one. "You
+are not a very big little girl, are you, Betty?"
+
+"My mother used to tell me that I was a very destructive child."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if you were that yet."
+
+"Don't let's talk about me. Let's talk about you, Dicky."
+
+"About me?"
+
+"Yes, please. I think you're a very interesting subject."
+
+Having arrived at some conclusion concerning this unprecedented attack
+upon his privacy, Dick was disposed to be kind to his unexpected
+visitor. The fact that Preston Eustace was in town and Betty had not
+seen him shed an entirely new light on her recklessness. Like every
+other incident in Betty's history her love-affair had been very
+conspicuously featured.
+
+"The interesting things about me just at present are--" he was just
+about to say "six shirts of imported gingham" but he bethought himself
+that she would be certain to demand to see them, so he finished lamely
+with--"my game of golf, and my new dogs."
+
+"What kind of dogs?"
+
+"Belgian police dogs."
+
+"Where do you keep them?"
+
+"I haven't taken them over yet."
+
+"I heard that you had bought a place up in Westchester, but I asked
+Nancy, and she said she didn't know. I don't think Nancy appreciates
+you, Dick."
+
+"That so often happens."
+
+"I mean that seriously."
+
+"It's a serious matter--being appreciated. The only person who I ever
+thought really appreciated me was Billy's old aunt. Every time she saw
+me she used to say to me, 'You're such a clean-looking young man I
+can't take my eyes off you.'"
+
+"You _are_ clean-looking, and awfully good-looking too."
+
+"Do you mind if I smoke, Betty?" Dick carefully disengaged his hand
+from her clinging fingers, and a look of something like intelligence
+passed between them, before Betty turned her ingenuous child's stare
+on him again.
+
+"Not if you'll give me a cigarette, too."
+
+Dick fumbled through his pockets.
+
+"It's awfully stupid, but I haven't any about me," he said, fingering
+what he knew that she knew to be the well filled case he always
+carried in his inner pocket. He did not approve of women smoking.
+
+But "Poor Dicky!" was all she said.
+
+"Your fifteen minutes are up, Betty," he said presently, taking out
+his watch.
+
+"Well, I suppose I'll have to go then."
+
+Dick rose politely.
+
+"You really don't care whether I go or stay, do you?" she sighed.
+
+"I would rather have you go, Betty," he said gravely.
+
+Betty's eyes filled with sudden tears, that Dick to his surprise
+realized were genuine.
+
+"I wanted you to want me to stay," she said incoherently.
+
+"I suppose you're just a miserable little thing that doesn't want to
+be alone," he concluded. "Come, I'll take you home."
+
+The telephone bell on the table beside him rang sharply.
+
+"I'm just going out," he said to Billy, on the wire. "Betty is here
+with a fit of the blues. I'm going to take her home. Ride up with us,
+will you?"
+
+"He'll meet us down-stairs in ten minutes," he said. "I'll order a
+taxi."
+
+"I don't want to see Billy," Betty said rebelliously. She rose
+suddenly, pulling on her gloves, and took a step forward as if about
+to brush by him petulantly, but as she did so she staggered, put her
+hand to her eyes, and fell forward against his breast.
+
+Dick picked up the limp little body, and made his way to the couch
+where he deposited it gently among the stiff red pillows there. Then
+he began to chafe her hands, to push back the tumbled hair from which
+the fur hat had been displaced, and finally fallen off, and to call
+out her name remorsefully.
+
+"Betty, dear, dearest," he cried, "I didn't know, I didn't dream,--I
+thought you were just trying it on. I'm so sorry, dear, I am so
+sorry."
+
+She moaned softly, and he bent over her again more closely. Then he
+gathered her up in his arms.
+
+"Betty, dear, Betty," he said again.
+
+She opened her eyes. Her two soft arms stole up around his neck, and
+she lifted her lips.
+
+"You little devil," Dick cried, almost at the same instant that he
+kissed her.
+
+"She deserves to be spanked," he told Billy grimly at the door. "She
+got in my apartment when I was out, and insisted on staying there till
+I came in, to make me a visit."
+
+"He doesn't understand me," Betty complained, as she cuddled
+confidingly in the corner of the taxi-cab, "when I'm serious he
+doesn't realize or appreciate it, and he doesn't understand the nature
+of my practical jokes."
+
+"I don't like--practical jokes," Dick said. "Have you seen Preston
+Eustace, Billy?"
+
+"I haven't seen Caroline," Billy said, as if that disposed of all the
+interrogatory remarks that might be addressed to him in the present or
+the future.
+
+"It's a nice-looking river," Betty said, looking out at the softly
+gleaming surface of the Hudson, as their cab took the drive. "It looks
+strange to-night, though, laden with all kinds of queer little boats.
+I wonder how it would feel to be drifting down it, or up it, on a
+barque or a barkentine--I don't know what a barkentine is--all dead
+like Elaine or Ophelia,--with your hands neatly folded across your
+breast?"
+
+"For heaven sake's, Betty," Billy cried, "I don't like your style of
+conversation. I'm in a state of gloom myself, to-night."
+
+"I didn't say I was in a state of gloom," Betty said. They rode the
+rest of the way in silence, but when Dick got out of the cab to open
+her door for her, she whispered to him, "I'm awfully ashamed, Dick,"
+before she fled up-stairs through the darkened hallway of her own
+home.
+
+"Queer little thing,--Betty," Billy said as Dick stepped back to the
+cab again, "you never know where you have her. Full of the deuce as
+she can stick. Unscrupulous little rascal, too, but made of good
+stuff."
+
+"Don't you think so?" Billy inquired presently as Dick did not
+answer.
+
+"Think what?"
+
+"That Betty's a queer sort of girl."
+
+Dick took his pipe out of his pocket and began stuffing it full of
+tobacco. When this was satisfactorily accomplished, he struck a match
+on his boot heel, and lit the mixture, drawing at it critically
+meanwhile.
+
+"Damn' queer," he admitted, between puffs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CLOUDS OF GLORY
+
+
+Nancy, trailing clouds of glory, took up the management of her Inn
+with renewed vigor. She had found her touchstone. The flower of love,
+which she had scarcely understood to be indigenous to the soil of her
+own practical little garden, had suddenly lifted up its head there in
+fragrant, radiant bloom. She was so happy that she was impatient of
+all the inadequate, inefficient manipulation of affairs in the whole
+world. She felt strong and wise to put everything right in a neglected
+universe.
+
+She loved. She was satisfied to live in that love for the present,
+with no imagination of the future except as her lover should construct
+it for her; and in him she had absolute faith. The things that he had
+said or left unsaid had no significance to her. Before she had dreamed
+of a personal relation with him he had singled her out as a creature
+made for the consummation and fulfilment of the greatest passion of
+all. The merest suspicion that there had been a man in the world who
+could have frustrated this beautiful potentiality in her had moved him
+profoundly. There was nothing in her experience to help her to
+differentiate between the sensibility of the artistic temperament and
+the manifestations of the more reliable emotions. The presence in the
+human breast of a fire that gave out light and not heat was a
+condition undreamed of in her philosophy. To doubt Collier Pratt's
+love for her in the face of his tacit pursuit of her, and the
+acceptance of the obligation she had chosen to put him under, would
+have seemed to her the rankest kind of heresy.
+
+She had been brought up on terms of comradely equality with boys and
+men, and she understood the rules of all the pretty games of fluffing
+and light flirtation that young men and women play with each other,
+but serious love-making--that was a thing apart. In the world of honor
+and fair dealing a man took a woman's kiss of surrender for one reason
+and one reason only----that she was his woman, and he so held her in
+his heart.
+
+Now that she was in this sort committed to her love for Collier Pratt,
+her one ambition was to put her life in order for him,--to pick up the
+raveling threads of her achievement and prove to him and to herself
+that she was the kind of woman who accomplishes that which she
+attempts. In the light of his indefatigable patience in all matters
+that pertained to his art--his clean-cut workmanship--his skill in
+handling his material--she blushed for the amateur spirit that
+animated all her undertakings, and for the first time recognized it
+for what it was.
+
+"Gaspard," she said one morning soon after her miracle had been
+achieved, "where do you think the greatest leak is? We spend a great
+deal too much money in running this place. As you know, that is not
+the most important matter to me. Getting my customers properly
+nourished with invitingly prepared food is the essential thing, but if
+there was a way to adjust the economical end of it, I should feel a
+great deal more comfortable in my mind."
+
+"But certainly, mademoiselle, I should like myself to try the pretty
+little economies. The Frenchman he likes to spend his money when it is
+there, but it hurts him in the heart to waste this money without
+cause."
+
+"Am I wasting money without cause, Gaspard, in your opinion?"
+
+"What else?"
+
+"How can I stop it?"
+
+"By calculation of the tall cost of living, and by buying what is good
+instead of what is expensive."
+
+"What do you mean, Gaspard?"
+
+Gaspard contemplated her for a moment.
+
+"We have had this week--squab chicken," he said, "racks of little
+unseasonable lambs, sweetbreads, guinea fowl and _filet du boeuf_. We
+have with them mushrooms, fresh string bean, cooked endive, and new,
+not very good peas grown in glass. We have the salted nuts, the
+radish, the olive, the celery, the _bon bon_, all extra without pay.
+Then you make in addition to this the health foods, and your bills are
+sky high up. Is it not?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is, Gaspard. I had no idea I was as reckless as all
+that."
+
+"But yes, and more of it."
+
+"What would you do if you were running this restaurant, Gaspard?"
+
+"I would give _ragoût_, and rabbits--so cheap and so good too--stewed
+in red wine, and the good pot roast with vegetables all in the
+delicious sauce, and carrots with parsley and the peas out of the can,
+cooked with onion and lettuce, and macédoine of all the other things
+left over. Lentils and flageolet I should buy dried up, and soak them
+out.--All those things which you have said were needless.--In my way
+they would be so excellent."
+
+"You make my mouth water, Gaspard. I don't know whether it's a Gallic
+eloquence, or whether that food really would work. They might like it
+for a change anyhow."
+
+"I have many personal patrons now," Gaspard said with some pride; "all
+day they send me messages, and very good tips. I think what I would
+serve them they would eat.--But there is one thing--" he paused and
+hesitated dejectedly, "that, what you say, takes the heart out of the
+beautiful cooking."
+
+"What thing is that, Gaspard?"
+
+"Those calories."
+
+"Why, Gaspard, surely you're used to working with tables now. It must
+be almost second nature to you. My whole end and aim has been to serve
+a balanced ration."
+
+"I know, but the ration when he is right, he balances himself. These
+tables they are like the steps in dancing--to learn and to forget. I
+figure all day all night to get those calories, and then I find I have
+eight--and eight are so little--lesser than I would have had without
+the figuring, and if our customer he has taken himself one piece of
+sweetmeat outside, he has more than made it up."
+
+"I always have worried about what they eat between meals," Nancy
+said,--"but that, of course, we can't regulate."
+
+"Could I perhaps go to it, as you say, and cook like the _bourgeoisie_
+for a week or two of trials?"
+
+"Yes, I think you could, Gaspard," Nancy said thoughtfully. "Go to it,
+as we say, and I won't interfere in any way. Maybe they'd like it.
+Perhaps our food is getting to be too much like hotel food, anyway."
+
+She knew in her heart that the gradually increasing scale of luxury on
+which she had been running her cuisine had been largely due to her
+desire to provide Collier Pratt with all the delicacies he loved,
+without making the fact too conspicuous. The specially prepared dishes
+sent out to his table had become a matter of so much comment among the
+members of the staff, and the target of so much piquant satire from
+Betty that she had become sensitive on the subject, especially since
+Betty had access to the books, and knew in actual dollars and cents
+how much this favoritism was costing her. Now that matters had been
+settled between herself and her lover, she felt vaguely ashamed of
+this elaboration of method. It was so simple a thing to love a man and
+give him all you had, with the eyes of the world upon you, if
+necessary. She felt that she handled the matter rather unworthily.
+
+She had also a consultation with Molly and Dolly about the economic
+problem, and discovered that they agreed with Gaspard about the
+unnecessary extravagance of her management.
+
+"Them health foods," Dolly said,--she was not the more grammatical of
+the twins, "the ones that gets them regular gets so tired of them, or
+else they gets where they don't need them any more. There's one girl
+that crumbs up her health muffins and puts them on the window-sill
+every day when I ain't looking, so's not to hurt my feelings."
+
+"That accounts for all those chittering sparrows," Nancy said.
+
+"And some of those buttermilk men threatens not to come any more if I
+don't stop serving it to them."
+
+"What do you say to them, Dolly, when they object to it?"
+
+"Well, sometimes I say one thing, and sometimes another. Sometimes I
+say it's orders to serve it; and sometimes I say will they please to
+let it stand by their plate not to get me in trouble with the
+management; and sometimes I coax them to take it."
+
+"By an appeal to their better nature," Nancy said. "I'm glad Dick
+can't hear all this,--he'd think it was funny."
+
+"We don't have so much trouble with the broths," Molly said, "but so
+many people would rather have the cream soups Gaspard makes, that we
+waste a good deal."
+
+"It sours on us," Dolly elucidated.
+
+"What do you think would be the best way out of that?"
+
+"I think to charge for the invalid things," Dolly said; "people would
+think more of them if they was specials, and had to be paid good money
+for. Health bread, if you didn't call it that, would go good, if it
+cost five cents extra."
+
+"What would you call it?" Nancy asked.
+
+"California fruit nut bread, or something like that, and call the
+custards crême renversé, and the ice-cream, French ice-cream."
+
+"Oh, dear!" Nancy said, "that isn't the way I want to do things at
+all."
+
+"We can slip the ones that needs them a few things from time to time,
+can't we, Molly?" Dolly said.
+
+"We'll do it," Nancy said. "I hate the way that the most uninspired
+ways of doing things turn out to be the best policy after all. I don't
+believe in stereotyped philanthropy, but I did think I had found a way
+around this problem of feeding up people who needed it."
+
+"They get fed up pretty good if they do pay a regular price for it,"
+Dolly said. "You can't get something for nothing in this world, and
+most everybody knows it by now."
+
+"I'm managing my restaurant a little differently," she told Collier
+Pratt a few days later, as she took her place at the little table
+beside him, where she habitually ate her dinner. "If you don't like it
+you are to tell me, and I'll see that you have things you will like."
+
+"This dinner is good," he said reflectively, "like French home
+cooking. I haven't had a real _ragoût_ of lamb since I left the
+pension of Madame Pellissier. Has your mysterious patroness got tired
+of furnishing _diners de luxe_ to the populace?"
+
+"Not exactly that," Nancy said, "but she--she wants me to try out
+another way of doing things."
+
+"I thought that would come. That's the trouble with patronage of any
+kind. It is so uncertain. There is no immediate danger of your being
+ousted, is there?"
+
+"No," Nancy said, "there--there is no danger of that."
+
+"I don't like that cutting you down," he said, frowning. "It would be
+rather a bad outlook for us all if she threw you over, now wouldn't
+it?"
+
+"Oh!--she won't, there's nothing to worry about, really."
+
+"It would be like my luck to have the only café in America turn me
+out-of-doors.--I should never eat again."
+
+"I promise it won't," Nancy said; "can't you trust me?"
+
+"I never have trusted any woman--but you," he said.
+
+"You can trust me," Nancy said. "The truth is, she couldn't put me out
+even if she wanted to. I--she is under a kind of obligation to me."
+
+"Thank God for that. I only hope you are in a position to threaten her
+with blackmail."
+
+"I could if anybody could," Nancy said. She put out of her mind as
+disloyal, the faintly unpleasant suggestion of his words. He owed her
+mythical patron a substantial sum of money by this time. He was not
+even able to pay Michael the cash for the nightly teapot full of
+Chianti that Nancy herself now sent out for him regularly. For the
+first time since her association with him she was tempted to compare
+him to Dick, and that not very favorably; but at the next instant she
+was reproaching herself with her littleness of vision. He was too
+great a man to gauge by the ordinary standards of life. Money meant
+nothing to him except that it was the insignificant means to the end
+of that Art, which was to him consecrated.
+
+They were placed a little to the left of the glowing fire--Nancy had
+restored the fireplace in the big central dining-room--and the light
+took the brass of the andirons, and all the polished surface of copper
+and pewter and silver candelabra that gave the room its quality of
+picturesqueness.
+
+"Some of those branching candlesticks are very beautiful," he said;
+"the impression here is a little like that of a Catholic altar just
+before the mass. I've always thought I'd like to have my meals served
+in church, _Saint-Germain-des-Prés_ for instance."
+
+"It is rather dim religious light." Nancy had no wish to utter
+this banality, but it was forced from her by her desire to seem
+sympathetic.
+
+"Can we go to your place for a little while to-night?"
+
+These were the words she had spent her days and nights hungering for;
+yet now she hesitated for a perceptible instant.
+
+"Yes, we can, of course. There is a friend of mine--Billy Boynton, up
+there this evening. He is not feeling very fit, and phoned to ask if
+he could go up and sprawl before my fire, so, of course, I said he
+could."
+
+"Oh! yes, Sheila's friend. Can't he be disposed of?"
+
+"I think so. We could try."
+
+But at Nancy's apartment they found not only Billy, but Caroline, and
+the atmosphere was like that of the glacial regions, both literally
+and figuratively.
+
+"Hitty had the windows open, and the fire went out, and I forgot to
+turn on the heat," Billy explained from his position on the hearth
+where he was trying to build an unscientific fire with the morning
+paper, and the remains of a soap box. There was a long smudge across
+his forehead.
+
+Caroline drew Nancy into the seclusion of her bedroom and clutched her
+violently by the arm.
+
+"I can't stand the strain any longer," she cried, "you've got to tell
+me. Are you or are you not going to marry Dick Thorndyke for his
+money, and is Billy Boynton putting you up to it--out of cowardice?"
+
+"No, I'm not and he isn't," Nancy said. "What's the matter with you
+and Billy anyway?"
+
+"I haven't seen him for weeks before. I just happened to be in this
+neighborhood to-night, and ran in here, and there he was."
+
+"Why don't you take him home with you?" Nancy said.
+
+"I don't want him to go home with me."
+
+"Don't you love him?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. That isn't the point."
+
+"It is the point," Nancy said; "there isn't any other point to the
+whole of existence. There's nothing else in the world, but love, the
+great, big, beautiful, all-giving-up kind of love, and bearing
+children for the man you love; and if you don't know that yet,
+Caroline, go down on your bended knees and pray to your God that He
+will teach it to you before it is too late."
+
+"I--I didn't know you felt like that," Caroline gasped.
+
+"Well, I do," Nancy said, "and I think that any woman who doesn't is
+just confusing issues, and taking refuge in sophistry. I wouldn't give
+_that_"--she snapped an energetic forefinger, "for all your silly,
+smug little ideas of economic independence and service to the race,
+and all that tommy-rot. There is only one service a woman can do to
+her race, and that is to take hold of the problems of love and
+marriage,--and the problems of life, birth and death that are involved
+in them--and work them out to the best of her ability. They _will_
+work out."
+
+"You--you're a sort of a pragmatist, aren't you?" Caroline gasped.
+
+"Billy loves you, and you love Billy. Billy needs you. He is the most
+miserable object lately, that ever walked the face of the earth. I'm
+going to call a taxi-cab, and send you both home in it, and when you
+get inside of it I want you to put you arms around Billy's neck, and
+make up your quarrel."
+
+"I won't do that," said Caroline, "but--but somehow or other you've
+cleared up something for me. Something that was worrying me a good
+deal."
+
+"Shall I call the taxi?" Nancy said inexorably.
+
+"Well, yes--if--if you want to," Caroline said.
+
+The fire was crackling merrily in the drawing-room when she stepped
+into it again after speeding her departing guests. Collier Pratt was
+walking up and down impatiently with his hands clasped behind his
+back.
+
+"You got rid of them at last," he said. "I was afraid they would
+decide to remain with us indefinitely."
+
+"I didn't have as much trouble as I anticipated," admitted Nancy
+cryptically.
+
+Collier Pratt made a round of the rose-shaded lamps in the room--there
+were three including a Japanese candle lamp,--and turned them all
+deliberately low. Then he held out his arms to Nancy.
+
+"We'll snatch at the few moments of joy the gods will vouchsafe us,"
+he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
+
+
+Sheila and Nancy were doing their Christmas shopping. The weather,
+which had been like mid-May--even to betraying a bewildered Jersey
+apple tree into unseasonable bloom that gave it considerable newspaper
+notoriety,--had suddenly turned sharp and frosty. Sheila, all in gray
+fur to the beginning of her gray gaiters, and Nancy in blue, a smart
+blue tailor suit with black furs and a big black satin hat--she was
+dressing better than she had ever dressed in her life--were in that
+state of physical exhilaration that follows the spur of the frost.
+
+"We mustn't dance down the avenue, Sheila," Nancy said, "it isn't
+done, in the circles in which we move."
+
+"It is you who are almost very nearly dancing, Miss Dear," Sheila
+said, "I was only walking on my toetips."
+
+"Oh! don't you feel good, Sheila?" Nancy cried.
+
+"Don't you, Miss Dear?"
+
+"I feel almost too good," Nancy said, "as if in another minute the top
+of the world might come off."
+
+"The top of the world is screwed on very tight, I think," said Sheila.
+"I used to think when I was a little girl that it was made out of blue
+plush, but now I know better than that."
+
+"It might be," Nancy argued, "blue plush and bridal veils. There's a
+great deal of filmy white about it, to-day."
+
+"It's a long way off from Fifth Avenue," Sheila sighed, "too far. I am
+not going to think about it any more. I am going to think hard about
+what to give my father. Michael said to get a smoking set, but I don't
+know what a smoking set is. Hitty said some hand knit woolen
+stockings, but I am afraid he would be scratched by them. Gaspard said
+a big bottle of _Cointreau_, but I do not know what that is either."
+
+"Couldn't we give him a beautiful brocaded dressing-gown and a Swiss
+watch, thin as a wafer, and some handkerchiefs cobwebby fine, and a
+dozen bottles of _Cointreau_, and--then get the other things as we
+think of them?"
+
+"Are we rich enough to do _that_?" Sheila asked, her eyes sparkling
+with excitement.
+
+"Rich enough to buy anything we want, Sheila," Nancy cried. "I had no
+idea it was going to be such a heavenly feeling. When you say your
+prayers to-night, Sheila, I hope you will ask God to bless somebody
+you've never heard of before. _Elijah Peebles Martin_, do you think
+you could remember that long name, Sheila?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Dear,--do you remember him in your prayers every night?"
+
+"Well, I haven't," Nancy said, "but I intend to from now on. Do you
+think Collier--father--would like to have a new pipe?"
+
+"I don't know," Shelia said; "wouldn't Uncle Dick like to have one?"
+
+"I don't know whether Uncle Dick is going to want a Christmas present
+from me or not, Sheila." Nancy answered seriously. "There may
+be--reasons why he won't come to see us for a while when he knows
+them."
+
+"Oh, dear," Sheila said, "but I can buy him a Christmas present
+myself, can't I? I don't want it to be Christmas if I can't."
+
+"Of course, dear. What shall we buy Aunt Caroline and Uncle Billy?"
+
+"Some pink and blue housekeeping dishes, I think."
+
+"I'm going to have trouble buying Caroline _anything_," Nancy said.
+"She's so sure I can't afford it. If I give a silver chest I'll have
+to make Billy say it came from his maiden aunt."
+
+"What shall we give Aunt Betty?"
+
+"I don't know exactly why," Nancy said, "but someway I feel more like
+giving her a good shaking than anything else."
+
+"For a little surprise," Sheila said presently, "do you think we could
+go down to see my father in his studio, after we have shopped? I feel
+like seeing my father to-day. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I
+think of Hitty and my breakfast, and the canary bird, and of you, Miss
+Dear, fast asleep where I can hear you breathing in your room--if I
+listen to it--and then other mornings I wake up thinking only of my
+father, and how he looks in his shirt-sleeves and necktie. I was
+thinking of him this morning like that. So now I should like to see
+him."
+
+"You shall, dear. I want him to see you in your new clothes. He'll
+think you look like a little gray bird with a scarlet breast."
+
+"Then I must open the front of my coat when I go in so he shall see my
+vest at once, mustn't I?"
+
+"Do you know how much I love you, Sheila?" Nancy cried suddenly.
+
+"Is it a great deal, Miss Dear?"
+
+"It's more than I've ever loved anybody in this world but one person,
+and if I should ever be separated from you I think it would break my
+heart--so that you could hear it crack with a loud report, Sheila."
+
+The little girl slipped her gray gloved hand into Nancy's and held it
+there silently for a moment.
+
+"Then we won't ever be separated, Miss Dear," she said.
+
+The shops were crowded with the usual conglomerate Christmas throng,
+and their progress was somewhat retarded by Sheila's desire to make
+the acquaintance of every department-store and Salvation Army Santa
+Claus that they met in their peregrinations. In the toy department of
+one of the Thirty-fourth Street shops there was a live Kris Kringle
+with animated reindeers on rollers, who made a short trip across an
+open space in one end of the department for a consideration, and
+presented each child who rode with him a lovely present, tied up in
+tissue and marked "Not to be opened until Christmas." Sheila refused a
+second trip with him on the ground that it would not be polite to take
+more than one turn.
+
+Nancy was able to discover the little girl's preferences by a tactful
+question here and there when they were making the rounds of the
+different counters. She wanted, it developed, a golden-haired doll
+with a white fur coat, a pair of roller skates, an Indian costume, a
+beaded pocketbook, with a blue cat embroidered on it, a parchesi board
+to play parchesi with her Uncle Dick, some doll's dinner dishes, a
+boy's bicycle, some parlor golf sticks, a red leather writing set, a
+doll's manicure set, a sailor-boy paper doll, a dozen small suede
+animals in a box, a drawing book and crayon pencils and several other
+trifles of a like nature. The things she did not want she rejected
+unerringly. It pleased Nancy to realize that she knew exactly what she
+did want, even though her range of taste was so extensive. Nancy had a
+sheaf of her own cards with her address on them in her pocketbook, and
+each time Sheila saw the thing her heart coveted Nancy nodded to the
+saleswoman and whispered to her to send it to the address given and
+charge to her account.
+
+They took their lunch in a famous confectionary shop, full of candy
+animals and alluring striped candy sticks and baskets. Here Sheila's
+eye was taken by a basket of spun sugar flowers, which she insisted on
+buying for Gaspard. By the time they were ready to resume their
+shopping tour, Sheila began to show signs of fag, so they bought only
+brooches for the waitresses, and the watch as thin and exquisite of
+workmanship as a man's pocket watch could be, for Collier Pratt.
+
+"I think we had better give it to him now, Miss Dear," Sheila decided.
+"I don't see how he can wait till Christmas for it--it is so
+beautiful. He has not had a gold watch since that time in Paris when
+we had all that trouble."
+
+"What trouble, Sheila dear?" Nancy said. She had tucked the child in a
+hansom, and they were driving slowly through the lower end of Central
+Park to restore Sheila's roses before she was exhibited to her
+parent.
+
+"When we lost all our money, and my father and some one I must not
+speak of, had those dreadful quarrelings, and we ran away. I do not
+like to think of it. My father does not like to think of it."
+
+"Well, then, you mustn't, dear," Nancy said, "but just be glad it is
+all over now. I don't like to realize that so many hard things
+happened to you and him before I knew you, but I do like to think that
+I can perhaps prevent them ever happening to you again."
+
+She closed resolutely that department of her mind that had begun to
+occupy itself with conjectures concerning the past of the man to whom
+she had given her heart. The child's words conjured up nightmare
+scenes of unknown panic and dread. It was terrible to her to know that
+Collier Pratt had the memory of so much bitterness and distress of
+mind and body locked away in the secret chambers of his soul. "Some
+one of whom I must not speak," Sheila had said, "and some one of whom
+I must not think," Nancy added to herself. It was probably some one
+with whom he had quarreled and struggled passionately maybe, with
+disastrous results. He could not have injured or killed anybody, else
+how could he be free and honorably considered in a free and honorable
+country? She laughed at her own melodramatic misgivings. It was only,
+she realized, that she so detested the connotation of the words "ran
+away." Nancy had never run away from anything or anybody in her life,
+and she could not understand that any one who was close to her should
+ever have the instinct of flight.
+
+The most conscientious objector to New York's traffic regulations can
+not claim that they fail to regulate. The progress of their cab down
+the avenue was so scrupulously regulated by the benignant guardians of
+the semaphores that twilight was deepening into early December evening
+before they reached their objective point,--the ramshackle studio
+building on the south side of Washington Square where the man she
+loved lived, moved and had his being, with the gallant ease and grace
+which made him so romantic a figure to Nancy's imagination.
+
+She had never been to his studio before without an appointment, and
+her heart beat a little harder as, Sheila's hand in hers, they tiptoed
+up the worn and creaking stairs, through the ill-kept, airless
+corridors of the dingy structure, till they reached the top, and stood
+breathless from their impetuous ascent, within a few feet of Collier
+Pratt's battered door.
+
+"I feel a little scared, Miss Dear," Sheila whispered. "I thought it
+was going to be so much fun and now I don't think so at all. Do you
+think he will be very angry at my coming?"
+
+"I don't think he will be angry at all," Nancy said. "I think he will
+be very much surprised and pleased to see both of us. Turn around,
+dear, and let me be sure that you're neat."
+
+Sheila turned obediently. Nancy fumbled with her pocket mirror, and
+then thought better of it, but passed a precautionary hand over the
+back of her hair to reassure herself as to its arrangement, and
+straightened her hat.
+
+"Now we're ready," she said.
+
+But Sheila put out her hand, and clutched at Nancy's sleeve.
+
+"There's some one in there," she said, "somebody crying. Oh! don't
+let's go in, Miss Dear."
+
+From behind the closed door there issued suddenly the confused murmur
+of voices, one--a woman's--rising and falling in the cadence of
+distress, the other low pitched in exasperated expostulation.
+
+"It's Collier," Nancy said mechanically, "and some woman with him."
+
+Sheila shrank closer into the protecting shelter of her arms.
+
+"Don't let's go in, Miss Dear," she repeated.
+
+"It may be just some model," Nancy said. "We'll wait a minute here and
+see if she doesn't come out."
+
+"I--I don't want to see who comes out," the child said, her face
+suddenly distorted.
+
+There was a sharp sound of something falling within, then Collier
+Pratt's voice raised loud in anger.
+
+"You'd better go now," he said, "before you do any more damage. I
+don't want you here. Once and for all I tell you that there is no
+place for you in my life. Weeping and wailing won't do you any good.
+The only thing for you to do is to get out and stay out."
+
+This was answered by an indistinguishable outburst.
+
+"I won't tell you where the child is," Collier Pratt said steadily.
+"She's well taken care of. God knows you never took care of her.
+There's nothing you can do, you know. You might sue for a restitution
+of conjugal rights, I suppose, but if you drag this thing into the
+courts I'll fight it out to the end. I swear I will."
+
+"You brute,--you--"
+
+At the first clear sound of the woman's voice the child at Nancy's
+side broke into sobs of convulsive terror.
+
+"Take me away, Miss Dear. Oh! take me away from here, quickly,
+quickly, I'm so frightened. I'm so afraid she'll come out and get me.
+It's my _mother_," she moaned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+GOOD-BY
+
+
+Nancy had no memory of her actions during the time that elapsed
+between leaving the studio building and her arrival at her own
+apartment. She knew that she must have guided Sheila to the beginning
+of the bus route at the lower end of the square, and as perfunctorily
+signaled the conductor to let her off at the corner of Fifth Avenue
+and her own street, but she could never remember having done so. Her
+first conscious recollection was of the few minutes in Sheila's room,
+while she was slipping off the child's gaiters, in the interval before
+she gave her over to Hitty for the night. The little girl was still
+sobbing beneath her breath, though her emotion was by this time purely
+reflexive.
+
+"I didn't understand that your mother was living, Sheila," she said.
+
+"She isn't very nice," the little girl said miserably. "We don't tell
+any one. She always cries and screams and makes us trouble?"
+
+"Did she live with you in Paris?"
+
+"Only sometimes."
+
+"Does she do--something that she should not do, Sheila?" Nancy asked,
+with her mind on inebriety, or drug addiction.
+
+"She just isn't very nice," Sheila repeated. "She is _histérique_; she
+pounded me with her hands, and hurt me."
+
+Nancy telephoned to the Inn that she had a headache, and shut herself
+into her room, without food, to gather her scattered forces. She lay
+wide-awake all the night through, her mind trying to work its way
+through the lethargy of shock it had received. She remembered falling
+down the cellar stairs, when she was a little girl, and lying for
+hours on the hard stone floor, perfectly serene and calm, without
+pain, until she tried to do so much as move a little finger or lift an
+eyelid, when the intolerable nausea would begin. She was calm now,
+until she made the attempt to think what it was that had so prostrated
+her, and then the anguish spread through her being and convulsed her
+with unimaginable distress of mind and body.
+
+By morning she had herself in hand again,--at least to the extent of
+dealing with the unthinkable fact that Collier Pratt, her lover, the
+man to whom she had given the lover's right to hold her in his arms
+and cover her upturned face with kisses, had a living wife, and that
+he was not free to make honorable love to any woman.
+
+Her life had been too sound, too sweet, to give her any perspective on
+a situation of the kind. It was inconceivable to her that a married
+man should make advances to an unmarried woman,--but gradually she
+began to make excuses for this one man whose circumstances had been so
+exceptional. Tied to an insane creature, who beat his child, who made
+him strange hectic scenes, and followed him all over the world to
+threaten his security, and menace that beautiful and inexplicable
+creative instinct that animated him like a holy fire, and set him
+apart from his kind; she began to see how it might be with him. She
+was still the woman he loved,--she believed that; he was weaker than
+she had thought,--that was all, weaker and not so wise. This being
+true, she must put aside her own pain and bewilderment, her own
+devastating disillusionment, and comfort him, and help him. She rose
+from her bed that morning firmly resolved to see him before the day
+was through.
+
+She breakfasted with Sheila, and made a brave attempt to get through
+the morning on her usual schedule, but once at the Inn she collapsed,
+and Michael and Betty had to put her in a cab and send her home again,
+where Hitty ministered to her grimly,--and she slept the sleep of
+exhaustion until well on into the evening, and into the night again.
+
+On the day following she was quite herself; but she still hesitated to
+bring about the momentous interview that she so dreaded, and yet
+longed for. She intended to take her place at the table beside Collier
+Pratt when he came for his dinner that night, but when the time came
+she could not bring herself to do it, and fled incontinently. Later in
+the evening he telephoned that he wanted to see her, and she told him
+that he might come.
+
+She faced him with the facts, breathlessly, and in spite of herself
+accusingly,--and then waited for the explanation that would extenuate
+the apparent ugliness of his attitude toward her, and set all the
+world right for her again. As she looked into his face she felt that
+it must come. She noted compassionately how the shadows under the dark
+eyes had deepened; how weary the pose of the fine head; and for the
+moment she longed only to rest it on her breast again. Even as she
+spoke of the thing that had so tortured her it seemed insignificant in
+light of the fact that he was there beside her, within reach of her
+arms whenever she chose to hold them out to him.
+
+"I regret that the revelation of my private embarrassments should have
+been thrust upon you so suddenly," he said, when she had poured out
+the story to him. "My marriage has proved the most uncomfortable
+indiscretion that I ever committed; and unfortunately my indiscretions
+have been numberless as the well-known leaves of Vallombrosa."
+
+"You always said that Sheila was motherless," Nancy said.
+
+"It is simpler than stating that she is worse than motherless."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me you were married?"
+
+Collier Pratt smiled at her--kindly it seemed to Nancy.
+
+"It hadn't anything to do with _us_," he said. "I should never want to
+marry again--even if I were free. The thought is horrible to me. You
+mean a great deal to me. _Think_, if you doubt that and think again. I
+have had in this little front room of yours the only real moments of
+peace and happiness that I have had for years. I value them--you can
+not dream or imagine how much--but surely it is understood between us
+that our relation can not be anything but transitory. I am an artist
+with a way to make for my art: you are a working woman with a career,
+odd as it is," he smiled whimsically, "that you have chosen, and that
+you will pursue faithfully until some stalwart young man dissuades you
+from it, when you will take your place in your niche as wife and
+mother, and leave me one more beautiful memory."
+
+"Surely," Nancy said, "you know it isn't--like that."
+
+"What is it like then?"
+
+Nancy felt every sane premise, every eager hope and delicate ideal
+slipping beyond her reach as she faced his mocking, tender eyes.
+
+"It can't be that you believe you have been--fair with me," she
+faltered.
+
+"I don't think I have been unfair," he said, "I have made no
+protestations, you know."
+
+Nancy shut her eyes. Curious scraps of her early religious education
+came back to her.
+
+"You have partaken of my bread and wine," she said.
+
+"It wasn't exactly consecrated."
+
+"I think it was," she said faintly. "Oh! don't you understand that
+that isn't a way for a man to think or to feel about a woman like
+me?"
+
+"Little American girl," Collier Pratt said, "little American girl,
+don't you understand that there is only one way for a woman to think
+or feel about a _man_ like _me_? I have had my life, and I haven't
+liked it much. I'm to be loved warmly and lightly till the flesh and
+blood prince comes along, but I'm never to be mistaken for him."
+
+"I don't believe you're sincere," Nancy cried; "women must have loved
+you deeply, tragically, and have suffered all the torture there is, at
+losing you."
+
+"That may be. Sincerity is a matter of so many connotations. You
+haven't known many artists, my dear."
+
+"No," said Nancy. "No, but I thought they were the same as other men,
+only worthier."
+
+"How should they be? He who perceives a merit is not necessarily he
+who achieves it. Else the world would be a little more one-sided than
+it is."
+
+"I can't believe those things," Nancy said. "I want to believe in you.
+You _must_ care for me, and what becomes of me. You have known so long
+what I was like, and what I was made for. All this seems like a
+terrible nightmare. I want you to tell me what it is you want of me,
+and let me give it to you."
+
+"I am proving some faint shadow of worthiness at least, when I say to
+you that I want absolutely nothing of you. I love, but I refrain."
+
+"You love," Nancy cried, "you _love_?"
+
+"Not as you understand loving, I am afraid. In my own way I love
+you."
+
+"I don't like your way, then," Nancy said wearily.
+
+"We're both so poor, little girl,--that's one thing. If I were free
+and could overcome my prejudice against matrimony, and could be a
+little surer of my own heart and its constancy,--even then, don't you
+see, practical considerations would and ought to stand in our way. I
+couldn't support you, you couldn't possibly support me."
+
+"I see," said Nancy. "Would you marry me If I were rich?" she said
+slowly.
+
+"I already have one wife," Collier Pratt smiled. Nancy remembered
+afterward that he smiled oftener during this interview than at any
+other. "But if somebody died, and left you a million, she might
+possibly be disposed of."
+
+For one moment, perhaps, his fate hung in the balance. Then he took a
+step forward.
+
+"Kiss me good night, dear," he said, "and let us end this bitter and
+fruitless discussion."
+
+"Kiss you good night," Nancy cried. "Kiss you good night. Oh! how dare
+you!--How dare you?" And she struck him twice across his mouth. "I
+wish I could kill you," she blazed. "Oh! how dare you,--how dare
+you?"
+
+"Oh! very well," said Collier Pratt calmly, wiping his mouth with his
+handkerchief. "If that's the way you feel--then our pleasant little
+acquaintanceship is ended. I'll take my hat and stick and my
+child--and go."
+
+"Your child?" Nancy cried aghast. "You wouldn't take Sheila away from
+me."
+
+"I don't feel exactly tempted to leave her with you," he said
+deliberately. "I don't mind a woman striking me--I'm used to that; it
+is one of my charming wife's ways of expressing herself in moments of
+stress--but I do object to any but the most purely formal relations
+with her afterward. There is a certain degree of intimacy involved in
+your having charge of my child. I think I will take the little girl
+away with me now."
+
+"Please, please, please don't," Nancy said. "I love her. I couldn't
+bear it now. You can't be so cruel."
+
+"Better get it over," Collier Pratt said. "Will you call Hitty, or
+shall I?"
+
+"Sheila is in bed," Nancy cried. "You wouldn't take her out of her
+warm bed to-night. I'll send her to you to-morrow at whatever hour you
+ask."
+
+"I ask for her now."
+
+There was no fight left in Nancy. She called Hitty and superintended
+the dressing of the little girl to its last detail. She could not
+touch her.
+
+"Won't you kiss me good night, Miss Dear?" Sheila said, drowsily, as
+she took her father's hand at the door.
+
+"Not to-night," Nancy said hoarsely. "I've a bad throat, dear, I
+wouldn't want you to catch it."
+
+"I don't know where I'm going," the little girl said, "but I suppose
+my father knows. I'll come back as soon as I can."
+
+"Yes, dear," Nancy said. "Good-by."
+
+Collier Pratt turned at the door and made an exaggerated gesture of
+farewell.
+
+"We part more in anger than in sorrow," he said.
+
+"Oh! Go," Nancy cried.
+
+As the door closed upon the two Nancy sank to her knees, and thence to
+a crumpled heap on the floor, but remembering that Hitty would find
+her there shortly, and being entirely unable to regain her feet
+unaided, she started to crawl in the direction of her own room, and
+presently arrived there, and pushed the door to behind her with her
+heel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TAME SKELETONS
+
+
+It was Sunday night, and New Year's Eve. Gaspard was preparing, and
+Molly and Dolly were serving a special dinner for Preston Eustace,
+planned weeks before on his first arrival in New York.
+
+Before the great logs--imported by Michael for the occasion--that
+blazed in the fireplace, a round table was set, decorously draped in
+the most immaculate of fine linen, and crowned with a wreath of holly
+and mistletoe, from which extended red satin trailers with a present
+from Nancy for each guest, on the end of each. All the impedimenta of
+the restaurant was cleared away, and a couch and several easy chairs
+that Nancy kept in reserve for such occasions were placed comfortably
+about the room. Only the innumerable starry candles and branching
+candelabra were reminiscent of the room's more professional aspect.
+
+Billy and Caroline were the first to arrive,--Caroline in pale
+floating green tulle, which accentuated the pure olive of her
+coloring, and transported Billy from his chronic state of adoration to
+that of an almost agonizing worship. Dick and Betty were next. He had
+realized the possible awkwardness of the situation for her, and had
+been thoughtful enough to offer to call for her. She was in defiant
+scarlet from top to toe, and had never looked more entrancing. Preston
+Eustace was to come in from Long Island where he was spending the
+holidays with a married sister. Michael received the guests and did
+the honors beamingly.
+
+"Where's Nancy?" Dick asked, as, divested of his outer garments, he
+appeared without warning in the presence of the lovers. "Don't bother
+to drop her hand, Billy. I don't see how you have the heart to, she's
+so lovely to-night."
+
+"We don't know where Nancy is," Caroline answered for him. "It seems
+to be all right, though. She's expected, Michael says."
+
+"Where's Nancy?" Betty asked, in her turn, appearing on the threshold
+with every hair most amazingly in place.
+
+"Coming," Dick reassured her.
+
+"Has anybody heard from her?" Betty asked.
+
+"Michael has, I think."
+
+"You aren't worried about her, are you?" Caroline asked.
+
+"Yes, I am," Betty said.
+
+"I thought you and Nancy were rather on the outs," Caroline suggested.
+"It seems odd to have you worrying about her like her maiden aunt."
+
+"You wait till you see her, you'll be worried about her, too."
+
+"What's wrong?" Dick asked quickly.
+
+"She's lost Sheila for one thing. That unspeakable Collier Pratt--I
+hope he chokes on his dinner to-night, and I hope it's a rotten
+dinner--has taken the child away."
+
+"The devil he has."
+
+There was a step on the rickety stair.
+
+"Hush! There she is now," Caroline cried.
+
+"No," Betty said quietly, listening. "That's not Nancy. That's your
+brother, Caroline."
+
+"I haven't heard his step for such a long time I've forgotten it,"
+Billy said.
+
+"I haven't heard it for a long time either," Betty said, her face
+draining of its last bit of color.
+
+"Promises to be one of those merry little meals when everybody present
+is attended by a tame skeleton," Billy whispered, "except us,
+Caroline."
+
+"I don't feel that we have any right to be so happy with the whole
+continent of Europe in the state it's in," Caroline whispered in
+reply.
+
+"I feel better about the continent of Europe than I did a while back,"
+Billy said, contentedly.
+
+"Hello, everybody," Preston Eustace said as Michael held the door for
+him. "How's everything, Caroline?"
+
+"All right," Caroline said. Then she added unnecessarily, "You--you
+know Betty, don't you?"
+
+"I used to know Betty," he said slowly.
+
+The two looked at each other, with that look of incredulity with which
+lovers sometimes greet each other after absence and estrangement.
+"This can't be you," their eyes seem to be saying, "I've disposed of
+you long since, God help me!"
+
+"How do you do, Preston?" Betty said, giving him her hand. Then she
+smiled faintly, and added with a caricature of her usual manner:
+"Lovely weather we're having for this time of year, aren't we?"
+
+"I'm very fond of you, Betty,"--Dick smiled as she sank into the chair
+beside him and Preston turned to his sister. "I think you're a little
+sport."
+
+"I don't know how you can, Dicky," she smiled at him forlornly. "I've
+got a bad black heart, and I play the wrong kind of games."
+
+"Well, I see through them, so it's all right. What's this about
+Nancy?"
+
+"I'll tell you later," Betty said; "there she comes now."
+
+Nancy, stimulated by massage and steam, her hair dressed by a
+professional; powdered, and for the first time in her life rouged to
+hide the tell-tale absence of her natural quickening color, came
+forward to meet her guests in supreme unconsciousness of the pathos of
+the effect she had achieved. She was dressed in snowy white like a
+bride,--the only gown she had that was in keeping with the holiday
+decorations, and she moved a little clumsily, as if her brain had
+found itself suddenly in charge of an unfamiliar set of reflexes. Her
+lids drooped over burning eyes that had known no sleep for many
+nights, and every line and lineament of her face was stamped with
+pain.
+
+"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting," she said. Her voice,
+curiously, was the only natural thing about her. "I've been scouring
+off every vestige of my work-a-day self, and that takes time. Thank
+you for the roses, Dick, but the only flowers I could have worn with
+this color scheme would have been geraniums."
+
+"I'll send you some geraniums to-morrow."
+
+"Don't," she said. "How do you do, Preston?"
+
+She gave him a cold hand, and he stared at her almost as he had stared
+at Betty. He was a tall grave-looking youth, with Caroline's straight
+features and olive coloring, and a shock of heavy blond hair.
+
+"I hope you'll like your party," Nancy hurried on. "Gaspard is
+bursting with pride in it. I think it would be a nice thing to have
+him in and drink his health after the coffee. He would never forget
+the honor."
+
+"My God!" Dick said in an undertone to Betty, "how long has she been
+like this?"
+
+"I'll tell you later," she promised him again.
+
+With the serving of the first course of dinner--Gaspard's wonderful
+_Purée Mongol_--an artist's dream of all the most delicate vegetables
+in the world mingled together as the clouds are mingled, the tensity
+in the air seemed to break and shatter about them in showers of
+brilliant, artificial mirth, which presently, because they were all
+young and fond of one another and their group had the habit of
+intimacy, became less and less strained and unreal.
+
+Nancy's tired eyes lost something of their unnatural glitter, and
+Betty seemed more of a woman than a scarlet sprite, while Caroline's
+smile began to reflect something of the real gladness that possessed
+her soul. Dick and Billy took up the burden of the entertainment of
+the party, and gave at least an excellent imitation of inspirational
+gaiety.
+
+"This _filet of sole_," Billy observed as he sampled his second course
+appreciatively, "is common or barnyard flounder,--and the shrimp and
+the oyster crab, and that mushroom of the sea, and the other little
+creature in the corner of my plate who shall be nameless, because I
+have no idea what his name is,--are all put in to make it harder."
+
+"Gaspard is using some of the simpler native products now instead of
+the high-priced imported ones," Nancy said eagerly, "and he is getting
+wonderful results, I think."
+
+"Flounder _a la Française_ is all right," Dick said.
+
+"Our restaurant has reformed," Betty said. "We're running it on a
+strictly business basis."
+
+"And making money?" Dick asked quickly.
+
+"We're not losing much," Betty said. "That's a great improvement."
+
+"Some of those little girls from the publishing houses look paler to
+me than they did," Nancy said. "I wish I could give them hypodermics
+of protein and carbohydrates."
+
+"Give me the name and address of any of your customers that worry
+you," Dick said, "and I'll buy 'em a cow or a sugar plum tree or a
+flivver or anything else they seem to be in need of."
+
+"Don't those things tend to pauperize the poor?" Caroline's brother
+put in gravely.
+
+"Sure they do," Billy agreed, "only Nancy has kind of given up her
+struggle not to pauperize them."
+
+"I started in with some very high ideals about scientific service,"
+Nancy explained. "I was never going to give anybody anything they
+hadn't actually earned in some way, except to bring up the average of
+normality by feeding my patrons surreptitious calories. I had it all
+figured out that the only legitimate charity was putting flesh on the
+bones of the human race,--that increasing the general efficiency that
+way wasn't really charity at all."
+
+"You don't believe that now?" Preston Eustace asked.
+
+"I don't know what I believe now."
+
+"What is scientific charity, anyhow?" Dick looked about inquiringly.
+
+"There ain't no such animal," Billy contributed.
+
+"It's substituting the cool human intellect for the warm human heart,
+I guess," Betty said dreamily.
+
+"But that so often works," Caroline said.
+
+"I was never going to make any mistakes," Nancy said. "I was going
+to keep my fists scientifically shut, and my heart beatifically
+open." She hesitated. "I--I was going to swing my life, and my
+undertakings--right." It became increasingly hard for her to
+speak, and a little gasp went round the table. "I've--I've made
+nothing--nothing but mistakes," she finished piteously.
+
+"But you've rectified them," Betty put in vigorously. "Nancy, dear,
+I've never known you to make a mistake that you haven't rectified, and
+that is more than I can say of any other person in the world."
+
+"Sirloin and carrots," Caroline said, as the next course came in.
+"I'll wager you've cut the price of this dinner in two by judicious
+ordering."
+
+"There's nothing else but field salad," Nancy said, still piteously,
+"and raspberry _mousse_."
+
+"Nancy, you'll break my heart," Betty said, wiping her eyes frankly,
+but Nancy only looked at her wonderingly, wistfully, preoccupied and
+remote, while Preston Eustace gazed at Betty as if he too would find a
+welcome relief in shedding a heavy tear or two.
+
+"Collier Pratt has broken her heart, Dick," Betty told him in the
+limousine on the way home. "It's been going on ever since the first
+time she saw him. Down at the restaurant we've all known it. She's
+been eating at his table every night for months, and Gaspard and
+everybody else in the place, in fact, has been a slave to his lightest
+whim. I've always disliked him intensely, myself."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me before, Betty?"
+
+"It wasn't my business to tell you. I thought it was coming off, you
+know."
+
+"What was coming off?"
+
+"Their affair. I thought it was past my meddling."
+
+"Do you mean to say that you thought Nancy was going to marry Collier
+Pratt--_Nancy_?"
+
+"Why, yes, if I hadn't I--I wouldn't have acted up the way I did in
+your rooms that night."
+
+But Dick neither heard nor understood her.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you think Collier Pratt has been making love
+to her?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"But the damned scoundrel is married."
+
+"Oh!" Betty cried. "_Oh!_--I didn't know that."
+
+"I've known it--I've always known it," Dick said. "I never dreamed
+that Nancy had any special interest in him."
+
+"Well, she had. She's going through everything, Dick, even Sheila--you
+know how she loved Sheila?"
+
+"I know," Dick said grimly. "Do you mind going on home alone, Betty?
+You'll be perfectly safe with Williams, you know."
+
+"Of course not. What are you going to do, Dick? Are you going to
+Nancy?"
+
+"No, I'm not going to Nancy."
+
+Betty, looking at him more closely, realized for the first time that
+she was sitting beside a man in whom the rage of the primitive animal
+was gaining its ascendency. His breath was coming in short stertorous
+gasps, his hands were clinched, the purplish color was mounting to his
+brows, but he still went through the motions of a courteous
+leave-taking.
+
+"Where are you going, Dick?" she asked again, as he stood on the curb
+where he had signaled Williams to leave him, with the door of the car
+in his hand, staring down at it, and for the moment forgetting to
+close it.
+
+"I'm going to find Collier Pratt," he said thickly. Then with a slam
+that splintered the hinge of the door he was holding he crashed it in
+toward the car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+OTHER PEOPLE'S TROUBLES
+
+
+Nancy was trying conscientiously to interest herself in other people's
+troubles. After the first great shock of pain following her loss at a
+blow of her lover and Sheila, she began automatically to try to work
+her way through her suffering. The habit of application to the daily
+task combined with her instinct for taking immediate action in a
+crisis stood her in good stead in her hour of need. She decided what
+to occupy herself with, and then devoted herself faithfully to the
+prescribed occupation.
+
+The Inn did not need her. With Betty to guide him economically Gaspard
+was able to superintend all the details of the establishment
+adequately and artistically. Sheila was gone. She packed up several
+trunks of dresses and toys and other childish belongings and sent them
+to Washington Square, but even without these constant reminders of
+her, the hunger for the child's presence did not abate. The little
+girl was curiously dissociated from her father in Nancy's mind. She
+had seen so little of the two together that they seemed to belong to
+entirely different compartments of her consciousness. It was only the
+anguish of losing them that linked them together.
+
+Nancy decided to devote a certain proportion of her days and nights to
+remedying such evils as lay under her immediate observation;--to
+helping the individuals with whom she came into daily contact--the
+dependents and tradespeople with whom she dealt. She had always been
+convinced that the people who ministered to her daily comfort in New
+York should occupy some part in her scheme of existence. It was one of
+her favorite arguments that a little more energy and imagination on
+the part of New York citizens would develop the communal spirit which
+was so painfully lacking in the soul of the average Manhattanite.
+
+So the milkman and the corner grocer, the newspaper man, and Hitty's
+small brood of grand nieces and nephews, to say nothing of the Italian
+fruit man's family, and her laundress's invalid daughter, were all
+occupying a considerable place in Nancy's daily schedule. In a very
+short interval she had the welfare of more than half a dozen families
+on her hands, and was involved in all manner of enterprises of a
+domestic nature,--from the designing of confirmation gowns to the
+purchase of rubber-tired rolling chairs, and heterogeneous woolen
+garments and other intimate necessities.
+
+She was a little ashamed of her new line of activities, and still hurt
+enough to shun the scrutiny of her friends, and thereby succeeded in
+mystifying and alarming Billy and Dick and Betty and Caroline almost
+beyond the limit of their endurance by resolutely keeping them at
+arm's length. She was supremely unconscious of anything at all
+remarkable in her behavior, and believed that they accepted her
+excuses and apologies at their face value. She had no conception of
+the fact that her tortured face, with tragedy looking newly out of her
+eyes, kept them from their rest at night.
+
+Sheila wrote to thank her for sending the trunks.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My dear, _ma chère_, Miss Dear," she said. "_Merci beaucoup pour_ my
+clothes and other beautiful things. I like them. _Je t'aime--je t'aime
+toujours_. My father will not permit me to go back. _Comme_--how I
+desire to see you! My father has been sick. He fell down or was hurt
+in the street. There was blood--a great deal. Are they well--the
+others? Tell Monsieur Dick I give him _tout mon coeur_. Come to see me
+if it is _permit_. No more. You could write _peut-être_. _Je
+t'aime_."
+
+                                                       "Yours,
+                                                           "SHEILA."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nancy read this letter, in the quaint childish hand, with a great wave
+of dumb sickness creeping over her--a devastating, disintegrating
+nausea of soul and body. The most significant fact in it, however,
+that Collier Pratt had fallen down "or been hurt in the street," of
+course escaped her entirely, except to stir her with a kind of dim
+pity for his distress.
+
+In one of her long night vigils Preston Eustace's face came back to
+her oddly. She remembered suddenly the strange sad way he had stared
+at Betty on the evening of her party at the Inn. She reconstructed
+Betty's love-story, and its sudden breaking off, three years before,
+and with her new insight into the human heart, decided that these two
+loved each other still, and must be helped to the consummation of
+their happiness. She telephoned to them both the next day that they
+could be of service to her; and made an appointment to meet them at a
+given hour the next evening at her apartment.
+
+She expected and intended to be there herself to give the meeting the
+semblance of coincidence, and to offer them the hospitality of her
+house before she was inspired with the excuse that would permit her an
+exit that left them alone together; but she found herself in the slums
+of Harlem by an Italian baby's bedside at that hour, and decided that
+even to telephone would be superfluous, as once finding each other the
+lovers would be oblivious to all other considerations.
+
+What actually happened was that Preston Eustace, exactly on time as
+was his habit, had been waiting some ten minutes on Nancy's hearth-rug
+when Betty, delayed by the eccentricities of a casual motor-bus
+engine, and frantic with anxiety for her friend, burst in upon him. So
+full was she of the most hectic speculations concerning Nancy's sudden
+appeal to her that she scarcely noticed who was waiting there to greet
+her, and when she did notice, scarcely heeded that recognition.
+
+"Where's Nancy?" she demanded breathlessly.
+
+"I don't know, Betty," Preston Eustace said.
+
+"Doesn't Hitty know?"
+
+"She says she doesn't!"
+
+"How did you happen to be here?"
+
+"She sent for me."
+
+"She's probably sent for everybody else," Betty said. "She's killed
+herself, I know she has."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"Her heart is broken, she's been suffering terribly."
+
+"I don't think she would have sent for me if she had been going to
+kill herself," Preston Eustace said, a little as if he would have
+added, "We are not on those terms."
+
+"I don't suppose she would," Betty said. "But oh, Preston, I'm so
+worried about her. I don't know where she is or anything. I tell you
+her heart is broken."
+
+"I didn't know you believed in hearts--broken or otherwise, Betty."
+
+"I believe in Nancy's heart."
+
+"You never believed in mine."
+
+"You never gave me much reason to, Preston. You--you let me give you
+back your ring the first time I threatened to."
+
+"Of course I did."
+
+"You never came near me again."
+
+"Of course I didn't."
+
+"You let three years go by without a word."
+
+"Of course--"
+
+"If you say 'of course I did' again I'll fly straight up through this
+roof. If you'd ever loved me you wouldn't have gone away and left
+me."
+
+"If I hadn't loved you I wouldn't have gone away."
+
+"Oh, dear," Betty sighed. "I don't see how you can stand there and
+think about yourself with Nancy out in the night--we don't know
+where."
+
+"Ourselves, Betty--did you ever really love me?"
+
+"It doesn't make any difference whether I did or not," Betty said. "I
+hate men."
+
+"I think I'd better be going," Preston Eustace said, his face dark
+with pain. He was rather a literal-minded young man, as Caroline's
+brother would have been likely to be.
+
+Betty buried her face in her hands.
+
+"My head aches," she said, "and I was never in my life so mad and so
+miserable. I can't understand why everything and everybody should
+behave so--devilishly. You and every one else, I mean. I just simply
+can't bear to have Nancy suffer so. My head aches and my heart aches
+and my soul aches." She lifted her head defiantly.
+
+"I think I had better be going," Preston Eustace repeated, looking
+down at her sorrowfully.
+
+"Oh! don't be going," Betty said. "What in the name of sense do you
+want to be going for?" Then without warning or premeditation she
+hurled herself at his breast. "Oh! Preston, if there is anything
+comforting in this world," she said, "tell it to me, now."
+
+Preston Eustace gathered her to his breast with infinite tenderness.
+
+"I love you," he said with his lips on her brow. "Doesn't that comfort
+you a little?"
+
+"Yes," she admitted, "yes," winding her arms about his neck, "but you
+have no idea what a little devil I am, Preston."
+
+"I don't want to have any idea," he said, still holding her hungrily.
+
+"No, I don't think you do," Betty said. "Oh! kiss me again, dear, and
+tell me you won't ever let me go now."
+
+When Nancy came in she found the lovers so oblivious to the sound of
+her key in the latch or her footstep in the corridor that she decided
+to slip into bed without disturbing them, and did so, without their
+ever realizing that for the latter part of the evening at least, they
+had a hostess within range of the sound of their voices--indeed, she
+was obliged to stuff the pillow into her ears to prevent herself from
+actually hearing what they were saying.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first her freedom--her release from the monotonous constraint of
+her daily confinement at the Inn--the unaccustomed independence of her
+new activities which justified her most untoward goings and
+comings--was very soothing to her. She liked the feeling of slipping
+out of the house at night, accountable to no one except the
+redoubtable Hitty to whom she presented any explanation that happened
+to occur to her,--however wide its departure from the actual
+facts--and losing herself in the resurgent town. But after a while her
+liberty lost its savor. She began to feel uncared for and neglected.
+The unaccountable anguish in her breast was neither assuaged nor
+mitigated by the geographical latitude she permitted herself. She kept
+doggedly on with her personally conducted philanthropies, but she
+began to feel a little frightened about her capacity for endurance.
+Her body and brain began to show strange signs of fatigue. She was
+afraid that one or the other might suddenly refuse to function.
+
+One night, on coming out into the heterogeneous human stream on Avenue
+A, after a visit to a Polish family in the model tenements on
+Seventy-ninth Street, she ran into Dick.
+
+"Why, Dick," she said, "what an extraordinary place to find you!"
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" he said. "My business often brings me up this way."
+
+"Your business? What business?" she asked incredulously.
+
+"I don't know exactly what business it is. The ministering business, I
+guess." He motioned toward the basket on her arm: "Let me carry that,
+and you, too, if you'll let me, Nancy. You look tired."
+
+"I am tired, Dick," she said. "Have you got a car anywhere around?"
+
+"I can phone for it in two shakes," he said. "Here in this ice-cream
+parlor. Can I buy you a cone while you're waiting?"
+
+"Buy cones for that crowd of children and I'll watch them eat them.
+Doesn't that little girl in the pink dress look like Sheila, Dick?"
+
+She sank down on a stool in the interior of the candy shop and rested
+her elbows on the damp marble table in front of her, splotched and
+streaked still with the refreshment of the last customer who occupied
+the seat there and watched the horde of dirty clamorous street
+children devouring ice-cream cones and cheap sweets to the limit of
+their capacity.
+
+"I didn't know you believed in this promiscuous feeding of children
+between meals," Dick said, when she was settled comfortably at last
+among the cushions of his car, which had arrived on the scene with an
+amazing, not to say, suspicious promptness.
+
+"I don't," Nancy said, "in the least; but I don't _really_ believe in
+the things I believe in any more."
+
+"Poor Nancy!" Dick said.
+
+"I've had some trouble, Dick. I'm shaken all out of my poise. I can't
+seem to get my universe straight again."
+
+"I'm sorry for that," he said. "Anything I can do?"
+
+"Stand by; that's all, I guess."
+
+"You couldn't tell me a little more about it, could you?"
+
+"No, I couldn't, Dick."
+
+"I'm not even to guess?"
+
+"You couldn't guess. It's the kind of thing that's entirely outside
+of--of the probabilities. I think it's outside of the range of your
+understanding, Dick. I don't think you know that there is exactly that
+kind of trouble in the world."
+
+"And you think you'd better not enlighten me?"
+
+"I couldn't, Dick, even if I wanted to. Funny you happened to be in
+this part of town to-night just when I really needed you."
+
+He smiled. Every night of his life he followed her, watching over her,
+dodging down dark alley ways, waiting at squalid entrances until she
+came out. To-night he had ventured to speak to her only because he
+knew her to be in need of actual physical assistance.
+
+"Awfully glad to be anywhere around when you need me," he said; "still
+I hope you don't mind my suggesting that this is a Gehenna of a place
+for either of us to be in."
+
+"Haven't you any feeling for the downtrodden?" Nancy asked, with a
+faint reflection of what Billy referred to as her "older and better
+manner."
+
+"I'm downtrodden myself, Nancy."
+
+She smiled in her turn.
+
+"You don't look very downtrodden to me," she said. "_You've_ got
+everything to live for."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Well, money and freedom and--and--"
+
+"Money is the only thing I've got that you haven't, and that doesn't
+mean much unless you can share it with the person you love."
+
+"No, it doesn't, does it?" Nancy said unexpectedly. "What's that scar
+on your forehead?"
+
+"That's a scratch I got."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Shaving or fighting, or something like that."
+
+"_Was_ it fighting, Dick?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who were you fighting with?"
+
+"I wasn't fighting. I was assaulting and battering."
+
+"Why, Dick!"
+
+"If it's any satisfaction to you to know it I made one grand job of
+it."
+
+"Why should it be any satisfaction to me?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Why, Dick!" Nancy said again. "I didn't know you had any of that kind
+of brutality in you."
+
+"Didn't you?"
+
+"What happens to a man when he--does a thing like that?"
+
+"He gets jugged."
+
+"Did he get jugged?"
+
+"Well, that wasn't the part that interested me."
+
+An odd picture presented itself to Nancy's mind of the men of the
+world engaged in one grand mêlée of brawling; struggling, belaying one
+another with their bare fists, drawing blood; brutes turned on
+brutes.
+
+"Men are queer things," she said.
+
+Dick's face was turned away from her. It was not at the moment a face
+she would have recognized. The eyes were contracted: the nostrils
+quivering: the teeth set.
+
+"I'm always at your service, Nancy," he said presently. "Is there
+anything in the world you want that I can get for you?"
+
+"The only thing I want is something you can't get?"
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"Sheila."
+
+"No," Dick said. "I can't get Sheila for you. I'm sorry. I suppose
+that's the whole answer to you," he went on musingly. "You want
+something, somebody to mother--to minister to. It doesn't make so much
+difference what else it is, so long as it's--downtrodden. That's why
+I've never made more of a hit with you. I've never been downtrodden
+enough. I didn't need feeding or nursing. I've always sort of
+cherished the feeling that I liked to be the one creature you didn't
+have to carry on your back. I thought that to stand behind _you_ was a
+pretty good stunt, but you've never needed anything yet to fall back
+on."
+
+"I don't think I ever shall," Nancy said. "Not,--not in the way you
+mean, Dick."
+
+"So be it," he said, folding his arms. "But there's still one thing
+you'll take from me, and that's the thing I've got that you
+haven't--money. I never have cared much about it before, but now that
+there are so many things I can't put right for you, I know you won't
+be selfish enough to deny this one satisfaction. Let me make over to
+you all the money you need to get you out of your difficulties with
+the Inn. Let me hand out a good round sum for all these charities of
+yours. If you knew how everything else in connection with you had
+conspired to hurt me,--how this being discounted and losing out all
+around has cut into me, you wouldn't deny me this one privilege. You
+don't want _me_, you wouldn't take me, but for God's sake, Nancy, take
+this one thing that I can give you."
+
+They had just swung into the lower entrance of the Park, and the big
+car was speeding silently into the deepening night, low hung with
+silver stars, and jeweled with soft lights.
+
+"You're awfully good to me, Dick," Nancy said, "and I appreciate every
+word you've been saying. I'd take your money, not for myself, but for
+the things I'm doing, if I needed it, but I don't, you know." She
+looked out into the coolness of the evening, lulled by the transition
+to a region of so much airiness and space, soothed by the soft motion,
+and the presence of a friend who loved her. The conversation in which
+she was engaged suddenly became trivial and unimportant to her. She
+was very tired, and she found herself beginning to rest and relax. "I
+don't need it," she repeated vaguely. "I've got plenty of money of my
+own. Over a million, Billy says now. Uncle Elijah left it to me. I
+didn't want him to, but perhaps it was all for the best." She put her
+head back against the cushions and shut her eyes. "I'm terribly
+sleepy," she said, "and as for the Inn--that's making money, too, you
+know. Last month we cleared more than two hundred dollars."
+
+And Dick saying nothing, but continuing to stare into space--the
+panoramic space fleeting rhythmically by the car window,--she let
+herself gradually slip into the depths of sudden drowsiness that had
+overtaken her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+HITTY
+
+
+Hitty put on her bonnet--she had worn widow's weeds for twenty-five
+years--and went out into the morning. She finally succeeded in
+boarding a south-bound Sixth Avenue car,--though since it was her
+habit to ignore the near side stop regulation, she always had
+considerable trouble in getting on any car,--and in seating herself
+bolt upright on the lengthwise seat, her black gloved hands folded
+indomitably before her.
+
+At Fourth Street she descended and made her way east to the square,
+and thence to the top floor of the studio building to which Collier
+Pratt had taken his little daughter on the memorable occasion when he
+had plucked her from her warm nest of blankets and led her, sleepy and
+shivering, into the cold of the night. She had been at some pains to
+secure the address without taking Nancy into her confidence.
+
+She took each creaking stair with a snort of disgust, and reaching the
+battered door with Collier Pratt's visiting card tacked on the smeary
+panel on a level with her eye, she knocked sharply, and scorning to
+wait for a reply, turned the knob and walked in.
+
+Collier Pratt was making coffee on a small spirit lamp, set on the
+wash-stand, which was decorously concealed during the more formal
+hours of the day behind a soft colored Japanese screen. He was wearing
+a smutty painter's smock, and though his face was shining with soap
+and water, his hair was standing about his face in a disorder eloquent
+of at least a dozen hours' neglect. Sheila, in a mussy gingham dress,
+was trying to pry off the pasteboard covering of a pint bottle of milk
+with a pair of scissors, and succeeding only indifferently. They both
+turned on Hitty's entrance, and the milk bottle went crashing to the
+floor when the little girl recognized her friend, but after one
+terrified look at her father she made no move at all in Hitty's
+direction.
+
+"And to what," Collier Pratt ejaculated slowly and disagreeably, as is
+any man's wont before he has had his draught of breakfast coffee, "am
+I to attribute the pleasure of this visit?"
+
+"It ain't no pleasure to me," Hitty said, advancing, a figure of
+menace, into the center of the dusty workshop, strangely uncouth and
+unprepossessing in the cold morning light,--"and if it's any pleasure
+to you, that's an effect that I ain't calculated to produce. I've come
+here on business--the business of collecting that poor neglected child
+there, and taking her back where she belongs, where there's folks that
+knows enough to treat her right."
+
+"Another of Miss Martin's friends and well-wishers, I take it. These
+American girls are given to surrounding themselves with groups of warm
+and impulsive associates. Do you by any chance happen to know a young
+lawyer by the name of Boynton, Hitty? A collection lawyer?"
+
+"I'll thank you to call me Mrs. Spinney, if you please, or if you
+don't please. Mrs. Spinney is the name I go by when I'm spoken to by
+them that knows their manners. If Billy Boynton thinks he can collect
+blood out of a stone he's welcome to try, but I should think he was
+too long headed to waste his time."
+
+"I gave him my I. O. U.," Collier Pratt said wearily. "If you don't
+mind, Hitty,--I really must be excused from your inexcusable
+surname--I am going to drink a cup of coffee before we continue this
+interesting discussion--_café noir_, our late unfortunate accident
+depriving me of _café au lait_ as usual. Sheila, get the cups."
+
+"You don't mean to say that you feed that peaked child with full
+strength coffee, do you? It'll stunt her growth; ain't you got the
+sense to know that?"
+
+"I don't like _big_ women," Collier Pratt said. "She's very fond of
+coffee."
+
+"Well! I've come to get her and take her away where you won't be in a
+position to stunt her growth, whatever your ideas on the subject is."
+
+Collier Pratt seated himself at the deal table that Sheila had set
+with the coffee-cups and a big loaf of French bread, and began slowly
+consuming a bowl of inky fluid, strong of chicory, into which from
+time to time he dipped a portion of the loaf. Sheila imitated his
+processes with less daintiness and precision, since she was shaken
+with excitement at Hitty's appearance.
+
+"I should spread a newspaper down if I was you," Hitty said, "before I
+et my vittles off a table that way. If a table ain't scrubbed as often
+as twice a day it ain't fit to be et off."
+
+"I know your breed," Collier Pratt said. "You'd be capable of taking
+your breakfast off _The Evening Telegram_ if no more appropriately
+colored sheet were at hand. Tell me, did Miss Martin send you here
+this morning, or was the inspiration to come entirely your own?"
+
+"Nobody had to send me. Wild horses wouldn't have kept me away from
+here."
+
+"Nor drag you away from here, I suppose, until your gruesome visit is
+accomplished. What makes you think that I would give up Sheila to
+you?"
+
+"I don't _think_ you would. I know you're a-goin' to."
+
+"Indeed."
+
+"We want the child. You don't want her, and you can't pretend to me
+that you do. Even if you did want her you can't take care of her in no
+way that's decent."
+
+"There's a great deal in what you say, Hitty."
+
+"What you're going to do is to sign a paper giving up your claim to
+her, and then Nancy can adopt her when she sees fitting to do so."
+
+"What would you suggest my doing about the child's mother? She has a
+mother living, you know."
+
+"Well, I didn't know," Hitty said, "but now I do know I guess I ain't
+going to have so much trouble as I thought I was. You're just a plain
+low-down yellow cur that any likely man I know would come down here
+and lick the lights out of."
+
+"Well, don't send any more of them, Hitty," Collier Pratt protested.
+"My work won't stand it."
+
+"You 'tend to the child's mother then, and I'll 'tend to you. You'd
+better let Sheila come away peaceable without any more trouble."
+
+"What do you propose doing to me if I don't?"
+
+"There's so many different things I could use," Hitty said thoughtfully,
+"that I don't know which one to hold over your head first."
+
+"I don't see how you could use anything you've got."
+
+"I'd just as soon use something I hadn't got," Hitty said grimly. "I'd
+sue you for breach o' promise myself ruther than lose what I come
+after."
+
+"I don't doubt you're capable of it," Collier Pratt said, surveying
+her ruefully. "That certainly would ruin my reputation. But seriously,
+supposing I were to give my consent to Sheila's going back to Miss
+Martin--Sheila's fond of her, and I should be very glad to do Miss
+Martin a service--little as you may be inclined to believe it of me.
+I'm fond enough of the child, but she is a considerable embarrassment
+to a man situated as I am. Supposing I should consent to giving her up
+as you suggest, how can a woman situated as Miss Martin is situated
+undertake such a charge permanently? How could she afford it? What
+kind of a future should I be surrendering my little girl to? One has
+to think of those things. Miss Martin is a poor girl--"
+
+"It's a lucky thing that you didn't know it before," Hitty said
+deliberately. "What you don't know that a woman's got, you wouldn't be
+trying to get away from her. Nancy's Uncle Elijah that died last year
+left her a million dollars in his will."
+
+"The devil he did--"
+
+"I guess if anybody's going to talk about devils it had better be me,"
+Hitty said dryly. "Does the child go or stay?"
+
+"Oh! she goes," Collier Pratt said. "I'm sorry you didn't come after
+me too, Hitty."
+
+"Nobody from up our way is ever coming after you. You can put that in
+your pipe and smoke it. Put on your bonnet, Sheila."
+
+"In some ways that is more of a relief than you know, Hitty. Some of
+the young men from up your way are so violent."
+
+"It ain't generally known yet," Hitty said as a parting shot when,
+Sheila's hand in hers, she stood at the door preparatory to taking her
+triumphal departure. "But Nancy is going to marry considerable money
+in addition to what she's inherited."
+
+Nancy finding it impossible to spend an hour of her time idly and with
+no appointments before noon that day, was engaged in darning a basket
+full of slum socks that she had brought home from the tenements to
+occupy Hitty's leisure moments. She was not very expert at this
+particular task, and the holes were so huge, and their method of
+behaving under scientific management so peculiar--it is hardly
+necessary to say that Nancy knew the theory of darning perfectly--that
+she was becoming more and more dissatisfied with her progress. Hitty's
+unprecedented and taciturn donning of her best bonnet in the early
+morning hours, followed by her abrupt departure without explanation or
+apology, was also a little disconcerting to any one acquainted with
+her habits. Nancy was relieved to hear her key in the lock again, and
+put down her work to greet her.
+
+The door opened and Sheila stood on the threshold. Hitty was close
+behind her, but Nancy had eyes only for the child.
+
+"Don't cry, Miss Dear," Sheila said, in her arms. "I cried hard every
+night when I was gone from you, but now I have come back. My father
+does not want me, and he says that you can have me."
+
+"He signed a paper," Hitty said. "I've got it in my bag with my specs.
+If ever he shows his face around here we can have the law on him."
+
+"Can I really have Sheila?" Nancy cried. "I can't believe that--her
+father would let her go. I can't understand it."
+
+"He's a kind of a poor soul," Hitty said. "He ain't got no real
+contrivance. He's glad enough to get rid of her."
+
+"Did he say so?"
+
+"Well, nearabout. He has a high-falutin way of talking but that was
+the amount of it. He knows which side his bread is buttered. He ain't
+nobody's fool. I'll say that for him."
+
+"I can't say that you make him out a very pleasant character," Nancy
+said. "But he's an artist, Hitty. Artists don't react to the same set
+of laws that we do. They're different somehow."
+
+"They ain't so different, when it comes to that," Hitty said dryly.
+"They won't take a hint, but the harder you kick 'em the better for
+all concerned. Don't you go sticking up for that low-down loon. He
+ain't worth it."
+
+"I suppose he isn't," Nancy said; "he's a pretty poor apology for a
+man as we understand men, Hitty, but there's something about him,--a
+power and a charm that you can't altogether discount, even though you
+have lost every particle of your respect for him."
+
+"He has a kind of way," Hitty conceded, "but I ain't one o' them kind
+o' women that hankers much for the society of a man that's once shown
+himself to be more of a sneak than the average."
+
+"I don't think that I am, either," Nancy said gravely.
+
+"I want to be your little girl always," Sheila announced, "if I may
+talk now, may I? And Monsieur Dick's, too, and sit on a cushion and
+sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream. I want
+to see Monsieur Dick. Where is he?"
+
+"He's been sick," Nancy said, "but he's getting better now, I think. I
+haven't seen him for some time, myself."
+
+"Don't you love him very much and aren't you very sorry?"
+
+"He probably isn't very sick," Nancy said. "I don't think he could
+be--but if he were I should be sorry, of course."
+
+"I don't want him to be sick," Sheila said, making herself a nest in
+Nancy's lap, and curling around in it like a kitten. "If he was I
+should be very, very unhappy, and I am tired of being unhappy, Miss
+Dear."
+
+Nancy's arms closed tight about her little body, which was lighter in
+her arms than she had ever known it. "Oh! I'm going to make such a
+strong well, little girl of you," she cried, "and we're going to have
+so many pleasant times together. I'm tired of being unhappy, too,
+Sheila, dear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+LOHENGRIN AND WHITE SATIN
+
+
+Dick, having la grippe, and doing his bewildered best to get pneumonia
+and gastritis by creeping out of bed when his temperature was highest,
+and indulging in untrammelled orgies of food and drink and exposure to
+draughts, had finally succeeded in making himself physically very
+miserable indeed. His mind had been out of joint for weeks. He reached
+the phase presently of refusing all nourishment and spiritual
+consolation, indiscriminately, and finding himself unbenefited by
+these heroic methods, decided in his own mind that all was over with
+him.
+
+He knew nothing about sickness, having led a charmed life in that
+respect since the measles period, and the persistent misery in his
+interior, attacking lung and liver impartially,--to say nothing of the
+top of his head and the back of his neck, and as his weakness
+increased, his cardiac region where there was a perpetual palpitation,
+and the calves of his legs which set up an ache like that of a
+recalcitrant tooth,--persuaded him that such suffering as his must be
+a certain indication of the approaching end. He had dismissed his
+doctor after the first visit, and denying himself to visitors, found
+himself alone and apparently in a desperate condition, with no one to
+minister to him but paid dependents. It was then that the loss of
+Nancy began to assume spectral proportions. He had been so long
+accustomed to think of himself as the strong silent lover, equipped
+with the patience and understanding that would outlast all the
+vagaries of Nancy's adventurous tendencies, that it was difficult to
+readjust himself to a new conception of her as a woman that another
+and even less worthy man had so nearly won,--under his nose.
+
+He had never thought much of his money until it began to acquire the
+virtue of an alkahest in his mind, an universal solvent that would
+transmute all the baser metals in Nancy's life and the lives of the
+people in whom Nancy was interested, into the pure gold of luxury and
+ease. He knew that the conventional fairy gifts would mean very little
+to her, but he had dreamed, when she was ready, of working out with
+her some practicable and gracious scheme of beneficence. There was one
+power she coveted that he could put in her hands,--one way that he
+could befriend and relieve her even before she conceded him that
+prerogative. When he learned that she had a fortune of her own his
+hopes came tumbling about his head, and he lay disconsolate among the
+ruins. His creeping physical disability seemed significant of the
+cataclysmic overthrow of all his dreams and desires. From having
+secretly and in some terror arrived at the conclusion that death was
+imminent, he began to look upon such a solution of his misery with
+some favor.
+
+It was a very gaunt and hollow-eyed caricature of the Dick she had
+known that confronted Nancy, when instigated by Betty, who had his
+illness heavily on her mind, she forced her way unannounced into the
+curious Georgian living-room of the suite wherein he was incarcerated.
+He had been stretched in an attitude of abandon on the couch when she
+opened the oak paneled door, but he jumped to his feet in a spasm of
+rage and alarm when he discovered that he had a visitor.
+
+"Go away," he said, "I am not able to see anybody. There's a mistake.
+I gave strict orders that nobody at all was to be admitted."
+
+"I know, Dick," Nancy said gently, "don't blame your faithful
+servitors. I thought I should have to use a gun on them, but I
+explained to them that you must be looked after."
+
+"I don't want to be looked after. I'm all right, thank you. Are you
+alone?"
+
+"No, Hitty's outside. Betty simply insisted on my bringing her,--I
+don't know why, but she said you'd be kinder to me if I did. I don't
+think you're very kind."
+
+A flicker of a smile crossed Dick's face, which seemed to say that if
+anything could bring back a momentary relish of existence the mention
+of Betty's name would be that thing. Nancy saw the expression and
+misinterpreted it.
+
+"I don't want to see anybody," Dick repeated firmly. "Will you be good
+enough to go away and leave me to my misery?"
+
+"No, I won't," Nancy said, "I never left anybody to their misery yet,
+and I'm not going to begin on you. Of course, if you'd rather see
+Betty, I'll send for her. She seems to know a good deal about your
+habits and customs. You look like a monk in that bathrobe. I'm glad
+you're not a fat man, Dick. It's so very hard to calculate just how
+much to cut down on starches and sweets without injury to the health.
+What are you feeding up on?"
+
+"You know very well that I'm not feeding up on anything, but if you
+think you can come around here, and dope out one of your darned health
+menus for me, and sit around watching me eat it, you are jolly well
+mistaken. I wish you'd go home, Nancy. I don't like you to-day. I
+don't like myself or anybody in this whole universe. I'm not fit for
+human society--don't you see I'm not?"
+
+"You're awful cross, dear."
+
+"Don't call me dear. I'm not Sheila or one of your sick waitresses,
+you know."
+
+"Sheila's back."
+
+"Is she?"
+
+"Don't you care?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose so."
+
+"She loves you."
+
+"She's unique."
+
+"You told me once there were other girls, Dick."
+
+"They're all over it by now."
+
+"Dick, can't I do something for you?"
+
+"Yes, leave me alone."
+
+"I've never seen you like this before."
+
+"No, thank God."
+
+"I didn't know you were ever anything but sort of smug and superior."
+
+"Grand description."
+
+"You ought to be in bed, dear--I didn't mean to call you dear, it
+slipped out, Dicky,--and taking nourishment every hour or so. What
+does the doctor say?"
+
+"Nothing, he's given me up as a bad job."
+
+"Given you up?"
+
+"Yes, there's nothing he can do for me."
+
+"Why, Dick, my dear, what is it?"
+
+"Oh! lungs or liver or something. I don't know."
+
+"What are you taking, Dick?"
+
+"I tell you I can't take anything," he said, misunderstanding her. "It
+makes me sick to eat. Every time I try to eat anything I feel a lot
+worse for it."
+
+"When did you try last?"
+
+"Oh, yesterday some time. Now what in the name of sense makes a woman
+shed tears at a simple statement like that? I'm not in shape to stand
+this. Once and for all, Nancy, will you get out and leave me? I tell
+you I never wanted to see you less in my life. I'll write you a letter
+and apologize if you'll only go, now."
+
+"Oh, I'll go," Nancy said. "I couldn't really believe that you wanted
+me to,--that's all."
+
+She started for the door--but Dick, weakened by lack of food, tortured
+beyond his endurance by the sudden assault on his nerves made by
+Nancy's appearance, gave way to his relief at her going an instant too
+soon. Like a small boy in pain he crooked his elbow and covered his
+face with his arm.
+
+Nancy ran to him and knelt at his side, taking his head on her
+breast.
+
+"Dear," she said, "you do want me. We want each other. You love me,
+Dicky, and I am going to love you--if you'll only let me look after
+you and nurse you back to health again."
+
+"I don't want to be nursed," Dick blubbered, his head buried in her
+bosom, "I want to look out for you, and take care of you, and--and now
+look at me. You'll never love me after this, Nancy."
+
+"Yes, I shall, dear," Nancy said. "I've always loved you somehow.
+It'll--it'll be the saving of me, Dick."
+
+"Well, then I do want to be nursed. I--I haven't cried before since I
+had the measles, Nancy."
+
+"I'm glad you cried, now, then," Nancy said.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I suppose you'll want to be married in the courtyard of the Inn,"
+Dick said some weeks later, when they were conventionally ensconced in
+Nancy's own drawing-room; Hitty happily rattling silverware in the
+butler's pantry in the rear, "with old Triton blowing his wreathed
+horn above us, and all the nymphs and gargoyles and Hercules as
+interested spectators. Well, go as far as you like. I haven't any
+objection. I'll be married in a Roman bath if you want me to, and eat
+bran biscuit and hygienic apple sauce for my wedding breakfast."
+
+"Betty and Preston are going to be married at the Inn," Nancy said;
+"you know her mother's an invalid, and they can't have it at home. Do
+you know what I'd like to give them as a wedding present?"
+
+"I don't."
+
+"Well, you know, Preston's firm has gone out of existence. The war
+simply killed it. They haven't much money ahead, and he may have a
+harder time than he thinks getting located again."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I thought I'd like to give them Outside Inn for a wedding present.
+Besides, I don't see what else there is to do with it. It's making
+several hundred a month, now, and promises to make more."
+
+"Good idea," Dick said.
+
+"You don't seem exceedingly interested."
+
+"Oh, I am," Dick said, "I'm more interested in our wedding than
+Betty's wedding present, but that doesn't imply a lack of merit in
+your idea. _You'll_ want to be married at the Inn, I take it?"
+
+"You'd let me, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Sure I'd let you. When a man marries a modern girl with all the
+trappings and the suits of modernity, he ought to be prepared to take
+the consequences cheerfully."
+
+"Then I'm going to surprise you. I don't want anything modern at all
+about my wedding. I want it in church with a huge bridal bouquet and
+_Lohengrin_ and white satin; Caroline for my matron of honor and Betty
+for my bridesmaid, and Sheila for flower girl. I want a wedding
+breakfast at the Ritz and rice and old shoes--just all the old
+traditional things."
+
+"Gee whiz," Dick ejaculated, "is this straight, or are you only making
+it up to sound good to me? You can have it anyway you like it, you
+know."
+
+"That's the way I like it," Nancy said. "It's good to be a modern
+girl, but I really prefer to be an old-fashioned wife--with
+reservations," she added hastily.
+
+"That's what we all come to in the end," Dick said, "no matter how we
+feel or think we feel about it--being modern with reservations."
+
+"I saw Collier Pratt to-day," Nancy said suddenly, as she watched a
+log split apart in the fireplace and scatter its tiny shower of
+sparks, "on the avenue."
+
+Dick carefully stamped out two smoldering places on the rug before he
+answered.
+
+"Did you?" he said.
+
+"He had a cheap little creature with him, dark haired in messy
+cerise."
+
+"It may have been his wife. I hear that she's living with him again."
+
+"Is she?"
+
+"Nancy," Dick said with an effort, after a few minutes of silence,
+"are you all over that? Is it really fair and right of me to take you?
+I've been puzzling over that lately. I want you on any terms, you
+know, as far as I am concerned, but I'm a sort of monogamist. If a
+woman has once cared for a person, no matter who or what that person
+is, can she ever care again in the same way for any one? Isn't it pity
+you feel for me, after all?"
+
+"No it isn't pity," Nancy said slowly. "I cared for that man until I
+found that he was the shadow and not the substance. He isn't fit to
+black your shoes, Dick.--Besides--if--if it was pity," she added
+irrelevantly, "that's the way to get me started, you know."
+
+"If I only have got you started--really."
+
+Nancy crossed the two feet of space between them and sank at his feet,
+leaning her head back against his knee while he stroked her hair
+silently.
+
+"There's one way of proving," she said presently, "if--if you've made
+a woman really care for you. I should think you'd know that. I told
+you how you'd made me feel about the bridal bouquet and _Lohengrin_."
+
+"Does that prove something?"
+
+"Doesn't it?"
+
+"I suppose it does. You mean it proves that a woman truly loves a man
+if he's made her feel that she wants to be an old-fashioned wife--"
+
+"And mother, Dick," Nancy finished for him bravely.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Outside Inn, by Ethel M. Kelley
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30483 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30483 ***</div>
+
+<h1>OUTSIDE INN</h1>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a  id='linki_1'></a>
+</div>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' title='' width='392' height='560' /><br />
+<p class='caption'>
+&ldquo;If&mdash;if you&rsquo;ve made a woman really care&rdquo;<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:2.2em;margin-bottom:10px;'>OUTSIDE INN</p>
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em;margin-bottom:10px;'><i>By</i></p>
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-bottom:10px;'>ETHEL M. KELLEY</p>
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em;margin-bottom:10px;'><i>Author of</i><br />Over Here, Turn About Eleanor, Etc.</p>
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em;'><i>With Frontispiece by</i><br />W. B. KING</p>
+
+<div style='margin:80px auto; text-align:center;'>
+<img alt='emblem' src='images/illus-emb.png' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='tp' >INDIANAPOLIS<br />THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS</p>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em;'>C<span style='font-size:0.7em'>OPYRIGHT</span> 1920</p>
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em; margin-bottom:30px;'>T<span style='font-size:0.7em'>HE</span> B<span style='font-size:0.7em'>OBBS</span>-M<span style='font-size:0.7em'>ERRILL</span> C<span style='font-size:0.7em'>OMPANY</span></p>
+
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em; margin-bottom:30px;'><i>Printed in the United States of America</i></p>
+
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em;'>PRESS OF<br />BRAUNWORTH &amp; CO.<br />BOOK MANUFACTURERS<br />BROOKLYN, N. Y.</p>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:1.4em;'>CONTENTS</p>
+<table border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents' style='margin:1em auto;'>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'><span style='font-size:0.8em'>CHAPTER</span></td>
+  <td />
+  <td valign='top' align='right'><span style='font-size:0.8em'>PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>I</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>A Good Little Dream</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_I_A_GOOD_LITTLE_DREAM'>1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>II</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Applicants for Blue Chambray</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_II_APPLICANTS_FOR_BLUE_CHAMBRAY'>19</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>III</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Inauguration</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_III_INAUGURATION'>33</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>IV</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Cinderella</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_IV_CINDERELLA'>49</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>V</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Science</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_V_SCIENCE'>69</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>An Eleemosynary Institution</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VI_AN_ELEEMOSYNARY_INSTITUTION'>84</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Cave-man Stuff</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VII_CAVEMAN_STUFF'>93</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VIII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Science Applied</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VIII_SCIENCE_APPLIED'>113</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>IX</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Sheila</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_IX_SHEILA'>134</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>X</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>The Portrait</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_X_THE_PORTRAIT'>151</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Billy and Caroline</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XI_BILLY_AND_CAROLINE'>166</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>More Cave-Man Stuff</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XII_MORE_CAVEMAN_STUFF'>180</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XIII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>The Happiest Day</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIII_THE_HAPPIEST_DAY'>198</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XIV</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Betty</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIV_BETTY'>209</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XV</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Clouds of Glory</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XV_CLOUDS_OF_GLORY'>220</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XVI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Christmas Shopping</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVI_CHRISTMAS_SHOPPING'>236</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XVII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Good-By</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVII_GOODBY'>248</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XVIII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Tame Skeletons</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII_TAME_SKELETONS'>259</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XIX</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Other People&rsquo;s Troubles</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIX_OTHER_PEOPLES_TROUBLES'>271</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XX</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Hitty</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XX_HITTY'>288</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XXI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Lohengrin and White Satin</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXI_LOHENGRIN_AND_WHITE_SATIN'>299</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:1.4em;'>OUTSIDE INN</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_1' ></a>1</span></div>
+<div class='chsp' style='padding-top:0'>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_I_A_GOOD_LITTLE_DREAM'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>A Good Little Dream</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>&ldquo;I Elijah Peebles Martin, of the
+city and county of Harrison, in the
+state of Rhode Island, being of sound and disposing
+mind and memory, do make and declare
+the following, as and for, my last will and testament.&rsquo; ... I
+wish you&rsquo;d take your head
+out of that barrel, Nancy, and listen to the document
+that is going to make you rich beyond
+the dreams of avarice.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was beyond them anyway.&rdquo; The young
+woman in blue serge made one last effectual
+dive into the depths of excelsior, the topmost
+billows of which were surging untidily over the
+edge of a big crate in the middle of the basement
+floor, and secured a nest of blue and rose
+colored teacups, which she proceeded to unwrap
+lovingly and display on a convenient packing
+box. &ldquo;Not one single thing broken in this
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_2' ></a>2</span>
+whole lot, Billy.... What is a disposing
+mind and memory, anyhow?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t deserve to know,&rdquo; the blond young
+man in the Norfolk jacket assured her, adjusting
+himself more firmly to the idiosyncrasies of
+the rackety step-ladder he was striding.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not human about this. Here you are
+suddenly in possession of a fortune. Money
+enough to make you independently wealthy for
+the rest of your life&mdash;money you didn&rsquo;t know
+the existence of, two weeks ago&mdash;fed to you by
+a gratuitous providence. A legacy is a legacy,
+and deserves to be treated as such, and I propose
+to see that it gets what it deserves, without
+any more shilly-shallying.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a busy woman,&rdquo; Nancy groaned, &ldquo;and
+I&rsquo;ve hammered my finger to a pulp, trying to
+open this crate, while you perch on a broken
+step-ladder and prate to me of legacies. The
+saucers to these cups may be in here, and I
+can&rsquo;t wait to find out. I&rsquo;m perfectly crazy
+about this ware. It&rsquo;s English&mdash;Wedgewood,
+you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know.&rdquo; Billy resignedly let himself
+to the floor, and appropriated the screwdriver.
+&ldquo;I thought Wedgewood was dove color,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3' ></a>3</span>
+and consisted chiefly of ladies in deshabille, doing
+the tango on a parlor ornament. I smashed
+one in my youth, so I know. There, it&rsquo;s open
+now. I may as well unpack what&rsquo;s here. These
+seem to be demi-tasses.</p>
+<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
+<p>&lsquo;You may tempt your upper classes,</p>
+<p>With your villainous demi-tasses.</p>
+<p>But Heaven will protect the working girl,&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+</div></div>
+<p class='ni'>he finished lugubriously, in a wailing baritone,
+taking an imaginary encore by bowing a head
+picturesquely adorned with a crop of excelsior
+curls, accumulated during his activities in and
+about the barrel.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The trouble with the average tea-room, or
+Arts and Crafts table d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te,&rdquo; Nancy said, sinking
+into the depths of a broken armchair in the
+corner of the dim, overcrowded interior, &ldquo;is
+that when the pinch comes, quantity is sacrificed
+to quality. Smaller portions of food, and
+chipped chinaware. People who can&rsquo;t keep a
+place up, let it run down genteelly. They won&rsquo;t
+compromise on quality. I should never be like
+that. I should go to the ten-cent stores and
+replenish my whole establishment, if I couldn&rsquo;t
+make it pay with imported ware and Colonial
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4' ></a>4</span>
+silver. I&rsquo;d never go to the other extreme. I&rsquo;d
+never be so perceptibly second-rate, but in the
+matter of furnishings as well as food values,
+I&rsquo;d find my perfect balance between quality
+and quantity, and keep it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe you would. You are a thorough
+child, when you set about a thing. I&rsquo;ll bet you
+know the restaurant business from A to Z.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do. You know, I studied the organization
+of every well-run restaurant in New York,
+when I was doing field work from Teachers&rsquo;
+College. I&rsquo;ve read every book on the subject
+of Diet and Nutrition and Domestic Economy
+that I could get my hands on. I&rsquo;m just ready
+now for the practical application of all my
+theories.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy Calory Martin is your real name. I
+don&rsquo;t blame you for hating to give up this tea-room
+idea. You&rsquo;ve dug so deep into the possibilities
+of it, that you want to go through. I
+get that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s eyes widened in satiric admiration.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You could understand almost anything,
+couldn&rsquo;t you, Billy?&rdquo; she mocked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All I want now,&rdquo; Billy continued imperturbably,
+&ldquo;is a chance to make <i>you</i> understand
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5' ></a>5</span>
+something.&rdquo; He smote the document in his left
+hand. &ldquo;Of course, your uncle&rsquo;s lawyer has explained
+all the details in his letters to you, but
+if you won&rsquo;t read the letters or familiarize yourself
+with the contents of this will, somebody
+has got to explain it to you in words of one syllable.
+My legal training, slight as it is&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sketchy is the better word, don&rsquo;t you think
+so, Billy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Slight as it is&rdquo;&mdash;except for a prodigious
+frown, Billy ignored the interruption, though
+he took advantage of her suddenly upright position
+to encircle her neatly with a barrel hoop,
+as if she were the iron peg in a game of quoits&mdash;&ldquo;enables
+me to put the fact before you in a
+few short, sharp, well-chosen sentences. I
+won&rsquo;t again attempt to read the document&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better not,&rdquo; Nancy interrupted witheringly,
+&ldquo;your delivery is poor. Besides, I don&rsquo;t
+want to know what is in that will. If I had, it
+stands to reason that I would have found out
+long before this. I&rsquo;ve had it three days.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve had it three days and never once
+looked into it?&rdquo; Billy groaned. &ldquo;Who started
+all this scandal about the curiosity of women,
+anyway?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_6' ></a>6</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to know what&rsquo;s in it,&rdquo; Nancy
+insisted. &ldquo;As long as I&rsquo;m not in possession of
+any definite facts, I can ignore it. I&rsquo;ve got the
+kind of mind that must deal with concrete facts
+concretely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy grinned. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d hate the job of trying to
+subp&oelig;na you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but you&rsquo;d make a corking
+good witness, on the stand. Of course, you
+can proceed for a certain length of time on the
+theory that what you don&rsquo;t know can&rsquo;t hurt
+you, but take it from me, little girl, what you
+ought to know and don&rsquo;t know is the thing that&rsquo;s
+bound to hurt you most tremendously in the
+long run. What are you afraid of, anyway,
+Nancy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not <i>afraid</i> of anything,&rdquo; Nancy corrected
+him, with some heat. &ldquo;I just plain don&rsquo;t
+want to be interrupted at this stage of my
+career. I consider it an impertinence of Uncle
+Elijah, to make me his heir. I never saw him
+but once, and I had no desire to see him that
+time. It was about ten years ago, and I caught
+a grippe germ from him. He told me between
+sneezes that I was too big a girl to wear a
+mess of hair streaming down my back like a
+baby. I stuck out my tongue at him, but he was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7' ></a>7</span>
+too near-sighted to see it. Why couldn&rsquo;t he
+have left his money to an eye and ear infirmary?
+Or the Sailors&rsquo; Snug Retreat? Or&mdash;or&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you really don&rsquo;t want the money,&rdquo; Billy
+said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s your privilege to endow some institution&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know very well that I can&rsquo;t get rid of
+money that way,&rdquo; Nancy cried hotly. &ldquo;I am at
+least a responsible person. I don&rsquo;t believe in
+these promiscuous, eleemosynary institutions.
+It would be against all my principles to contribute
+money to any such philanthropy. I
+know too much about them&mdash;but he didn&rsquo;t. He
+could have disposed of his money to any one of
+a dozen of these mid-Victorian charities, but
+no&mdash;he was just one of those old parties that
+want to shift their responsibilities on to young
+shoulders, and so he chose mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t speak very kindly of your dear
+dead relative.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel very kindly toward him. He
+was a meddling old creature. He never gave
+any member of the family a cent when they
+wanted it and needed it. Now that I&rsquo;ve just
+got my life in shape, and know what I want to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8' ></a>8</span>
+do with it without being beholden to anybody
+on earth, he leaves me a whole lot of superfluous
+money.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I weren&rsquo;t engaged to Caroline, who is a
+jealous woman, though I say it as shouldn&rsquo;t,
+I&rsquo;d be tempted to undertake the management of
+your fortune myself,&rdquo; Billy said reflectively;
+&ldquo;as it is&mdash;honor&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know what I want to do with my life,&rdquo;
+Nancy continued, as if he had not spoken. &ldquo;I
+want to run an efficiency tea-room and serve
+dinner and breakfast and tea to my fellow men
+and women. I want the perfectly balanced ration,
+perfectly served, to be my contribution to
+the cause of humanity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked about her ruefully. The sun,
+through the barred dusty windows, struck in
+long slant rays, athwart the confusion of the
+cellar, illuminating piles upon piles of gay, blue
+latticed chinaware,&mdash;cups set out methodically
+in rows on the lids and bottoms of packing
+boxes; assorted sizes of plates and saucers,
+graded pyramidically, rising from the floor.
+There were also individual copper casseroles
+and serving dishes, and a heterogeneous assortment
+of Japanese basketry tangled in excelsior
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9' ></a>9</span>
+and tissue. A wandering sunbeam took her
+hair, displaying its amber, translucent quality.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just got capital enough to get it going
+right; to swing it for the first year, even if I
+don&rsquo;t make a cent on it. It&rsquo;s my one big chance
+to do my share in the world, and to work out
+my own salvation. This legacy is a menace to
+all my dreams and plans.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I see that,&rdquo; Billy said. &ldquo;What I don&rsquo;t see is
+what you gain by refusing to let it catch up
+with you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not it till you&rsquo;re tagged. That&rsquo;s all.
+If I don&rsquo;t know whether my income is going to
+be five thousand dollars or twenty-five thousand
+a year, I can go on unpacking teacups with&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy whistled.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Five thousand or twenty-five&mdash;my darling
+Nancy! You&rsquo;ll have fifty thousand a year at
+the very lowest estimate. The actual money is
+more than five hundred thousand dollars. The
+stock in the Union Rubber Company will
+amount to as much again, maybe twice as much.
+You&rsquo;re a real heiress, my dear, with wads of
+real money to show for it. That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m
+trying to tell you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fifty thousand a year!&rdquo; Nancy turned a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10' ></a>10</span>
+shocked face, from which the color slowly
+drained, leaving it blue-white. &ldquo;Fifty thousand
+a year! You&rsquo;re mad. It can&rsquo;t be!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&rsquo;um. Fifty thousand at least.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s pallor increased. She closed her
+eyes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t do that,&rdquo; Billy said sharply. &ldquo;No
+woman can faint on me just because she&rsquo;s had
+money left her. You make me feel like the
+ghost of Hamlet&rsquo;s father.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy clutched at his sleeve.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t, Billy!&rdquo; she besought. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m past joking
+now. Fifty thousand a year! Why, Uncle
+Elijah bought fifteen-dollar suits and fifteen-cent
+lunches. How could a retired sea captain
+get all that money by investing in a little rubber,
+and getting to be president of a little rubber
+company?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s how. Be a good sensible girl, and
+face the music.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll have to give up the tea-room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy laid a consolatory arm over her shoulder,
+and patted her awkwardly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Cheer up,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s worse things in
+this world than money. The time may come
+when you&rsquo;ll be grateful to your poor little old
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11' ></a>11</span>
+uncle, for his nifty little fifty thousand per
+annum.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy turned a tragic face to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you I&rsquo;m not grateful to him,&rdquo; she said,
+&ldquo;and I doubt if I ever will be. I don&rsquo;t want the
+stupid money. I want to work life out in my
+own way. I know I&rsquo;ve got it in me, and I want
+my chance to prove it. I want to give myself,
+my own brain and strength, to the job I&rsquo;ve selected
+as mine. Now, it&rsquo;s all spoiled for me.
+I&rsquo;m subsidized. I&rsquo;m done for, and I can&rsquo;t see
+any way out of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can give the money away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t. Giving money away is a special
+science of itself. If I devote my life to doing
+that as it should be done, I won&rsquo;t have time or
+energy for anything else. I&rsquo;m not a philanthropist
+in that sense. I wanted my restaurant to
+be philanthropic only incidentally. I wanted
+to cram my patrons with the full value of
+their money&rsquo;s worth of good nourishing food;
+to increase the efficiency of hundreds of
+people who never suspected I was doing it, by
+scientific methods of feeding. That&rsquo;s my dream.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A good little dream, all right.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To make people eat the right food; to help
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12' ></a>12</span>
+them to a fuller and more effective use of
+themselves by supplying them with the proper
+fuel for their functions.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You could buy a chain of restaurants with
+the money you&rsquo;ve got.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want a chain of restaurants.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can endow a perpetual diet squad.
+You can buy out the whole Life Extension
+Institute. If you would only stop to think of
+the advantages of having all the money you
+wanted to spend on anything you wanted,
+you&rsquo;d&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy,&rdquo; Nancy said solemnly, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been
+through all that. If I had thought I would
+have been a better person with a great deal of
+money at my disposal, I&mdash;I might have&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Married Dick,&rdquo; Billy finished for her. &ldquo;I
+forgot that interesting possibility. I suppose
+to a girl who has just turned down a cold five
+millions, this meager little proposition&rdquo;&mdash;he
+flourished the crumpled document in his hand&mdash;&ldquo;has
+no real allure. Lord! What a world this
+is. You&rsquo;ll marry Dick yet. Them as has&mdash;<i>gits</i>.
+It never rains but it pours. To the victor
+belong the spoils, <i>et cetera, et cetera</i>&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Money simply does not interest me.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13' ></a>13</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Dick interests you. I don&rsquo;t know to what
+extent, but he interests you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be sentimental, Billy. Just because
+you&rsquo;re in love with Caroline, you can&rsquo;t make
+all your other friends marry each other. Tell
+me what to do about this legacy. What is customary
+when you get a lump of money like that?
+I suppose I&rsquo;ll have to begin to get rid of all
+<i>this</i> immediately.&rdquo; There was more than a
+hint of tears in her voice, but she smiled at
+Billy bravely. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m so perfectly crazy about
+these&mdash;these cups and saucers, Billy. See the
+lovely way that rose is split to fit into the
+design. Oh, when do I come into possession,
+anyway?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t come into possession right away,
+you know. You don&rsquo;t inherit for a couple of
+years, under the Rhode Island law. The formalities
+will take&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy Boynton, do you mean to say that
+I won&rsquo;t have to do a blessed thing about this
+money for two years?&rdquo; Nancy shrieked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, no. It takes a certain amount of red
+tape to settle an estate, to probate a will, etc.,
+and the law allows a period of time, varying
+in different states&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14' ></a>14</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Oho! Is there anything in all this universe
+so stupid as a man?&rdquo; Nancy interrupted fervently.
+&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me that before?
+Do you suppose I care how much money I have
+two years from now? Two years of freedom,
+why, that&rsquo;s all I want, Billy. There you&rsquo;ve
+been sitting up winking and blinking at me
+like a sympathetic old owl, when all I needed
+to know was that I had two years of grace.
+Of course, I&rsquo;ll go on with my tea-room, and
+not a soul shall know the difference.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;While the feminine temperament has my
+hearty admiration and my most cordial endorsement,&rdquo;
+Billy murmured, &ldquo;there are things
+about it&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t have to tell anybody, will I?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no law to that effect. If your
+friends don&rsquo;t know it from you, they&rsquo;re not
+likely to hear it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t mentioned it,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I
+only told you, because it seemed rather in your
+line of work, and I was getting so much mail
+about it, I thought it would be wise to have
+some one look it over.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve given up my law practice and Caroline
+for three days in your service.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15' ></a>15</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve done more than well, Billy, and I&rsquo;m
+grateful to you. Of course, you would have
+saved me days of nervous wear and tear if it
+had only occurred to you to tell me the one
+simple little thing that was the essential point
+of the whole matter. If I had known that I
+didn&rsquo;t inherit for two years, I wouldn&rsquo;t have
+cared <i>what</i> was in that will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy stared at her feelingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A peculiar sensation always comes over
+me,&rdquo; he said musingly, &ldquo;after I spend several
+hours uninterruptedly in the society of a
+woman who is using her mind in any way. I
+couldn&rsquo;t explain it to you exactly. It&rsquo;s a kind
+of impression that my own brain has begun to
+disintegrate, and to&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be too hard on yourself, Billy.&rdquo;
+Nancy soothed him sweetly,&mdash;Billy was not one
+of the people to whom she habitually allowed
+full conversational leeway: &ldquo;Swear you won&rsquo;t
+tell Caroline or Betty&mdash;or Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I swear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy held out her hand to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a good boy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I appreciate
+you, which is more than Caroline does,
+I&rsquo;m afraid. Run along and see her now&mdash;I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16' ></a>16</span>
+don&rsquo;t need you any more, and you&rsquo;re probably
+dying to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy bowed over her hand, lingeringly and
+politely, but once releasing it, he shook his
+big frame, and straightening up, drew a long
+deep breath of something very like relief.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With all deference to your delightful sex,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;the only society that I&rsquo;m dying for at
+the present moment is that of the old family
+bar-keep.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As Billy left her, Nancy turned to her basement
+window, and stood looking out at the
+quaint stone court he had to cross in order to
+reach the high gate that guarded the entrance
+to the marble worker&rsquo;s establishment, under
+the shadow of which it was her intention to
+open her out-of-door tea-room. She watched
+him dreamily is he made his way among the
+cinerary urns, the busts and statues and bas-reliefs
+that were a part of the stock in trade
+of her incongruous business associate.</p>
+<p>In her investigation of the various sorts and
+conditions of restaurants in New York, she
+characteristically hit upon the garden restaurant,
+a commonplace in the down-town table
+d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te district, as the ideal setting for her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17' ></a>17</span>
+adventure in practical philanthropy, while the
+ubiquitous tea-room and antique-shop combination
+gave her the inspiration to stage her
+own undertaking even more spectacularly.
+Her enterprise was destined to flourish picturesquely
+in the open court during the fair
+months of the year, and in the winter months,
+or in the event of a bad storm, to be housed
+under the eaves in the rambling garret of the
+old brick building, the lower floor of which
+was given over to traffic in marbles.</p>
+<p>She sighed happily. Billy, extricating himself
+from the grasp of an outstretched marble
+hand, which bad seemed to clutch desperately
+at his elbow, and narrowly escaping a plunge
+into a too convenient bird&rsquo;s bath, turned to see
+her eyes following him, and waved gaily, but
+she scarcely realized that he had done so. It
+was rather with the eye of her mind that she
+was contemplating the dark, quadrangular
+area outstretched before her. In spirit she
+was moving to and fro among the statuary,
+bringing a housewifely order out of the chaos
+that prevailed,&mdash;placing stone ladies draped in
+stone or otherwise; cherubic babies, destined to
+perpetual cold water bathing; strange mortuary
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18' ></a>18</span>
+furniture, in the juxtaposition that would
+make the most effective background for her
+enterprise.</p>
+<p>She saw the gritty, gray paving stones of
+the court cleared of their litter, and scoured
+free from discoloration and grime, set with
+dozens of little tables immaculate in snowy
+napery and shiny silver, and arranged with
+careful irregularity at the most alluring angle.
+She saw a staff of Hebe-like waitresses in blue
+chambray and pink ribbons, to match the chinaware,
+and all bearing a marked resemblance to
+herself in her last flattering photograph, moving
+among a crowd of well brought up but
+palpably impoverished young people,&mdash;mostly
+social workers and artists. They were <i>all</i>
+young, and most of them very beautiful. In
+all her twenty-five years, she had never before
+been so close to a vision realized, as she was
+at that moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Outside Inn,&rdquo; she said to herself, still smiling.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a perfect name for it, really. Outside
+Inn!&rdquo;</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19' ></a>19</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_II_APPLICANTS_FOR_BLUE_CHAMBRAY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Applicants for Blue Chambray</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Ann Martin was an orphan of New
+England extraction. Her father, the
+eldest child of a simple unpretentious country
+family in Western Massachusetts, had been a
+brilliant but erratic throw-back to Mayflower
+traditions and Puritan intellectualism. He had
+married a girl with much the same ancestry as
+his own, but herself born and brought up in
+New York, and of a generation to which the
+assumption of prerogative was a natural
+rather than an acquired characteristic. The
+possession of a comfortable degree of fortune
+and culture was a matter of course with Ann
+Winslow, while to poor David Martin education
+in the finer things of life, and the opportunity
+to indulge his taste in the choice of surroundings
+and associates, were hard-won privileges.</p>
+<p>Both parents had been killed in a railroad
+accident when Ann, or Nancy as her mother had
+insisted on calling her from the day of her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20' ></a>20</span>
+christening, was about seven years old. She
+had been placed in the care of a maternal aunt,
+and had flourished in the heart of a well
+ordered establishment of the mid-Victorian
+type, run by a vigorous, rather worldly old
+lady.</p>
+<p>From her lovely mother&mdash;Ann Winslow had
+been more than a merely attractive or pretty
+woman; she had the real grace and distinction,
+and purity of profile that placed her in the
+actual category of beauty,&mdash;Nancy had inherited
+a healthy and equitable outlook on life,
+while her father, irresistible and impracticable
+being that he was, had endowed her with a
+certain eccentric and adventurous spirit in the
+investigation of it.</p>
+<p>She had been educated in a boarding-school,
+forty minutes&rsquo; run from New York, and had
+specialized in the domestic sciences and basket
+ball; and on attaining her majority had taken
+up a course or two at Columbia, rather more
+to put off the evil day of assuming the responsibility
+of the stuffy, stately old house in Washington
+Square than because she ever expected
+to make any use of her superfluous education.
+She was conceded by every one to be her aunt&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21' ></a>21</span>
+heir, but old Miss Winslow died intestate, very
+suddenly in Nancy&rsquo;s twenty-third year; and the
+beneficiaries of this accident, most of them extremely
+well-to-do themselves, combined to
+make Nancy a regular allowance until she was
+twenty-five. On her twenty-fifth birthday fifteen
+thousand dollars was deposited to her account
+in the Trust Company which conserved
+the family fortunes of the Winslows, and
+Nancy understood that they considered their
+duty by her to be done. It was with this fifteen
+thousand dollars that she was to inaugurate
+her darling enterprise,&mdash;Outside Inn.</p>
+<p>Money, as she had truthfully told Billy,
+meant nothing to her. Her aunt, living and
+giving generously, had furnished her with a
+background of comfortable, unostentatious well
+being, against which the rather vivid elements
+that went to make up her intimate social circle&mdash;she
+was a creature of intimates&mdash;stood out
+in alluring relief. She had literally never
+wanted for anything. Her tastes, to be sure,
+were modest, but the wherewithal to gratify
+them had always been almost stultifyingly near
+at hand. The excitement and adventure of an
+income to which there was attached some
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22' ></a>22</span>
+uncertainty had never been hers, and she was
+too much her father&rsquo;s daughter to be interested
+in the playing of any game in which she could
+not lose. With all she possessed staked against
+her untried business acumen she was for the
+first time in her life concerned with her financial
+situation, and quite honestly resentful of
+any interruption of her experiment. Her life
+was closely associated with her mother&rsquo;s family.
+Her father&rsquo;s people had at no time entered
+into her scheme of living,&mdash;her uncle Elijah
+less than any member of it, and she found his
+post-obit intervention in her affairs embarrassing
+in a dozen different connections.</p>
+<p>The best friend she had in the world, before
+he had made the tactical error of asking her
+to marry him, was Richard Thorndyke. He
+was still, thanks to his immediate skill in trying
+to retrieve that error, a very good friend
+indeed. Nancy would normally have told him
+everything that happened to her in the exact
+order of its occurrence; but partly because she
+did not wish to exaggerate her eccentricity in
+eyes that looked upon her so kindly, and partly
+because she had the instinct to spare him the
+realization that there was no way in which he
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23' ></a>23</span>
+might come to her rescue in the event of disaster,&mdash;she
+did not inform him of her legacy.
+She knew that he was shrewdly calculating to
+stand behind her venture, morally and practically,
+and that the chief incentive of his
+encouragement and helpfulness was the hidden
+hope that through her experiment and its probable
+unfortunate termination she would learn
+to depend on <i>him</i>. Nancy was so sure of herself
+that this attitude of Dick&rsquo;s roused her
+tenderness instead of her ire.</p>
+<p>The two girls who were closest to her, Caroline
+Eustace and Betty Pope, had been actively
+enlisted in the service of Outside Inn and the
+ideals that it represented. Betty, a dimpling,
+dynamic little being, who took a sporting interest
+in any project that interested her, irrespective
+of its merits, was to be associated with
+Nancy in the actual management of the restaurant.
+Caroline, who took herself more seriously,
+and was busy with a dozen enterprises
+that had to do with the welfare of the race, was
+concerned chiefly with the humanitarian side
+of the undertaking and willing to deflect to it
+only such energy as she felt to be essential to
+its scientific betterment. She was tentatively
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24' ></a>24</span>
+engaged to Billy Boynton,&mdash;for what reason no
+one&mdash;not even Billy&mdash;had been able to determine;
+since she systematically disregarded him
+in relation to all the interests and activities
+that went to make up her life.</p>
+<p>The affairs of the Inn progressed rapidly. It
+was in the first week of May that Nancy and
+Billy had their memorable discussion of her
+situation. By the latter part of June, when she
+could be reasonably sure of a succession of
+propitious days and nights, for she had set her
+heart on balmy weather conditions, Nancy
+expected to have her formal opening,&mdash;a dinner
+which not only initiated her establishment, but
+submitted it to the approval of her own group
+of intimate friends, who were to be her guests
+on that occasion.</p>
+<p>Meantime, the most extensive and discriminating
+preparations were going forward. Billy
+and Dick were present one afternoon by special
+request when Betty and Nancy were interviewing
+a contingent of waitresses.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got three perfectly charming girls
+already,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;that is, girls that look
+perfectly charming to me, but a man&rsquo;s point
+of view on a woman&rsquo;s looks is so different that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25' ></a>25</span>
+I thought it would be a good plan to have you
+boys look over this lot. They are all very
+high-class and competent girls. The Manning
+Agency doesn&rsquo;t send any other kind.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Trot &rsquo;em along,&rdquo; Billy said; &ldquo;where are they
+anyway?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In the room in front.&rdquo; They were in the
+smallest of the nest of attic rooms that Nancy
+planned to make her winter quarters. &ldquo;Michael
+receives them, and shows them in here one by
+one.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You like Michael then?&rdquo; Dick asked. &ldquo;I
+always said his talents were hidden at our
+place. He has a soul above the job of handy
+man on a Long Island farm.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s certainly a handy man here,&rdquo; Nancy
+said; &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t live without him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The lucky dog,&rdquo; Billy said, with a side
+glance at Dick.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; Betty explained, &ldquo;the girl comes
+in, and we ask her questions. Then if I don&rsquo;t
+like her I take my pencil from behind my ear,
+and rap against my palm with it. If Nancy
+doesn&rsquo;t like her she says, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re losing a hairpin,
+Betty.&rsquo; If we like her we rub our hands
+together.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26' ></a>26</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good system,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t
+see why Nancy doesn&rsquo;t take her pencil from
+behind her ear, or why you don&rsquo;t say to her&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t put a pencil behind my ear,&rdquo;
+Nancy said scathingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And she never loses a hairpin,&rdquo; Betty cut
+in. &ldquo;If I approve this system of signals I don&rsquo;t
+see what you have to complain of. Nancy
+couldn&rsquo;t get a pencil behind her ear even if
+she wanted to. It&rsquo;s only a criminal ear like
+mine that accommodates a pencil.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Speaking of ears,&rdquo; Dick said, looking at
+his watch, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s get on with the beauty show.
+I have to take my mother to see <i>Boris</i> to-night,
+and she has an odd notion of being on time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aw right,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s Michael.
+Bring in the first one immediately, Michael.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure an&rsquo; I will that, Miss Pope.&rdquo; The old
+family servitor of the Thorndykes pulled a
+deliberate lid over a twinkling left eye by way
+of acknowledging the presence of his young
+master. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s quite a display of thim this
+time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The first applicant, guided thus by Michael,
+appeared on the threshold and stood for a
+moment framed in the low doorway. Seeing
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27' ></a>27</span>
+two gentlemen present she carefully arranged
+her expression to meet that contingency. She
+was a blonde girl with masses of doubtfully
+tinted hair and no chin, but her eyes were
+very blue and matched a chain of turquoise
+beads about her throat, and she radiated a
+peculiar vitality.</p>
+<p>Betty took her pencil from behind her ear.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re losing a hair&mdash;&rdquo; Nancy began, but
+Dick and Billy exchanged glances and began
+rubbing their hands together energetically and
+enthusiastically.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry,&rdquo; Nancy said crisply, &ldquo;but you&rsquo;re
+a little too tall for our purpose.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And too blonde,&rdquo; Betty added with a bland
+dismissing smile. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking for a special
+type of girl.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I understood you were looking for a waitress,&rdquo;
+the girl said pertly, with her eyes on
+Billy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was,&rdquo; Billy answered, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m not now.
+My&mdash;my wife won&rsquo;t let me.&rdquo; He waved an
+inclusive hand in the direction of Nancy and
+Betty.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t behave,&rdquo; Nancy said, while they
+waited for Michael to bring in the next
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28' ></a>28</span>
+girl, &ldquo;you can&rsquo;t stay. If that is the kind of
+girl you men find attractive then my restaurant
+is doomed from the beginning. I wouldn&rsquo;t
+have that girl in my employ for&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Before she could begin again, applicant number
+two stood before them,&mdash;a comfortable,
+kind-eyed girl, no longer very young but with
+efficiency written all over her, despite the shyness
+that beset her.</p>
+<p>Nancy rubbed her hands with satisfaction
+and looked at Betty, who beamed back at her.
+The girl, encouraged by Nancy&rsquo;s kindly smile
+took a step forward, and began to recite her
+qualifications for the position. Dick fumbled
+with a fountain-pen which he placed elaborately
+behind his ear for an instant, and then
+as ostentatiously removed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re losing a hairpin, Dick,&rdquo;
+Billy suggested solicitously, as Nancy, ignoring
+their existence entirely, proceeded to make
+terms with the newcomer.</p>
+<p>The next girl created a diversion&mdash;being
+palpably an adventuress out of a job and
+impressing none of the quartette as being interesting
+enough to deserve one,&mdash;but the two girls
+who followed her were bright and sprightly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29' ></a>29</span>
+creatures, disarmingly graceful and ingenuous,
+of whom the entire quartette approved.
+They were twin sisters, they said, Dolly and
+Molly, and they had always had places together
+ever since they had begun working out.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me, pretty maiden, <i>are</i> there any more
+at home <i>like</i>&mdash;&rdquo; Billy was addressing Molly
+gravely when Dick slipped a friendly but firm
+hand over his jugular region, and cut off his
+utterance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s not feeling quite himself,&rdquo; he explained
+suavely to Dolly, &ldquo;but we&rsquo;ll bring him around
+soon.&mdash;I think you&rsquo;ll find Miss Martin an ideal
+person to work for, and the salary and the
+hours unusually satisfactory.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said Molly and Dolly
+together, in the English manner which showed
+the excellence of their training.</p>
+<p>There were several other dubby creatures so
+much out of the picture that they were not
+even considered, and then Michael brought in
+what he called &ldquo;a grand girl,&rdquo; and left her
+standing statuesquely in their midst.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With large lovely arms and a neck like a
+tower,&rdquo; Dick quoted in his throat.</p>
+<p>Nancy engaged her without enthusiasm.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30' ></a>30</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;ll draw,&rdquo; she said briefly. &ldquo;Personally,
+I dislike these Alma Tadema girls.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What the men see,&rdquo; Betty said, curling
+around the better part of two straight dining
+chairs, in the moment of relaxation that followed
+the final disposition of the business of
+the day, &ldquo;in a girl like that first one is one of
+the mysteries of existence.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; Nancy agreed, with New England
+colloquialism. &ldquo;You feel reasonably allied
+to them as a sex, and then suddenly they show
+some vulgar preference for a woman like that,
+and it&rsquo;s all off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This from the woman who thinks my chauffeur
+is an ideal of manly beauty,&rdquo; Dick scoffed,
+&ldquo;a dimpled man with a little finger ring.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He can run a car, though,&rdquo; Nancy retorted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll bet little blue eyes could run a restaurant.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That was just the trouble,&mdash;she would have
+been running mine in twenty-four hours. Oh!
+I think what you men really like is a bossy
+woman.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, what a woman really likes in a man&mdash;&rdquo;
+Betty began, &ldquo;is&mdash;is&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quality,&rdquo; Nancy finished for her succinctly.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31' ></a>31</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder&mdash;&rdquo; Dick mused. &ldquo;I should have
+said finish.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Almost any kind of finish so long as it is
+smooth enough,&rdquo; Billy supplemented. &ldquo;Look at
+the way they eat up this artistic and poetic
+veneer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Look at the way they mangle their metaphors,&rdquo;
+Nancy complained to Betty.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>&ldquo;I know what I really like in a woman,&rdquo; Dick
+whispered to Nancy, as he helped her into her
+coat just before they started out together, &ldquo;and
+you know what I like, too. That&rsquo;s one of the
+subjects that needs no discussion between us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Betty and Billy walking up the avenue ahead
+of them,&mdash;Outside Inn was located in one of
+the cross-streets in the thirties,&mdash;were discussing
+their relation to one another.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder sometimes if Nancy&rsquo;s got it in her
+really to care for a man,&rdquo; Betty argued; &ldquo;she&rsquo;s
+as fond as she can be of Dick, but she&rsquo;d sacrifice
+him heart, soul and body for that restaurant
+of hers. She&rsquo;s a perfect darling, I don&rsquo;t
+mean that; she&rsquo;s the very essence of sweetness
+and kindness, but she doesn&rsquo;t seem to
+understand or appreciate the possibilities of a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32' ></a>32</span>
+devotion like Dick&rsquo;s. Do you think she&rsquo;s really
+capable of loving anybody&mdash;of putting any man
+in the world before all her ideas and notions
+and experiments?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Lord, yes,&rdquo; said Billy, accelerating his pace,
+suggestively in the hope of getting Betty home
+in good time for him to dress to keep his
+engagement with Caroline.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33' ></a>33</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_III_INAUGURATION'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Inauguration</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Nancy&rsquo;s heart was beating heavily when
+she woke on the memorable morning of
+the day that was to inaugurate the activities of
+Outside Inn. A confused dream of her Uncle
+Elijah in tatters on a park bench, which was
+instantly metamorphosed into one of the rustic
+seats she had arranged against the wall along
+the side of some of the bigger tables in the
+marble worker&rsquo;s court, was ostensibly the cause
+of the disturbance in her cardiac region. She
+had, it seemed, in the interminable tangle of
+nightmare, given Molly and Dolly and the
+Alma Tadema girl instructions to throw out
+the unwelcome guest, and she was standing by
+with Michael, who was assuring her that the
+big blonde was &ldquo;certain a grand bouncer,&rdquo; when
+she was smitten with a sickening dream-panic
+at her own ingratitude. &ldquo;He has given me
+everything he had in the world, poor old man,&rdquo;
+she said to herself, and approached him remorsefully;
+but when she looked at him again
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34' ></a>34</span>
+she saw that he had the face and figure of a
+young stranger, and that the garments that had
+seemed to her to be streaming and unsightly
+rags, were merely the picturesque habiliments
+of a young artist, apparently newly translated
+from the Boulevard Montparnasse. At the
+sight of the stranger a heart-sinking terror
+seemed to take possession of her, and so, quaking
+and quavering in mortal intimidation,&mdash;she
+woke up.</p>
+<p>She laughed at herself as she brushed the
+sleep out of her eyes, and drew the gradual
+long breaths that soothed the physical agitation
+that still beset her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m scared,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m as excited and
+nervous as a youngster on circus day.&mdash;Oh! I&rsquo;m
+glad the sun shines.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy lived in a little apartment of her own
+in that hinterland of what is now down-town
+New York, between the Rialto and its more conventional
+prototype, Society,&mdash;that is, she lived
+east of Broadway on a cross-street in the
+forties. The maid who took care of her had
+been in her aunt&rsquo;s employ for years, and had
+seen Nancy grow from her rather spoiled babyhood
+to a hoydenish childhood, and so on to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35' ></a>35</span>
+soft-eyed, vibrant maturity. She was the only
+person who tyrannized over Nancy. She
+brought her a cup of steaming hot water with
+a pinch of soda in it, now.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You were moaning and groaning in your
+sleep,&rdquo; she said, in the strident accents of her
+New England birthplace, &ldquo;so you&rsquo;ll have to
+drink this before I give you a living thing for
+your breakfast.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will, Hitty,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;and thank you
+kindly. Now I know you&rsquo;ve been making pop-overs,
+and are afraid they will disagree with
+me. I&rsquo;m glad&mdash;for I need the moral effect of
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I dunno whether pop-overs is so moral, or
+so immoral if it comes to that. I notice it&rsquo;s
+always the folks that ain&rsquo;t had much to do with
+morals one way or the other that&rsquo;s so almighty
+glib about them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a good deal in what you say, Hitty.
+If I had time I would go into the matter with
+you, but this is my busy day.&rdquo; Nancy sat up
+in bed, and began sipping her hot water obediently.
+She looked very childlike in her
+straight cut, embroidered night-gown, with a
+long chestnut pig-tail over either shoulder. &ldquo;I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36' ></a>36</span>
+feel as if I were going to be married, or&mdash;or
+something. I&rsquo;m so excited.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I guess you&rsquo;d be a good sight more excited
+if you was going to be married&rdquo;&mdash;Hitty was
+a widow of twenty-five years&rsquo; standing&mdash;&ldquo;and
+according to my way of thinking &rsquo;twould be
+a good deal more suitable,&rdquo; she added darkly.
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t take much stock in this hotel business.
+In my day there warn&rsquo;t no such newfangled
+foolishness for a girl to take up with instead
+o&rsquo; getting married and settled down. When I
+was your age I was working on my second set
+o&rsquo; baby clothes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t scold, Hitty,&rdquo; Nancy coaxed. &ldquo;I could
+make perfectly good baby clothes if I needed
+to. Don&rsquo;t you think I&rsquo;ll be of more use in the
+world serving nourishing food to hordes of
+hungry men and women than making baby
+clothes for one hypothetical baby?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I dunno about the hypothetical part,&rdquo; Hitty
+said, folding back the counterpane, inexorably.
+&ldquo;What I do know is that a girl that&rsquo;s getting to
+be an old girl&mdash;like you&mdash;past twenty-five&mdash;ought
+to be bestirring herself to look for a life
+pardner if she don&rsquo;t see any hanging around
+that suits her, instead of opening up a hotel for
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37' ></a>37</span>
+a passel of perfect strangers. If ever I saw a
+woman spoiling for something of her own to
+fuss over&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If ever there was a woman who <i>had</i> something
+of her own to fuss over,&rdquo; Nancy cried
+ecstatically, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m that woman to-day, Hitty.
+You&rsquo;re a professional Puritan, and you don&rsquo;t
+understand the broader aspects of the maternal
+instinct.&rdquo; She sprang out of bed, and tucked
+her bare pink toes into the fur bordered blue
+mules that peeped from under the bed, and
+slipped into the wadded blue silk bathrobe that
+lay on the chair beside her. &ldquo;Is my bath drawn,
+Hitty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your bath is drawed,&rdquo; Hitty acknowledged
+sourly, &ldquo;and your breakfast will be on the table
+in half an hour by the clock.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose I must require that corrective
+New England influence,&rdquo; Nancy said to herself,
+as she tried the temperature of her bath and
+found it frigid, &ldquo;just as some people need
+acid in their diet. If my mother were alive, I
+wonder what she would have said to me this
+morning.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy spent a long day directing, planning,
+and arranging for the great event of the evening,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38' ></a>38</span>
+the first dinner served to the public at
+Outside Inn.</p>
+<p>From the basement kitchen to the ground-floor
+serving-room in the rear, space cunningly
+coaxed from the reluctant marble worker, the
+mechanism of Nancy&rsquo;s equipment was as perfect
+as lavish expenditure and scientific management
+could make it. The kitchen gleamed with
+copper and granite ware; huge pots for soup
+and vegetables, mammoth double boilers of
+white enamel,&mdash;Nancy was firm in her conviction
+that rice and cereal could be cooked in
+nothing but white enamel,&mdash;rows upon rows of
+shelves methodically set with containers and
+casseroles and odd-shaped metal serving-dishes,
+as well as the ubiquitous blue and rose-color
+chinaware presenting its gay surface from
+every available bit of space.</p>
+<p>Presiding over the hooded ranges, two of gas
+and one coal for toasting and broiling, there
+was to be a huge Franco-American man-cook,
+discovered in one of the Fifth Avenue pastry
+shops in the course of Nancy&rsquo;s indefatigable
+tours of exploration, who was the son of a
+French <i>chef</i> and a Virginian mother, and could
+express himself in the culinary art of either
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39' ></a>39</span>
+his father&rsquo;s or his mother&rsquo;s nativity. His staff
+of helpers and dishwashers had been chosen by
+himself, with what Nancy considered most
+felicitous results, while her own galaxy of waitresses,
+who operated the service kitchen up-stairs,
+proved themselves to a woman almost
+unbelievably superior and efficient.</p>
+<p>The courtyard itself was a brave spectacle in
+its final aspect of background for the detail
+and paraphernalia of polite dining. The more
+unself-conscious of the statues, the nymphs and
+nereids and Venuses, she managed either to
+relegate to the storehouse within, or to add a
+few cunningly draped vines to the nonchalance
+of their effect, while the gargoyles and Roman
+columns and some of the least ambitious of the
+fountain-models she was able to adapt delightfully
+to her outrageous ideal of arrangement.
+Dick had denuded several smart florist shops
+to furnish her with field flowers enough to
+develop her decorative scheme, which included
+strangely the stringing of half a dozen huge
+Chinese lanterns that even in the daylight took
+on a meteoric light and glow.</p>
+<p>The night was clear and soft, and Fifth
+Avenue, ingratiatingly swept and garnished,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40' ></a>40</span>
+stretched its wake of summer allure before the
+never unappreciative eyes of Billy and Caroline,
+and Betty and Dick respectively, who had met
+at the Waldorf by appointment, and were now
+making their way, thus ceremoniously and in
+company, to the formal opening dinner of
+Nancy&rsquo;s Inn.</p>
+<p>Two nondescript Pagan gentlemen of Titanesque
+proportions had joined the watch of the
+conventional leonine twins, and the big gate
+now stood hospitably open, over it swinging
+the new sign in gallant crimson and white,
+that announced to all the world that Outside
+Inn was even at that moment, at its most punctilious
+service.</p>
+<p>Molly and Dolly, in the prescribed blue
+chambray, their cheeks several shades pinker
+than their embellishment of pink ribbon, and
+panting with ill-suppressed excitement, rushed
+forward to greet the four and ushered them
+solemnly to their places,&mdash;the gala table in the
+center of the court, set with a profusion of
+fleur de lis, with pink ribbon trainers.
+Thanks to Dick&rsquo;s carefully manipulated advertising
+campaign and personal efforts among
+his friends and business associates, they were
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41' ></a>41</span>
+not by any means the first arrivals. Half a
+dozen laughing groups were distributed about
+the round tables in the center space, while
+several t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te couples were confidentially
+ensconced in corners and at cozy tables for
+two, craftily sheltered by some of the most
+imposing of the marble figures and columns.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It seems like a real restaurant,&rdquo; Caroline
+said wonderingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What did you think it would seem like?&rdquo;
+Betty asked argumentatively. &ldquo;Just because
+Nancy is the best friend you have in the world,
+and you&rsquo;re familiar with her in pig-tails and a
+dressing-gown doesn&rsquo;t argue that she is incapable
+of managing an undertaking like this as
+well as if she were a perfect stranger.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose it does,&rdquo; Caroline mused,
+&ldquo;but someway I&rsquo;d feel easier about a perfect
+stranger investing her last cent in such a venture.
+I don&rsquo;t see how she can possibly make
+it pay, and I don&rsquo;t feel as if I could ever have
+a comfortable moment again until I knew
+whether she could or not.&mdash;What are you looking
+so guilty about, Billy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was regretting your uncomfortable moments,
+Caroline,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;and wishing it
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42' ></a>42</span>
+were in my power to do away with them, but
+it isn&rsquo;t. I was also musing sadly, but quite
+irrelevantly, on the tangled web we weave when
+first we practise to deceive.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you deceiving Caroline in some way?&rdquo;
+Dick inquired.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, he isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Caroline answered for him,
+&ldquo;though he has full permission to if he wants.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The time may come when he will avail
+himself of that permission,&rdquo; Betty said; &ldquo;you
+ought to be careful how you tempt Fate, Caroline.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She ought to be,&rdquo; Billy groaned, &ldquo;but the
+fact is that I am not one of the things she is
+superstitious about. Pipe the dame at the
+corner table with the lorgnette. Classy, isn&rsquo;t
+she?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Friend of my aunt&rsquo;s,&rdquo; Dick said, acknowledging
+the lady&rsquo;s salute.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And the Belasco adventuress in the corner.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My stenographer,&rdquo; Dick explained, bowing
+again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a bunch of men coming,&rdquo; Billy
+said; &ldquo;if they put the place on the bum you&rsquo;ve
+got to help me bounce them, Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Up-stairs in the service kitchen,&rdquo; Betty was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43' ></a>43</span>
+explaining to Caroline, &ldquo;they keep all the dishes
+that don&rsquo;t have to be heated for serving, also
+the silver and daily linen supply. When we
+seat ourselves at a table like this, the waitress
+to whom it is assigned goes in and gets a
+basket of bread&mdash;I think it&rsquo;s a pretty idea to
+serve the bread in baskets, don&rsquo;t you?&mdash;and
+whatever silver is necessary, and a bottle of
+water. When she places those things she asks
+us what our choice of a meat course is,&mdash;there
+is a choice except on chicken night&mdash;and gives
+that order in the kitchen when she goes to get
+our soup.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who serves the things,&mdash;puts the meat on
+the plates, and dishes up the vegetables?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The cook&mdash;Nancy won&rsquo;t let me call him the
+<i>chef</i>&mdash;because she is going to make a specialty
+of the southern element of his education. He
+has a serving-table by his range and he cuts
+up the meat and fowl, and dishes up the vegetables.
+In a bigger establishment he would
+have a helper to do that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t Michael help him?&rdquo; Dick asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Michael calls him the Haythan Shinee. He
+is rather a <i>glossy</i> man, you know, and he says
+when the time comes for him, Michael, to dress
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44' ></a>44</span>
+like a street cleaner and pilot a gravy boat,
+he&rsquo;ll let us know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Respect for his superiors is not one of Michael&rsquo;s
+most salient characteristics,&rdquo; Dick twinkled.
+&ldquo;Nancy and I have a scheme for making
+a match between him and Hitty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the soup,&rdquo; Betty announced.
+&ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s idea is to have everything perfectly
+simple, and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Simply perfect,&rdquo; Billy assisted her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t she going to eat with us?&rdquo; Dick asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She can&rsquo;t. She&rsquo;s busy getting it going just
+at present. She may appear later.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Somebody&rsquo;s got to direct this pageant, old
+top,&rdquo; Billy reminded him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The soup is perfect,&rdquo; Caroline said seriously.
+&ldquo;It is simple&mdash;with that deceptive simplicity of
+a Paris morning frock.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;French home cooking is all like that,&rdquo; Dick
+said. &ldquo;I like pur&eacute;e of forget-me-nots!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Molly or Dolly, I can&rsquo;t tell the difference between
+you,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;extend our compliments
+to Miss Martin, and tell her that this course is
+a triumph.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wait till you see the roast, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the very <i>best</i> sirloin,&rdquo; Dick announced
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45' ></a>45</span>
+at the first mouthful, &ldquo;and these assorted vegetables
+all cut down to the same size are as pretty
+as they are good, as one says of virtuous innocence.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This variety of asparagus is expensive,&rdquo;
+Caroline said; &ldquo;she can&rsquo;t do things like this at
+seventy-five cents a head. She&rsquo;ll ruin herself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how she can,&rdquo; Dick said thoughtfully,
+&ldquo;with the price of foodstuffs soaring sky-high.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never for a moment expected it to pay,&rdquo;
+Betty said, &ldquo;but think of the run she will have
+for her money, and the experience we&rsquo;ll get out
+of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re in it for the romance there is in it,
+Betty. I must confess it isn&rsquo;t altogether my
+idea of a good time,&rdquo; Caroline said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know, you would go in for military training
+for women, and that sort of thing. There&rsquo;s
+a woman over there asking for more olives, and
+she&rsquo;s eaten a plate full of them already.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re as big as hen&rsquo;s eggs anyhow,&rdquo; Caroline
+groaned, &ldquo;and almost as extravagant. I
+don&rsquo;t see how Nancy&rsquo;ll go through the first
+month at this rate. There she comes now.
+Doesn&rsquo;t she look nice in that color of green?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46' ></a>46</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you like my party?&rdquo; Nancy asked,
+slipping into the empty chair between Dick and
+Billy; &ldquo;isn&rsquo;t the food good and nourishing, and
+aren&rsquo;t there a lot of nice-looking people here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very much, and it is, and there are,&rdquo; Dick
+answered with affectionate eyes on her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The salad is alligator pear served in half
+sections, with French dressing,&rdquo; she said
+dreamily. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m too happy to eat, but I&rsquo;ll have
+some with you. Look at them all, don&rsquo;t they
+look relaxed and soothed and refreshed? Every
+individual has a perfectly balanced ration of
+the most superlatively good quality, slowly beginning
+to assimilate within him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see many respectable working girls,&rdquo;
+Billy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There are though,&mdash;from the different shops
+and offices on the avenue. There is a contingent
+from the Columbia summer school coming to-morrow
+evening. This group coming in now
+is newspaper people.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the fellow sitting over in the corner
+with that Vie de Boh&ecirc;me hat? He looks familiar,
+but I can&rsquo;t seem to place him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The man in black with the mustache?&rdquo; Dick
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47' ></a>47</span>
+asked. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an artist, pretty well known.
+That impressionistic chap&mdash;I can&rsquo;t think of his
+name&mdash;that had that exhibition at the Palsifer
+galleries.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Does he sell?&rdquo; Caroline asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, they say he&rsquo;s awfully poor, refuses to
+paint down to the public taste. What the deuce
+is his name&mdash;oh! I know, Collier Pratt&mdash;do
+you know him, Nancy? Lived in Paris always
+till the war. He&rsquo;ll appreciate Ritz cooking at
+Riggs&rsquo; prices if anybody will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy looked fixedly at the small side-table
+where the stranger had just placed himself as
+if he were etched upon the whiteness of the wall
+behind him. He sat erect and brooding,&mdash;his
+dark, rather melancholy eyes staring straight
+ahead, and a slight frown wrinkling his really
+fine forehead. He wore an Inverness cape slung
+over one shoulder.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Looks like one of Rembrandt&rsquo;s portraits of
+himself,&rdquo; Caroline suggested.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He looks like a brigand,&rdquo; Betty said.
+&ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s struck dumb with the privilege of
+adding fuel to a flame of genius like that. Wake
+up and eat your peach Melba, Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48' ></a>48</span></div>
+<p>Nancy started, and took perfunctorily the
+spoon that Molly was holding out to her, which
+she forgot to lift to her lips even after it was
+freighted with its first delicious mouthful.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I dreamed about that man,&rdquo; she said.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49' ></a>49</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_IV_CINDERELLA'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Cinderella</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Nancy shut the door of her apartment behind
+her, and slipped out into the dimly
+lit corridor. From her sitting-room came a
+burst of concerted laughter, the sound of
+Betty&rsquo;s sweet, high pitched voice raised in sudden
+protest, and then the echo of some sort of
+a physical struggle; and Caroline took the piano
+and began to improvise.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They won&rsquo;t miss me,&rdquo; Nancy said to herself,
+&ldquo;I must have air.&rdquo; She drew a long breath
+with a hand against her breast, apparently to
+relieve the pressure there. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stay shut
+up in a <i>room</i>,&rdquo; she kept repeating as if she were
+stating the most reasonable of premises, and
+turning, fled down the two flights of stairs that
+led to the outside door of the building.</p>
+<p>The breath of the night was refreshingly cool
+upon her hot cheeks, and she smiled into the
+darkness gratefully. Across the way a row of
+brownstone houses, implacably boarded up for
+the summer, presented dull and dimly defined
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50' ></a>50</span>
+surfaces that reflected nothing, not even the
+lights of the street, or the shadow of a passing
+straggler. Nancy turned her face toward the
+avenue. The nostalgia that was her inheritance
+from her father, and through him from a long
+line of ancestors that followed the sea whither
+it might lead them, was upon her this night, although
+she did not understand it as such. She
+only thought vaguely of a strip of white beach
+with a whiter moon hung high above it, and the
+long silver line of the tide,&mdash;drawing out.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish I had a hat on,&rdquo; she said. There was
+a night light in the chemist&rsquo;s shop at the corner,
+and the panel of mirror obligingly placed
+for the convenience of the passing crowd, at the
+left of the big window, showed her reflection
+quite plainly. She was suddenly inspired to
+take the soft taffeta girdle from the waist of
+her dark blue muslin gown, and bind it turban-wise
+about her head. The effect was pleasingly
+modish and conventional, and she quickened her
+steps&mdash;satisfied. There was a tingle in the air
+that set her blood pleasantly in motion, and
+she established a rhythm of pace that made her
+feel almost as if she were walking to music.
+Insensibly her mind took up its responsibilities
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51' ></a>51</span>
+again as the blood, stimulated from its temporary
+inactivity, began to course naturally
+through her veins.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is plenty of beer and ginger ale in
+the ice-box,&rdquo; she thought, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;ve done this
+before, so they won&rsquo;t be unnaturally disturbed
+about me. Billy wanted to take Caroline home
+early, and Dick can go on up-town with Betty,
+without making her feel that she ought to leave
+him alone with me for a last t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te. It will
+hurt Dick&rsquo;s feelings, but he understands really.
+He has a most blessed understandingness, Dick
+has.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She had the avenue almost entirely to herself,
+a silent gleaming thoroughfare with the
+gracious emptiness that a much lived in street
+sometimes acquires, of a Sunday at the end of
+an adventurous season. It was early July, the
+beginning of the actual summer season in New
+York. Nancy had never before been in town so
+late in the year, nor for that matter had Caroline
+or Betty, but Betty&rsquo;s interest in the affairs
+of the Inn was keeping her at Nancy&rsquo;s side,
+while Caroline had just accepted a secretarial
+position in one of the big Industrial Leagues
+recently organized by women for women, that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52' ></a>52</span>
+would keep her in town all summer. Billy and
+Dick, by virtue of their respective occupations,
+were never away from New York for longer
+than the customary two weeks&rsquo; vacation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My soul smoothed itself out, a long cramped
+scroll,&rdquo;&mdash;her conscience placated on the score of
+her deserted guests, Nancy was quoting Browning
+to herself, as she widened the distance between
+herself and them. &ldquo;I wonder why I
+have this irresistible tendency to shake the people
+I love best in the world at intervals. I am
+such a really well-balanced and rational individual,
+I don&rsquo;t understand it in myself. I
+thought the Inn was going to take all the nonsense
+out of me, but it hasn&rsquo;t, it appears,&rdquo; she
+sighed; &ldquo;but then, I think it is going to take the
+nonsense out of a lot of people that are only
+erratic because they have never been properly
+fed. I guess I&rsquo;ll go and have a look at the old
+place in its Sunday evening calm. Already it
+seems queer not to be there at nine o&rsquo;clock in
+the evening, but I don&rsquo;t really think there are
+people enough in New York now on Sundays to
+make it an object.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s feet turned mechanically toward the
+arena of her most serious activities. Like most
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53' ></a>53</span>
+of us who run away, she was following by instinct
+the logical periphery of her responsibilities.</p>
+<p>The big green latticed gate was closed against
+all intruders. Nancy had the key to its padlock
+in her hand-bag, but she had no intention of
+using it. The white and crimson sign flapped
+in the soft breeze companionably responsive to
+the modest announcement, &ldquo;Marble Workshop,
+Reproductions and Antiques, Garden Furniture,&rdquo;
+which so inadequately invited those
+whom it might concern to a view of the petrified
+vaudeville within. Through the interstices
+of the gate the courtyard looked littered and
+unalluring;&mdash;the wicker tables without their
+fine white covers; the chairs pushed back in a
+heterogeneous assemblage; the segregated columns
+of a garden peristyle gaunt against the
+dark, gleamed a more ghostly white than the
+weather-stained busts and figures less recently
+added to the collection. It seemed to Nancy
+incredible that the place would ever bloom again
+with lights and bouquets and eager patrons,
+with her group of pretty flower-like waitresses
+moving deftly among them. She stared at the
+spot with the cold eye of the creator whose
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54' ></a>54</span>
+handiwork is out of the range of his vision, and
+the inspiration of it for the moment, gone.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel like Cinderella and her godmother
+rolled into one,&rdquo; she thought disconsolately. &ldquo;I
+waved my wand, and made so many things
+happen, and now that the clock has struck,
+again here I am outside in the cold and dark,&rdquo;&mdash;the
+wind was taking on a keener edge, and
+she shivered slightly in her muslins&mdash;&ldquo;with
+nothing but a pumpkin shell to show for it.
+Hitty says that getting what you want is apt
+to be unlikely business, and I&rsquo;m inclined to
+think she&rsquo;s right.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It seemed to her suddenly that the thing she
+had wanted,&mdash;a picturesque, cleverly executed
+restaurant where people could be fed according
+to the academic ideals of an untried young
+woman like herself was an unthinkable thing.
+The power of illusion failed for the moment.
+Just what was it that she had hoped to accomplish
+with this fling at executive altruism?
+What was she doing with a French cook in
+white uniform, a competent staff of professional
+dishwashers and waitresses and kitchen
+helpers? How had it come about that she
+owned so many mounds and heaps and pyramids
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55' ></a>55</span>
+of silver and metal and linen? What was
+this Inn that she had conceived as a project so
+unimaginably fine? Who were these shadow
+people that came and went there? Who was
+she? Why with all her vitality and all her
+hungry yearning for life and adventure
+couldn&rsquo;t she even believe in her own substantiality
+and focus? Wasn&rsquo;t life even real enough
+for a creature such as she to grasp it,&mdash;if it
+wasn&rsquo;t&mdash;</p>
+<p>She saw a figure that was familiar to her
+turn in from the avenue, a tall man in an Inverness
+with a wide black hat pulled down
+over his eyes. For the moment she could not
+remember who he was, but by the time he had
+stopped in front of the big gate, giving utterance
+to a well delivered expletive, she knew
+him perfectly, and stood waiting, motionless,
+for him to turn and speak to her. She was sure
+that he would have no recollection of her. He
+turned, but it was some seconds before he addressed
+her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Doubt thou the stars are fire,&rdquo; he said at
+last, with a shrug that admitted her to the companionship
+of his discomfiture. &ldquo;Doubt thou
+the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56' ></a>56</span>
+never doubt that your favorite New York restaurant
+will be closed on a Sunday night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! <i>is</i> it your favorite New York restaurant?&rdquo;
+Nancy cried, her heart in her throat.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s mine, you know, my&mdash;my favorite.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So I judged, or you wouldn&rsquo;t be beating
+against the gate so disconsolately.&rdquo; It was too
+dark to see his face clearly, but Nancy realized
+that he was looking down at her quizzically
+through the darkness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you really like this restaurant?&rdquo; she persisted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In some ways I like it very much. The food
+is quite possible as you know, very American in
+character, but very good American, and it has
+the advantage of being served out-of-doors. I
+am a Frenchman by adoption, and I like the
+outdoor caf&eacute;. In fact, I am never happy eating
+inside.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The surroundings are picturesque?&rdquo; Nancy
+hazarded.</p>
+<p>The stranger laughed. &ldquo;According to the
+American ideal,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;they are&mdash;but I do
+admit that they show a rather extraordinary
+imagination. I&rsquo;ve often thought that I should
+like to make the acquaintance of the woman,&mdash;of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57' ></a>57</span>
+course, it&rsquo;s a woman&mdash;who conceived the notion
+of this mortuary tea-room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, of course, is it a woman?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A man wouldn&rsquo;t set up housekeeping in&mdash;in
+<i>P&egrave;re Lachaise</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not, if he found a really domestic-looking
+corner?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He <i>wouldn&rsquo;t</i> in the first place, it wouldn&rsquo;t
+occur to him, that&rsquo;s all, and if he did he couldn&rsquo;t
+get away with it. The only real drawback to
+this hostelry is, as you know, that they don&rsquo;t
+serve spirits of any kind. I&rsquo;m accustomed to a
+glass or two of wine with my dinner, and my
+food sticks in my throat when I can&rsquo;t have it,
+but I&rsquo;ve found a way around that, now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! have you?&rdquo; said Nancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t give me away, but there&rsquo;s a man
+about the place here whose name is Michael,
+and he possesses that blend of Gallic facility
+with Celtic canniness that makes the Irish so
+wonderful as a race. I told my trouble to Michael,&mdash;with
+the result that I get a teapot full
+of Chianti with my dinner every night, and no
+questions asked.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! you do?&rdquo; gasped Nancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see Michael is serving the best interests
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58' ></a>58</span>
+of his employer, who wants to keep her patrons,
+because if I couldn&rsquo;t have it I wouldn&rsquo;t be there.
+He couldn&rsquo;t trouble the lady about it, naturally,
+because it is technically an offense against the
+law. Come, let&rsquo;s go and find a quiet corner
+where we can continue our conversation comfortably.
+There&rsquo;s a painfully respectable little
+hotel around the corner here that looks like the
+Caf&eacute; L&rsquo;avenue when you first go in, but is a
+place where the most bourgeoise of one&rsquo;s aunts
+might put up.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know that I can go,&rdquo; said Nancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no reason why you shouldn&rsquo;t, you
+know. My name is Collier Pratt. I&rsquo;m an artist.
+The more bourgeoise of my aunts would introduce
+me if she were here. She&rsquo;s a New Englander
+like so many of your own charming relatives.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How did you know that?&rdquo; Nancy asked, as
+she followed him with a docility quite new to
+her, past the big green gate, and the row of
+nondescript shops between it and the corner
+of Broadway.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was <i>born</i> in Boston,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said a
+trifle absently. &ldquo;I know a Massachusetts product
+when I see one. Ah! here we are.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59' ></a>59</span></div>
+<p>He led her triumphantly to a table in the far
+corner of the practically empty restaurant,
+waved away the civilities of a swarthy and
+somewhat badly coordinated waiter, and pulled
+out her chair for her himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, let me have a look at you,&rdquo; he said;
+&ldquo;why, you&rsquo;ve nothing on but muslin, and you&rsquo;re
+wearing your belt for a turban.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A sop to the conventions,&rdquo; Nancy said,
+blushing burningly. She was not quite able yet
+to get her bearings with this extraordinary
+man, who had assumed charge of her so cavalierly,
+but she was eager to find her poise in
+the situation. &ldquo;I ran away, and I thought it
+would look better to have something like a
+hat on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Looks,&rdquo; said Collier Pratt, &ldquo;looks! That&rsquo;s
+New England, always the looks of a thing, never
+the feel of it. Mind you I don&rsquo;t mean the <i>look</i>
+of a thing, that&rsquo;s something different again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I know, the conventional slant as opposed
+to the artistic perspective.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good! It isn&rsquo;t necessary to have my remarks
+followed intelligently, but it always adds
+piquancy to the situation when they are.
+Speaking of artistic perspective, you have a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60' ></a>60</span>
+very nice coloring. I like a ruddy chestnut hair
+with a skin as delicately white and pink as
+yours.&rdquo; He spoke impersonally with the narrowing
+eye of the artist. &ldquo;I can see you either
+in white,&mdash;not quite a cream white, but almost,&mdash;against
+a pearly kind of Quakerish background,
+or flaming out in the most crude,
+barbaric assemblage of colors. That&rsquo;s the advantage
+of your type and the environment you
+connote&mdash;you can be the whole show, or the
+veriest little mouse that ever sought the protective
+coloring of the shadows.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t exactly taking the quickest way
+of putting me at my ease,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+very much embarrassed, you know. I&rsquo;d stand
+being looked over for a few minutes longer if
+I could,&mdash;but I can&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;m not having one of my
+most equable evenings.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said.</p>
+<p>For the first time since she had seen his face
+with the light upon it, he smiled, and the smile
+relieved the rather empiric quality of his habitual
+expression. Nancy noticed the straight
+line of the heavy brows scarcely interrupted by
+the indication of the beginning of the nose, and
+wondering to herself if it were not possible
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61' ></a>61</span>
+for a person with that eyebrow formation to
+escape the venality of disposition that is popularly
+supposed to be its adjunct,&mdash;decided affirmatively.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not used to talking to American girls
+very much. I forget how daintily they&rsquo;re accustomed
+to being handled. I&rsquo;m extremely anxious
+to put you at your ease,&rdquo; he added quietly.
+&ldquo;I appreciate the privilege of your company on
+what promised to be the dullest of dull evenings.
+I should appreciate still more,&rdquo; he bowed,
+as he handed her a bill of fare of the journalistic
+proportions of the usual hotel menu,
+&ldquo;if you would make a choice of refreshment,
+that we may dispense with the somewhat pathological
+presence of our young friend here,&rdquo; he
+indicated the waiter afflicted with the jerking
+and titubation of a badly strung puppet. &ldquo;I advise
+Rhine wine and seltzer. I offer you anything
+from green chartreuse to Scotch and soda.
+Personally I&rsquo;m going to drink Perrier water.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather have an ice-cream,&rdquo; Nancy said,
+&ldquo;than anything else in the world,&mdash;coffee ice-cream,
+and a glass of water.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder if you would, or if you only think
+it&rsquo;s&mdash;safer. At any rate I&rsquo;m going to put my
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62' ></a>62</span>
+coat over your shoulders while you eat it. I
+never leave my rooms at this hour of the night
+without this cape. If I can find a place to sit
+out in I always do, and I&rsquo;m naturally rather
+cold-blooded.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not,&rdquo; said Nancy, but she meekly allowed
+him to drape her in the folds of the light
+cape, and found it grateful to her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bring the lady a big cup of coffee, and mind
+you have it hot,&rdquo; Collier Pratt ordered peremptorily,
+as her ice-cream was served by the
+shaking waiter. &ldquo;Coffee may be the worst
+thing in the world for you, nervously. I don&rsquo;t
+know,&mdash;it isn&rsquo;t for me, I rather thrive on it, but
+at any rate I&rsquo;m going to save you from the combination
+of organdie and ice-cream on a night
+like this. What is your name?&rdquo; he inquired
+abruptly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ann Martin.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not at my service?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know,&mdash;but I hope and trust
+so. I like you. You&rsquo;ve got something they
+don&rsquo;t have&mdash;these American girls,&mdash;softness
+and strength, too. I imagine you&rsquo;ve never been
+out of America.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63' ></a>63</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I have.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With two other girls and a chaperon, doing
+Europe, and staying at all the hotels doped up
+for tourist consumption.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy was constrained to answer with a
+smile.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t like America very much,&rdquo; she
+said presently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I like it for itself, but I loathe it&mdash;for
+myself. My way of living here is all wrong. I
+can&rsquo;t get to bed in this confounded city. I can&rsquo;t
+get enough to eat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! can&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; Nancy cried.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In Paris, or any town where there is a caf&eacute;
+life one naturally gets fed. The technique of
+living is taken care of much better over there.
+Your <i>concierge</i> serves you a nourishing breakfast
+as a matter of course. When you&rsquo;ve done
+your morning&rsquo;s work you go to your favorite
+caf&eacute;&mdash;not with the one object in life&mdash;to cram
+a <i>Ch&acirc;teaubriand</i> down your dry and resisting
+throat because he who labors must live,&mdash;but to
+see your friends, to read your daily journals,
+to write your letters, and do it incidentally in
+the open air while some diplomat of a waiter
+serves you with food that assuages the palate,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64' ></a>64</span>
+without insulting your mood. That&rsquo;s what I
+like about the little restaurant in the court
+there. It&rsquo;s out-of-doors, and you may stay
+there without feeling your table is in requisition
+for the next man. It&rsquo;s a very polite little
+place.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t expect to get in there to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I had hopes of it. I&rsquo;ve not dined, you see.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not dined?&rdquo; Nancy&rsquo;s eyes widened in dismay.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no use for me to dine unless I can
+eat my food tranquilly, in some accustomed corner.
+Getting nourished with me is a spiritual,
+as well as a physical matter. It is with all
+sensitive people. Don&rsquo;t you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose so. I&mdash;I hadn&rsquo;t thought of it
+that way. Couldn&rsquo;t you eat something now&mdash;an
+oyster stew, or something like that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing in any way remotely connected with
+that. An oyster stew is to me the most barbarous
+of concoctions. I loathe hot milk,&mdash;an
+oyster is an adjunct to a fish sauce, or a
+preface to a good dinner.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to have something,&rdquo; Nancy
+urged, &ldquo;even ice-cream is more nourishing than
+mineral water, or coffee with cream in it.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65' ></a>65</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I like coffee after dinner, not before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you only eat when it&rsquo;s convenient, or the
+mood takes you,&rdquo; Nancy cried out in real distress,
+&ldquo;how can you ever be sure that you have
+calories enough? The requirement of an average
+man at active labor is estimated at over
+three thousand calories. You must have something
+like a balanced ration in order to do your
+work.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Must I?&rdquo; Collier Pratt smiled his rare
+smile. &ldquo;Well, at any rate, it is good to hear you
+say so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She finished her ice-cream, and Collier Pratt
+drank his mineral water slowly, and smoked innumerable
+cigarettes of Virginia tobacco. The
+conversation which had proceeded so expeditiously
+to this point seemed for no apparent
+reason, suddenly to become gratuitous. Nancy
+had never before begun on the subject of the
+balanced ration without being respectfully allowed
+to go through to the end. She had not
+been allowed to feel snubbed, but she was a little
+bewildered that any conversation in which
+she was participating, could be so gracefully
+stopped before it was ended by her expressed
+desire.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66' ></a>66</span></div>
+<p>Collier Pratt took his watch out of his pocket,
+and looked at it hastily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By jove,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I had entirely forgotten.
+I have a child in my charge. I must be
+about looking after her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A child?&rdquo; Nancy cried, astonished.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, a little girl. She&rsquo;s probably sitting up
+for me, poor baby. Can you get home alone,
+if I put you on a bus or a street-car?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you&rsquo;ll call a taxi for me&mdash;&rdquo; Nancy said.</p>
+<p>She noticed that the check was paid with
+change instead of a bill. In fact, her host
+seemed not to have a bill of any denomination
+in his pocket, but to be undisturbed by the fact.
+He parted from her casually.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good-by, child,&rdquo; he said with his head in the
+door after he had given the chauffeur her street
+number; &ldquo;with the permission of <i>le bon Dieu</i>,
+we shall see each other again. I feel that He is
+going to give it to us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; Nancy said to his retreating
+shoulder.</p>
+<p>At her own front door was Dick&rsquo;s big Rolls-Royce,
+and Dick sitting inside of it, with his
+feet comfortably up, feigning sleep.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d go home until I saw
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67' ></a>67</span>
+you safe inside your own door, did you?&rdquo; he
+demanded.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Betty?&rdquo; Nancy asked mechanically.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I sent Williams home with her. Then he
+came back here, and left the car with me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t have waited,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+sorry, Dick, I&mdash;I had to have air. I had to get
+out. I couldn&rsquo;t stay inside a minute longer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You need never explain anything to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you want to know where I&rsquo;ve been?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick looked at her carefully before he made
+his answer. Then he said firmly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I might have told you,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you had
+wanted to know.&rdquo; She felt her knees sagging
+with fatigue, and drooped against the door-frame.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come and sit in the car, and talk to me for
+a minute,&rdquo; he suggested. &ldquo;Do you good, before
+you climb the stairs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He opened the car door for her ingratiatingly,
+but she shook her head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done unconventional things enough for
+one evening,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Unlock the door for
+me. Hitty&rsquo;ll be waiting up to take care of me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that queer thing you&rsquo;re wearing?&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68' ></a>68</span>
+he asked her, as he held the door for her to pass
+through, &ldquo;I never remember seeing you wear
+that before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy looked down wonderingly at the folds
+of the Inverness still swinging from her shoulders.
+She had been subconsciously aware of
+the grateful warmth in which she was encased
+ever since she snuggled comfortably into the
+depths of the taxi-cab into which Collier Pratt
+had tucked her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I never <i>have</i> worn it before,&rdquo; she said,
+answering Dick&rsquo;s question.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69' ></a>69</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_V_SCIENCE'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER V<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Science</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>The activities of the day at Outside Inn began
+with luncheon and the preparation for
+it. Nancy longed to serve breakfast there, but
+as yet it had not seemed practicable to do so.
+Most of the patrons of the restaurant conducted
+the business of the day down-town, but
+had their actual living quarters in New York&rsquo;s
+remoter fastnesses,&mdash;Brooklyn, the Bronx or
+Harlem. Nancy was satisfied that the bulk of
+her patronage should be the commuting and
+cliff dwelling contingent of Manhattanites,&mdash;indeed
+it was the sort of patronage that from
+the beginning she had intended to cater to.</p>
+<p>Nancy did most of the marketing herself at
+first, but Gaspard&mdash;the big cook&mdash;gradually
+coaxed this privilege away from her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we sit&mdash;us together, and
+talk of eating&rdquo;&mdash;he prided himself on his use
+of English, and never used his native tongue
+to help him out, except in moments of great excitement.
+&ldquo;It is immediately after breakfast.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70' ></a>70</span>
+Yes! I am full of milk-coffee sopped with
+bread, and you of bacon with eggs and marmalade.
+We say, what shall we give to our
+custom for its dinner and its luncheon? We
+think sadly&mdash;we who have but now brushed
+away the crumbs of breakfast&mdash;of those who
+must sit down so soon to the table groaning
+with viands. Therefore we say, &lsquo;Market delicately.
+Have the soup clear, the entr&eacute;e light and
+the salad green with plenty of vinegar.&rsquo; Even
+your calories&mdash;they do not help us much. They
+are in quantities so unexpected in the food that
+weighs nothing in the scales. We say you shall
+go to market and buy these things, and you go.
+I stir and walk about, and grow restless for
+my <i>d&eacute;jeuner</i>, and when you return from market,
+hungry too, we are not the same people
+who had thought our soup should be clear, and
+our entr&eacute;e more beautiful than nutritious. If
+I go to market myself <i>late</i> I am inspired there
+to buy what is right, because by that hour I
+have a proper relish and understanding of what
+all the world should eat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know he is right,&rdquo; Nancy said to Billy
+afterward in reporting the conversation, &ldquo;I
+hate to admit it, but even my notion of what
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71' ></a>71</span>
+other people should eat is colored by my own
+relation to food. I never realized before how
+little use an intellect is in this matter of food
+values. I can actually get up a meal that according
+to the tables is scientifically correct
+that wouldn&rsquo;t feed anybody if they were hungry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;One banana is equal to a pound and three-quarters
+of steak,&rdquo; Billy misquoted helpfully.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The trouble is that it <i>isn&rsquo;t</i>,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;except
+technically.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t eat it and grow thin.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t eat it and grow <i>fat</i> unless it happens
+to be the peculiar food to which you are
+idiosyncratic.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s really a word,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll overlook
+your trying it out on me. If it isn&rsquo;t you&rsquo;ll
+have to take the consequences.&rdquo; He went
+through the pantomime of one preparing to do
+physical violence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! it&rsquo;s a word. Ask Caroline.&rdquo; Nancy&rsquo;s
+eyes still held their look of being focussed on
+something in the remote distance. &ldquo;The trouble
+with all this dietetic problem is that the individual
+is dependent on something more than
+an adjustment of values. His environment and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72' ></a>72</span>
+his heredity play an active part in his diet
+problem. Some people can eat highly concentrated
+food, others have to have bulk, and so
+on. You can&rsquo;t substitute cheese and bananas
+for steak and do the race a service no matter
+what the cost of steak may soar to. You can&rsquo;t
+even substitute rice for potatoes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not unless your patronage is more Oriental
+than Celtic.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Healthy people have to have honest fare of
+about the type to which their environment has
+accustomed them, but intelligently supervised,&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+the conclusion I&rsquo;ve come to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You may be right,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;my general
+notion has always been that everybody ate
+wrong, and that everybody who would stand
+for it ought to be started all over again. I
+wouldn&rsquo;t stand for it, so I&rsquo;ve never looked into
+the matter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;People don&rsquo;t eat wrong, that&rsquo;s the really
+startling discovery I&rsquo;ve made recently. I mean
+healthy people don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it,&rdquo; said Billy; &ldquo;the way people
+eat is one of the most outrageous of the
+human scandals. I read the newspapers.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The newspapers don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Nancy said;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73' ></a>73</span>
+&ldquo;the individual usually has an instinctive working
+knowledge of the diet that is good for him,
+and his digestional experiences have taught him
+how to regulate it to some extent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you account for the clerk that orders
+coffee and sinkers at Child&rsquo;s every day?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s exactly it,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;He knows
+that he needs bulk and stimulation. He&rsquo;s handicapped
+by his poverty, but he gets the nearest
+substitute for the diet that suits him that he
+can get. If he could afford it he would have a
+square meal that would nourish him as well as
+warm and fill him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see but what this interesting theory
+lets you out altogether. Why Outside Inn, with
+its foxy table d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te, if what&rsquo;s one man&rsquo;s meat
+is another man&rsquo;s poison, and natural selection
+is the order of the day?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Outside Inn is all the more necessary to the
+welfare of a nation that&rsquo;s being starved out by
+the high cost of living. All I need to do is to
+have a little more variety, to have all the nutritive
+requirements in each meal, and such
+generous servings that every patron can make
+out a meal satisfying to himself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Everybody knows that all fat people eat all
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74' ></a>74</span>
+the sweets that they can get, and all thin people
+take tea without sugar with lemon in it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These people aren&rsquo;t healthy. That&rsquo;s where
+the intelligent supervision comes in.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you intend to do about them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Watch over them a little more carefully.
+Regulate their servings craftily. Be sure of
+my tables. I have lots of schemes. I&rsquo;ll tell you
+about them sometime.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Sometime</i>,&mdash;for this relief much thanks,&rdquo;
+murmured Billy; &ldquo;just now I&rsquo;ve had as much
+of these matters as I can stand. I don&rsquo;t see how
+you are going to run this thing on a profit,
+though.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m losing money
+every minute. That fifteen thousand dollars is
+almost gone now, of course. Billy, do you think
+it would be perfectly awful if I didn&rsquo;t try to
+make money at all?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it would be a good deal wiser. I&rsquo;ll
+raise all the money you want on your expectations.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right then. I&rsquo;m not going to worry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy looked down into the courtyard from
+the room up-stairs in which they had been talking.
+Already the preparations for lunch were
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75' ></a>75</span>
+under way. The girls were moving deftly
+about, laying cloths and arranging flower vases
+and silver.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can I get right down there and sit down at
+one of those tables and have my lunch,&rdquo; Billy
+inquired, &ldquo;or do I have to go out of the back
+door and come in the front like a regular customer?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Whichever you prefer. There&rsquo;s Caroline
+coming in at the gate now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then, I know which I prefer,&rdquo; Billy
+said, swimming realistically toward the stairs.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are getting fat, Billy,&rdquo; Caroline informed
+him critically after the amenities were
+over, and the meal appropriately begun. &ldquo;You
+ought to watch your diet a little more carefully.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Billy said firmly, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t need to watch
+my diet, I&rsquo;m perfectly healthy, and therefore
+my natural cravings will point the way to my
+most judicious nourishment. Nancy has explained
+all to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a very interesting theory of
+Nancy&rsquo;s,&rdquo; Caroline said, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t altogether
+agree with it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do,&rdquo; said Billy, then he added hastily, &ldquo;but
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76' ></a>76</span>
+I agree with you, too, Caroline. You are to
+all other women what moonlight is to sunlight,
+or I mean&mdash;what sunlight is to moonlight. In
+other words&mdash;you are the goods.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be silly, Billy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s only one thing in all this wide universe
+that you can&rsquo;t say to me, Caroline, and
+&lsquo;don&rsquo;t be silly, Billy,&rsquo; is that thing,&mdash;express
+this same thing in <i>vers libre</i> if you must say
+it! Look at the handsome soup you&rsquo;re getting.
+What is the name of that soup, Molly?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He smiled ingratiatingly at the little waitress,
+who always beamed at any one of Nancy&rsquo;s
+particular friends that came into the restaurant,
+and made a point of serving them if she
+could possibly arrange it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Cream of spinach,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a special
+to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Beautiful soup so rich and green,&rdquo; Billy began
+in a soulful baritone, &ldquo;waiting in a hot
+tureen. Where&rsquo;s mine, Molly?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dolly&rsquo;s bringing your first course, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy gazed in perplexity at the half of a delicious
+grapefruit set before him by the duplicate
+of the pretty girl who stood smiling deprecatingly
+behind Caroline&rsquo;s chair.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77' ></a>77</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s my soup, Dolly?&rdquo; Billy asked with
+a thundering sternness of manner.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry, sir,&rdquo; Dolly began glibly, &ldquo;but the
+soup has given out. Will you be good enough
+to allow the substitution of&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a formula,&rdquo; Billy said. &ldquo;The soup
+can&rsquo;t be out. We&rsquo;re the first people in the dining-room.
+Go tell Miss Nancy that I will be
+served with some of that green soup at once, or
+know the reason why.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The two waitresses exchanged glances, and
+went off together suppressing giggles, to return
+almost immediately, their risibility still causing
+them great physical inconvenience.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Intelligent supervision, she says.&rdquo; Dolly
+exploded into the miniature patch of muslin
+and ribbon that served her as an apron.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She says that&rsquo;s the reason why,&rdquo; Molly contributed,&mdash;following
+her sister&rsquo;s example.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy doesn&rsquo;t serve soup to a fat man if she
+can possibly avoid it. That&rsquo;s part of her theory,&rdquo;
+Caroline explained. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no use making a
+fuss about it, because you won&rsquo;t get it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy sat looking at his grapefruit for some
+seconds in silence. Then he began on it slowly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll be damned,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78' ></a>78</span></div>
+<p>Nancy was learning a great many things
+very rapidly. The practical application of her
+theories of feeding mankind to her actual experiments
+with the shifting population of New
+York, revolutionized her attitude toward the
+problem almost daily. She had started in with
+a great many ideas and ideals of service, with
+preconceived notions of balanced rations, and
+exact distribution of fuel stuffs to the human
+unit. She had come to realize very shortly, that
+the human unit was a quantity as incalculable
+in its relation to its digestive problems as its
+psychological ones. She had believed vaguely
+that in reference to food values the race made
+its great exception to its rule of working out
+toward normality; but she changed that opinion
+very quickly as she watched her fellow men
+selecting their diet with as sure an instinct for
+their nutritive requirements as if she had
+coached them personally for years.</p>
+<p>From the assumption that she lived in a
+world gone dietetically mad, and hence in the
+process of destroying itself, she had gradually
+come to see that in this phase of his struggle
+for existence, as well as in every other, the instinct
+of man operated automatically in the direction
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79' ></a>79</span>
+of his salvation. This new attitude in
+tie matter relieved her of much of her responsibility,
+but left her not less anxious to do what
+she could for her kind in the matter of calories.
+She was, as she had shown in her treatment of
+Billy, not entirely blinded by her growing predilection
+in favor of the doctrine of natural
+selection.</p>
+<p>Every day she had Gaspard make, in addition
+to his regular table d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te menu, dozens of
+nutritive custards, quarts of stimulating broths
+and jellies and other dishes containing the maximum
+of easily digested and highly concentrated
+nutriment, and these she managed to
+have Molly or Dolly or even Hildeguard&mdash;the
+Alma Tadema girl&mdash;introduce into the luncheon
+or dinner service in the case of those patrons
+who seemed to need peculiarly careful nourishing.
+Let a white-faced girl sink into a seat
+within the range of Nancy&rsquo;s vision,&mdash;she always
+ensconced herself in the doorway screened
+with vines at the beginning of a meal,&mdash;and she
+gave orders at once for the crafty substitution
+of invalid broth for soup, of rich nut bread for
+the ordinary rolls and crackers, of custards or
+specially made ice-cream for the dessert of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80' ></a>80</span>
+day. No overfed, pasty-faced man ever escaped
+from Outside Inn until an attempt at
+least had been made to introduce a portion of
+stewed prunes into his diet; and all such were
+fed the minimum of bread and other starchy
+foods, and the maximum of salad and green
+vegetables. Nancy had gluten bread made in
+quantities for the stouter element of her patronage,
+and in nine cases out of ten she was
+able to get it served and eaten without protest.
+Some of her regular patrons began to change
+weight gradually, a heavy man or two became
+less heavy, and a wraithlike girl now and then
+took on a new bloom and substantiality. These
+were the triumphs for which Nancy lived. Her
+only regret was that she was not able to give
+to each her personal time and attention, and establish
+herself on a footing with her patrons
+where she might learn from their own lips the
+secrets of their metabolism.</p>
+<p>She was not known as the proprietor of the
+place. In fact, the management of the restaurant
+was kept a careful secret from those who
+frequented it and with the habitual indifference
+of New Yorkers to the power behind the throne,
+so long as its affairs were manipulated in good
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81' ></a>81</span>
+and regular order, they soon ceased to feel any
+apparent curiosity about it. Betty, who sometimes
+rebelled at remaining so scrupulously incognita,
+defiantly took the limelight at intervals
+and moved among the assembled guests with an
+authoritative and possessive air, adjusting and
+rearranging small details, and acknowledging
+the presence of <i>habitu&eacute;s</i>, but since her attentions
+were popularly supposed to be those of a
+superior head waitress, she soon tired of the
+gesture of offering them.</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s intention had been to allow the restaurant
+to speak for itself, and then at the climactic
+moment to allow her connection with it
+to be discovered, and to speak for it with all
+the force and earnestness of which she was
+capable. She had meant to stand sponsor for
+the practical working theory on which her experiment
+was based, and she had already partially
+formulated interviews with herself in
+which she modestly acknowledged the success
+of that experiment, but the untoward direction
+in which it was developing made such a revelation
+inexpedient.</p>
+<p>There was one regular patron to whom she
+was peculiarly anxious to remain incognita.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82' ></a>82</span>
+Collier Pratt made it his almost invariable
+habit to come sauntering toward the table in
+the corner, under the life-sized effigy of the <i>V&ecirc;nus
+de Medici</i>, at seven o&rsquo;clock in the evening,
+and that table was scrupulously reserved for
+him. To it were sent the choicest of all the
+viands that Outside Inn could command. Michael
+was tacitly sped on his way with his teapot
+full of claret. Gaspard did amazing things
+with the breasts of ducks and segments of
+orange, with squab chicken stuffed with new
+corn, with <i>filets de sole a la Marguery</i>. Nancy
+craftily spurred him on to his most ambitious
+achievements under pretense of wishing her
+own appetite stimulated, and the big cook, who
+adored her, produced triumph after triumph
+of his art for her delectation, whereupon the
+biggest part of it was cunningly smuggled out
+to the artist. From behind her screen of vines
+Nancy watched the fine features of her quondam
+friend light with the rapture of the <i>gourmet</i>
+as be sampled Gaspard&rsquo;s sauce <i>verte</i> or
+Hollandaise or lifted the glass cover from the
+mushrooms <i>sous cloche</i> and inhaled their delicate
+aroma.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder if he finds our food very American
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83' ></a>83</span>
+in character, now,&rdquo; she said to herself,
+with a blush at the memory of the real southern
+cornbread and candied sweet potatoes that were
+offered him in the initial weeks of his patronage.
+Gaspard still made these delicacies for
+luncheon, but they had been almost entirely
+banished from the dinner menu. Afternoon
+tea at the Inn was famous for the wonderful
+waffles produced with Parisian precision from
+a traditional Virginian recipe, but Collier Pratt
+never appeared at either of these meals to criticize
+them for being American.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84' ></a>84</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_VI_AN_ELEEMOSYNARY_INSTITUTION'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>An Eleemosynary Institution</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>One night during the latter part of July
+Betty had a birthday, and according to
+immemorial custom Caroline and Nancy and
+Dick and Billy helped her to celebrate it at one
+of the old-fashioned down-town hotels where
+they had ordered practically the same dinner
+for her anniversaries ever since they had been
+grown up enough to celebrate them unchaperoned.
+Caroline&rsquo;s brother, Preston, had made
+a sixth member of the party for the first two or
+three years, but he had been located in London
+since then, in charge of the English office of his
+firm, to which he had been suddenly appointed
+a month after he and Betty, who had been
+sweethearts, had had a spectacular quarrel.</p>
+<p>Nancy stayed by the celebration until about
+half past nine, and then Dick put her into a
+taxi-cab, and she fled back to her responsibilities
+as mistress of Outside Inn, agreeing to
+meet the others later for the rounding out of
+the evening. As she drew up before the big
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85' ></a>85</span>
+gate the courtyard seemed practically deserted.
+The waitresses were busy clearing away the
+few cluttered tables left by the last late guests,
+and in one sheltered corner a man and a girl
+were frankly holding hands across the table,
+while they whispered earnestly of some impending
+parting. The big canopy of striped awning
+cloth had been drawn over the tables, as the
+rather heavy air of the evening bad been punctured
+occasionally by a swift scattering of rain.
+Nancy was half-way across the court before she
+realized that Collier Pratt was still occupying
+his accustomed seat under the shadow of the
+big Venus. She had not seen him face to face
+or communicated with him since the day she
+had looked him up in the telephone book and
+sent his cape to him by special messenger. She
+stopped involuntarily as she reached his side,
+and he looked up and smiled as he recognized
+her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re late again, Miss Ann Martin,&rdquo; he
+said, rising and pulling out a chair for her opposite
+his own. &ldquo;I think perhaps I can pull the
+wires and procure you some sustenance if you
+will say the word.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no word to say,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but how
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86' ></a>86</span>
+do you do? I&rsquo;ve just dined elsewhere. I only
+stopped in here for a moment to get something&mdash;something
+I left here at lunch.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In that case I&rsquo;ll offer you a drop of Michael&rsquo;s
+tea in my water glass.&rdquo; He poured a tablespoonful
+or so of claret from the teapot into
+the glass of ice-water before him, and added
+several lumps of sugar to the concoction, which
+he stirred gravely for some time before he offered
+it to her. &ldquo;I never touch water myself.
+This is <i>eau rougie</i> as the French children drink
+it. It&rsquo;s really better for you than ice-cream and
+a glass of water.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And less American,&rdquo; Nancy murmured with
+her eyes down.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And less American,&rdquo; he acquiesced blandly.</p>
+<p>Nancy sipped her drink, and Collier Pratt
+stirred the dregs in his coffee cup&mdash;Nancy had
+overheard some of her patrons remarking on
+the curious habits of a man who consumed a
+pot of tea and a pot of coffee at one and the
+same meal&mdash;and they regarded each other for
+some time in silence. Michael and Hildeguard,
+Molly and Dolly and two others of the staff of
+girls were grouped in the doorway exactly in
+Nancy&rsquo;s range of vision, and whispering to one
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87' ></a>87</span>
+another excitedly concerning the phenomenon
+that met their eyes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The little girl?&rdquo; Nancy said, trying to ignore
+the composite scrutiny to which she was being
+subjected, by turning determinedly to her companion,
+&ldquo;the little girl that you spoke of&mdash;is she
+well?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s as well as a motherless baby could
+be, subjected to the irregularities of a life like
+mine. Still she seems to thrive on it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is she yours?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, she&rsquo;s mine,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said, gravely
+dismissing the subject, and leaving Nancy half
+ashamed of her boldness in putting the question,
+half possessed of a madness to know the
+answer at any cost.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve discovered something very interesting,&rdquo;
+Collier Pratt said, after an interval in which
+Nancy felt that he was perfectly cognizant of
+her struggle with her curiosity; &ldquo;in fact, it&rsquo;s
+one of the most interesting discoveries that I
+have made in the course of a not unadventurous
+life. Do you come to this restaurant often?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quite often,&rdquo; Nancy equivocated, &ldquo;earlier in
+the day. For luncheon and for tea.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I come here almost every night of my life,&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88' ></a>88</span>
+Collier Pratt declared, &ldquo;and I intend to continue
+to come so long as <i>le bon Dieu</i> spares me my
+health and my epicurean taste. You know that
+I spoke of the food here before. The character
+of it has changed entirely. It&rsquo;s unmistakably
+French now, not to say Parisian. Outside of
+Paris or Vienna I have never tasted such soups,
+such sauce, such delicate and suggestive flavors.
+My entire existence has been revolutionized by
+the experience. I am no longer the lonely and
+unhappy man you discovered at this gate a
+short month ago. I can not cavil at an America
+that furnishes me with such food as I get in
+this place.</p>
+<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
+<p>&ldquo;Man may live without friends, and may live without books.</p>
+<p>But civilized man can not live without cooks,&rdquo;</p>
+</div></div>
+<p class='ni'>Nancy quoted sententiously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly. The whole point is that the cooking
+here is civilized. Oh! you ought to come
+here to dinner, my friend. I don&rsquo;t know what
+the luncheons and teas are like&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re very good,&rdquo; Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But not like the dinners, I&rsquo;ll wager. The
+dinners are the very last word! I don&rsquo;t know
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89' ></a>89</span>
+why this place isn&rsquo;t famous. Of course, I do
+my best to keep it a secret from the artistic
+rabble I know. It would be overrun with them
+in a week, and its character utterly ruined.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder if it would.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;m sure of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is your discovery?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt leaned dramatically closer to
+her, and Nancy instinctively bent forward
+across the tiny table until her face was very
+near to his.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know anything about the price of
+foodstuffs?&rdquo; he demanded.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A little,&rdquo; Nancy admitted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know then that the price of every commodity
+has soared unthinkably high, that the
+mere problem of providing the ordinary commonplace
+meal at the ordinary commonplace
+restaurant has become almost unsolvable to the
+proprietors? Most of the eating places in New
+York are run at a loss, while the management
+is marking time and praying for a change in
+conditions. Well, here we have a restaurant
+opening at the most crucial period in the history
+of such enterprises, offering its patrons
+the delicacies of the season most exquisitely
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90' ></a>90</span>
+cooked, at what is practically the minimum
+price for a respectable meal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;More than that, there are people who come
+here, who order one thing and get another, and
+the thing they get is always a much more elaborate
+and extravagant dish than the one they
+asked for. I&rsquo;ve seen that happen again and
+again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you?&rdquo; Nancy asked faintly, shrinking
+a little beneath the intentness of his look. &ldquo;How&mdash;how
+do you account for it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s only one way to account for it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think that there is an&mdash;an unlimited
+amount of capital behind it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think that goes without saying,&rdquo; he said;
+&ldquo;there must be an unlimited amount of capital
+behind it, or it wouldn&rsquo;t continue to flourish
+like a green bay tree; but that&rsquo;s not in the nature
+of a discovery. Anybody with any power
+of observation at all would have come to that
+conclusion long since.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then, what is it you have found out?&rdquo;
+Nancy asked, quaking.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My discovery is&mdash;&rdquo; Collier Pratt paused for
+the whole effect of his revelation to penetrate
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91' ></a>91</span>
+to her consciousness, &ldquo;that this whole outfit is
+run <i>philanthropically</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Philanthropically?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see? There can&rsquo;t be any other
+explanation of it. It&rsquo;s an eleemosynary institution.
+That&rsquo;s what it is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy met his expectant eyes with a trifle
+of wildness in her own, but he continued to
+hold her gaze triumphantly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see,&rdquo; he repeated, &ldquo;doesn&rsquo;t everything
+point to that as the only possible explanation?
+It&rsquo;s some rich woman&rsquo;s plaything. That
+accounts for the food, the setting,&mdash;everything
+in fact that has puzzled us. Amateur,&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+the word; effective, delightful but inexperienced.
+It sticks out all over the place.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The food isn&rsquo;t amateur,&rdquo; Nancy said, a little
+resentfully.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing is amateur but the spirit behind it,
+through which we profit. Don&rsquo;t you see?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m beginning to see,&rdquo; Nancy admitted,
+&ldquo;perhaps you are right. I guess the place is
+run philanthropically. I&mdash;I hadn&rsquo;t quite realized
+it before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What did you think?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I knew that the&mdash;one who was running it
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92' ></a>92</span>
+wasn&rsquo;t quite sure where she was coming out,
+but I didn&rsquo;t think of it is an eleemosynary institution.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, it is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an unscrupulous sort of charity, then,&rdquo;
+Nancy mused, &ldquo;if it&rsquo;s masquerading as self-respecting
+and self-supporting. I&mdash;I&rsquo;ve never approved
+of things like that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why quarrel with a scheme so beneficent?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you care?&rdquo; Nancy asked with a catch
+in her voice that was very like an appeal.</p>
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why should I?&rdquo; he smiled.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I don&rsquo;t care, either,&rdquo; she decided with
+an emphasis that was entirely lost on the man
+on the other side of the table.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93' ></a>93</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_VII_CAVEMAN_STUFF'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Cave-man Stuff</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>&ldquo;Cave-man stuff,&rdquo; Billy said to Dick,
+pointing a thumb over his shoulder
+toward the interior of the Broadway moving-picture
+palace at the exit of which they had
+just met accidentally. &ldquo;It always goes big,
+doesn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It does,&rdquo; Dick agreed thoughtfully, &ldquo;in the
+movies anyhow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Caroline says that the modern woman has
+her response to that kind of thing refined all
+out of her.&rdquo; Billy intended his tone to be entirely
+jocular, but there was a note of anxiety
+in it that was not lost on his friend.</p>
+<p>Dick paused under the shelter of a lurid poster&mdash;displaying
+a fierce gentleman in crude
+blue, showing all his teeth, and in the act of
+strangling an early Victorian ingenue with a
+dimple,&mdash;and lit a cigarette with his first match.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Caroline may have,&rdquo; he said, puffing to keep
+his light against the breeze, &ldquo;but I doubt it.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94' ></a>94</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Rough stuff doesn&rsquo;t seem to appeal to her,&rdquo;
+Billy said, quite humorously this time.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s healthy,&rdquo; Dick mused, &ldquo;rides horseback,
+plays tennis and all that. Wouldn&rsquo;t she
+have liked the guy that swung himself on the
+roof between the two poles?&rdquo; He indicated
+again the direction of the theater from which
+they had just emerged.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She would have liked him,&rdquo; Billy said gloomily,
+&ldquo;but the show would have started her
+arguing about this whole moving-picture
+proposition,&mdash;its crudity, and its tremendous
+sacrifice of artistic values, and so on and so on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure, she&rsquo;s a highbrow. Highbrows always
+cerebrate about the movies in one way or another.
+Nancy doesn&rsquo;t get it at just that angle,
+of course. She hasn&rsquo;t got Caroline&rsquo;s intellectual
+appetite. She&rsquo;s not interested in the movies because
+she hasn&rsquo;t got a moving-picture house of
+her own. The world is not Nancy&rsquo;s oyster&mdash;it&rsquo;s
+her lump of putty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know which is the worst,&rdquo; Billy said.
+&ldquo;Caroline won&rsquo;t listen to anything you say to
+her,&mdash;but then neither will Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Women never listen to anything,&rdquo; Dick said
+profoundly, &ldquo;unless they&rsquo;re doing it on purpose,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95' ></a>95</span>
+or they happen to be interested. I imagine
+Caroline is a little less tractable, but
+Nancy is capable of doing the most damage.
+She works with concrete materials. Caroline&rsquo;s
+kit is crammed with nothing but ideas.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing <i>but</i>&mdash;&rdquo; Billy groaned.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As for this cave-man business&mdash;theoretically,
+they ought to react to it,&mdash;both of them.
+They&rsquo;re both normal, well-balanced young
+ladies.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re both runnin&rsquo; pretty hard to keep in
+the same place, just at present.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy isn&rsquo;t doing that&mdash;not by a long shot,&rdquo;
+Dick said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s not keeping in the same place certainly,&rdquo;
+Billy agreed. &ldquo;Caroline is all eaten up
+by this economic independence idea.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good idea,&rdquo; Dick admitted; &ldquo;economic
+conditions are changing. No reason at all that
+a woman shouldn&rsquo;t prove herself willing to cope
+with them, as long as she gets things in the order
+of their importance. Earning her living
+isn&rsquo;t better than the Mother-Home-and-Heaven
+job. It&rsquo;s a way out, if she gets left, or gets
+stung.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m only thankful Caroline can&rsquo;t hear you.&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96' ></a>96</span>
+Billy raised pious eyes to heaven but he continued
+more seriously after a second, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all
+right to theorize, but practically speaking both
+our girls are getting beyond our control.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not engaged to Nancy,&rdquo; Dick said a trifle
+stiffly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you ought to be,&rdquo; Billy said.</p>
+<p>Dick stiffened. He was not used to speaking
+of his relations with Nancy to any one&mdash;even
+to Billy, who was the closest friend he had.
+They walked up Broadway in silence for a
+while, toward the cross-street which housed the
+university club which was their common objective.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know I ought to be,&rdquo; Dick said, just as
+Billy was formulating an apology for his presumption,
+&ldquo;or I ought to marry her out of hand.
+This watchful waiting&rsquo;s entirely the wrong
+idea.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why do we do it then?&rdquo; Billy inquired pathetically.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wanted Nancy to sow her economic wild
+oats. I guess you felt the same way about
+Caroline.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, they&rsquo;ve sowed &rsquo;em, haven&rsquo;t they?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not by a long shot. That&rsquo;s the trouble,&mdash;they
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97' ></a>97</span>
+don&rsquo;t get any forrider, from our point of
+view. I thought it would be the best policy to
+stand by and let Nancy work it out. I thought
+her restaurant would either fail spectacularly
+in a month, or succeed brilliantly and she&rsquo;d
+make over the executive end of it to somebody
+else. I never thought of her buckling down
+like this, and wearing herself out at it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a pretty keen edge on Caroline this
+summer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid Nancy&rsquo;s in pretty deep,&rdquo; Dick
+said. &ldquo;The money end of it worries me as much
+as anything.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t let that worry me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She won&rsquo;t take any of mine, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know she won&rsquo;t. See here, Dick, I wouldn&rsquo;t
+worry about Nancy&rsquo;s finances. She&rsquo;ll come out
+all right about money.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What makes you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know so. We&rsquo;ve got lots of things in the
+world to worry about, things that are scheduled
+to go wrong unless we&rsquo;re mighty delicate in the
+way we handle &rsquo;em. Let&rsquo;s worry about <i>them</i>,
+and leave Nancy&rsquo;s financial problems to take
+care of themselves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Which means,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;that you are
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98' ></a>98</span>
+sure that she&rsquo;s all right. I&rsquo;m not in her confidence
+in this matter&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I am,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m her legal adviser,
+and with all due respect to your taste
+in girls, it&rsquo;s a very difficult position to occupy.
+What with the things she won&rsquo;t listen to and
+the things she won&rsquo;t learn, and the things she
+actually knows more about than I do&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The indulgent smile of the true lover lit
+Dick&rsquo;s face, as if Billy had waxed profoundly
+eulogistic. Unconsciously, Billy&rsquo;s own tenderness
+took fire at the flame.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t we run away with &rsquo;em?&rdquo; he said,
+breathing heavily.</p>
+<p>Dick stopped in a convenient doorway to light
+his third cigarette, end on.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the answer to you and Caroline,&rdquo; he
+said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not to you and Nancy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It may be,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;I dunno. I&rsquo;ve
+reached an <i>impasse</i>. Still there is a great deal
+in your proposition.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They turned in at the portico that extended
+out over the big oak doors of their club. An
+attendant in white turned the knob for them,
+with the grin of enthusiastic welcome that was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99' ></a>99</span>
+the usual tribute to these two good-looking,
+well set up young men from those who served
+them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll think it over,&rdquo; Dick added, as he gave
+up his hat and stick, &ldquo;and let you know what
+decision I come to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In another five minutes they were deep in a
+game of Kelly-pool from which Dick emerged
+triumphantly richer by the sum of a dollar and
+ninety cents, and Billy the poorer by the loss
+of a quarter.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>There is a town in Connecticut, within a reasonable
+motoring distance from New York that
+has been called the Gretna Green of America.
+Here well-informed young couples are able to
+expedite the business of matrimony with a phenomenal
+neatness and despatch. Licenses can
+be procured by special dispensation, and the
+nuptial knot tied as solemnly and solidly as if a
+premeditated train of bridesmaids and flower
+girls and loving relatives had been rehearsed
+for days in advance.</p>
+<p>Dick and his Rolls-Royce had assisted at a
+hymeneal celebration or two, where a successful
+rush had been made for the temporary altars
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100' ></a>100</span>
+of this beneficent town with the most felicitous
+results, and he knew the procedure.
+When he and Billy organized an afternoon excursion
+into Connecticut, they tacitly avoided
+all mention of the consummation they hoped to
+bring about, but they both understood the nature
+and significance of the expedition. Dick,&mdash;who
+was used to the easy accomplishment of his
+designs and purposes, for most obstacles gave
+way before his magnetic onslaught,&mdash;had only
+sketchily outlined his scheme of proceedings,
+but he trusted to the magic of that inspiration
+that seldom or never failed him. He was
+the sort of young man that the last century
+novelists always referred to as &ldquo;fortune&rsquo;s
+favorite,&rdquo; and his luck so rarely betrayed him
+that he had almost come to believe it to be
+invincible.</p>
+<p>His general idea was to get Nancy and Caroline
+to drive into the country, through the cool
+rush of the freer purer air of the suburbs, give
+them lunch at some smart road-house, soothingly
+restful and dim, where the temperature
+was artificially lowered, and they could powder
+their noses at will; and from thence go on until
+they were within the radius of the charmed circle
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101' ></a>101</span>
+where modern miracles were performed
+while the expectant bridegroom waited.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy, my dear, we are going to be married,&rdquo;&mdash;that
+he had formulated, &ldquo;we&rsquo;re going to
+be done with all this nonsense of waiting and
+doubting the evidence of our own senses and
+our own hearts. We&rsquo;re going to put an end to
+the folly of trying to do without each other,&mdash;your
+folly of trying to feed all itinerant New
+York; my folly of standing by and letting you
+do it, or any other fool thing that your fancy
+happens to dictate. You&rsquo;re mine and I&rsquo;m yours,
+and I&rsquo;m going to take you&mdash;take you to-day and
+prove it to you.&rdquo; This was to be timed to be
+delivered at just about the moment when they
+drew up in front of the office of the justice of
+the peace, who was Dick&rsquo;s friend of old. &ldquo;Hold
+up your head, my dear, and put your hat on
+straight; we&rsquo;re going into that building to be
+made man and wife, and we&rsquo;re not coming out
+of it until the deed has been done.&rdquo; In some
+such fashion, he meant to carry it through.
+Many a time in the years gone by he had
+steered Nancy through some high-handed escapade
+that she would only have consented to
+on the spur of the moment. She was one of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102' ></a>102</span>
+these women who responded automatically to
+the voice of a master. He had failed in mastery
+this last year or so. That was the secret of his
+failure with her, but the days of that failure
+were numbered now. He was going to succeed.</p>
+<p>On the back seat of the big car he expected
+Billy and Caroline to be going through much
+the same sort of scene.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve come to a show-down now, Caroline,&mdash;either
+I sit in this game, or get out.&rdquo; He
+could imagine Billy bringing Caroline bluntly
+to terms with comparatively little effort. That
+was what she needed&mdash;Caroline&mdash;a strong
+hand. Billy&rsquo;s problem was simple. Caroline
+had already signified her preference for him.
+She wore his ring. Billy had only to pick her
+up, kicking and screaming if need be, and
+bear her to the altar. She would marry him
+if he insisted. That was clear to the most superficial
+of observers,&mdash;but Nancy was different.</p>
+<p>The day was hot, and grew steadily hotter.
+By the time Nancy and Caroline were actually
+in the car, after an almost superhuman
+effort to assemble them and their various
+accessories of veils and wraps, and to dispose
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103' ></a>103</span>
+of the assortment of errands and messages
+that both girls seemed to be committed to despatch
+before they could pass the boundaries of
+Greater New York, the two men were very
+nearly exhausted. It was only when the chauffeur
+let the car out to a speed greatly in excess
+of the limitations on some clear stretch of road,
+that the breath of the country brought them
+any relief whatsoever.</p>
+<p>Dick looked over his shoulder at the two in
+the back seat, and noted Caroline&rsquo;s pallor, and
+the fact that she was allowing a listless hand
+to linger in Billy&rsquo;s; but when he turned back
+to Nancy he discovered no such encouraging
+symptoms. She was sitting lightly relaxed at
+his side, but there was nothing even negatively
+responsive in her attitude. Her color was high;
+her breath coming evenly from between her
+slightly parted lips. She looked like a child
+oblivious to everything but some innocent daydream.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You look as if you were dreaming of candy
+and kisses, Nancy,&mdash;are you?&rdquo; he asked presently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m just glad to be free. It&rsquo;s been a
+long time since I&rsquo;ve played hooky.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104' ></a>104</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I know it.&rdquo; The &ldquo;dear&rdquo; constrained him,
+and he did not add it: &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been working
+most unholy hard. I&mdash;I hate to have you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I was never so happy in my life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s good.&rdquo; His voice hoarsened with the
+effort to keep it steady and casual. &ldquo;Is everything
+going all right?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is&mdash;is the money end of it all right?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, that is, I am not worrying about
+money.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not making money?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are not losing any?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am&mdash;a little. That was to be expected,
+don&rsquo;t you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How much are you losing?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know exactly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to know. Are you keeping your
+own books?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty helps me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you losing a hundred a month?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Five hundred?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A thousand?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105' ></a>105</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A thousand?&rdquo; he insisted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Nancy answered recklessly, &ldquo;the way
+I run it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t make any difference, of course;&rdquo;
+Dick said, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve got all my money behind
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t anybody&rsquo;s money behind me except
+my own.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You had fifteen thousand dollars. Do you
+mean to say that you have any of that left to
+draw on?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mind telling me how you are managing?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy borrowed some money for me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On what security?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t he come to me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I told him not to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy, do you realize that you&rsquo;re the most
+exasperating woman that ever walked the face
+of this earth?&rdquo; the unhappy lover asked.</p>
+<p>Nancy managed to convey the fact that Dick&rsquo;s
+asseveration both surprised and pained her,
+without resorting to the use of words.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106' ></a>106</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish you wouldn&rsquo;t spoil this lovely party,&rdquo;
+she said to him a few seconds later. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+extremely tired, and I should like to get my
+mind off my business instead of going over
+these tiresome details with anybody.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You look very innocent and kind and loving,&rdquo;
+Dick said desperately, &ldquo;but at heart
+you&rsquo;re a little fraud, Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She interrupted him to point out two children
+laden with wild flowers, trudging along the
+roadside.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;See how adorably dirty and happy they are,&rdquo;
+she cried. &ldquo;That little fellow has his shoestrings
+untied, and keeps tripping on them, he&rsquo;s
+so tired, but he&rsquo;s so crazy about the posies that
+he doesn&rsquo;t care. I wonder if he&rsquo;s taking them
+home to his mother.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re devoted to children, Nancy, aren&rsquo;t
+you?&rdquo; Dick&rsquo;s voice softened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I am, and some day I&rsquo;m going to
+adopt a whole orphan asylum,&rdquo;&mdash;her voice
+altered in a way that Dick did not in the
+least understand. &ldquo;I could if I wanted to,&rdquo;
+she laughed. &ldquo;Maybe I will want to some
+day. So many of my ideas are being changed
+and modified by experience.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107' ></a>107</span></div>
+<p>The road-house of his choice, when they
+reached it, proved to have deteriorated sadly
+since his last visit. The cool interior that he
+remembered had been inopportunely opened to
+the hottest blast of the day&rsquo;s heat, and hermetically
+sealed again, or at least so it seemed
+to Dick; and the furniture was all red and
+thickly, almost suffocatingly, upholstered.
+Nancy had no comment on the torrid air of
+the dining-room,&mdash;she rarely complained about
+anything. Even the presence of a fly in her
+bouillon jelly scarcely disturbed her equanimity,
+but Dick knew that she was secretly
+sustained by the conviction that such an
+accident was impossible under her system of
+supervision at Outside Inn, and resented her
+tranquillity accordingly.</p>
+<p>Caroline, behaving not so well, seemed to
+him a much more human and sympathetic figure,
+though her nose took on a high shine
+unknown to Nancy&rsquo;s demurer and more discreetly
+served features; but Billy evidently
+preferred Nancy&rsquo;s deportment, which was on
+the surface calm and reassuring.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s a sport,&rdquo; he pointed out to Caroline
+enthusiastically, &ldquo;no fly in the ointment
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108' ></a>108</span>
+gets her goat. She enjoys herself even when
+she&rsquo;s perfectly miserable.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She doesn&rsquo;t feel the heat the way I do,&rdquo;
+Caroline snapped.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel the heat,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but I&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s got a system,&rdquo; Dick cut in savagely:
+&ldquo;she stands it just as long as she can, and then
+she takes it out of me in some diabolical
+fashion.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s gray-blue eyes took on the far-away
+look that those who loved her had learned to
+associate with her most baffling moments.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Just by being especially nice to Dick,&rdquo; she
+said thoughtfully, &ldquo;I can make him more furious
+with me than in any other way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy and Caroline finished their sloppy
+ices at the table together while Dick and Billy
+sought the solace of a pipe in the garage outside.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand coming into Connecticut
+to-day,&rdquo; Nancy said as soon as they were
+alone; &ldquo;it seems like such a stupid excursion
+for Dick to make. He&rsquo;s usually pretty good
+at picking out places to go. In fact, he has a
+kind of genius for it.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109' ></a>109</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;He slipped up this time,&rdquo; Caroline said,
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m so hot.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So am I,&rdquo; said Nancy, slumping limply into
+the depths of her red velour chair. &ldquo;I want to
+get back to New York. Oh! what was it you
+told me the other day that you had been saving
+up to tell me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Caroline brightened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes! Why, it was something Collier
+Pratt said about you. You know Betty has
+scraped up quite an acquaintance with him.
+She goes and sits down at his table sometimes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s going to be stopped doing <i>that</i>,&rdquo;
+Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you remember the night when you
+went home early with a headache, and passed
+by his table going out?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but I didn&rsquo;t know he saw me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He sees everything, Betty says.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t suspect me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t know you came out of the interior.
+He said to Betty, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s curious that Miss
+Martin never stays here to dine in the evening,
+though she so often drops in.&rsquo; Betty is pretty
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110' ></a>110</span>
+quick, you know. She said, &lsquo;I think Miss Martin
+is a friend of the proprietor.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So I am,&rdquo; said Nancy, &ldquo;the best friend
+she&rsquo;s got. Go on, dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then he said slowly and thoughtfully, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s
+a crime for a woman like that not to be the
+mother of children. If ever I saw a maternal
+type, Miss Ann Martin is the apotheosis of it.
+Why some man hasn&rsquo;t made her understand
+that long ago I can not see.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s cheeks burned crimson and then
+white again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How dare Betty?&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wait till you hear. You know Betty
+doesn&rsquo;t care what she says. Her reply to that
+was peculiarly Bettyish. She sighed and cast
+down her eyes,&mdash;the little imp! &lsquo;The course of
+true love never does run smooth,&rsquo; she said;
+&lsquo;perhaps Ann has discovered the truth of that
+old saying in some new connection.&rsquo; She
+didn&rsquo;t mean to be a cat, she was only trying
+to create a romantic interest in your affairs,
+doing as she would be done by. The effect was
+more than she bargained for though. Collier
+Pratt&rsquo;s eyes quite lit up. &lsquo;I can imagine no
+greater crime than frustrating the instincts
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111' ></a>111</span>
+of a woman like that,&rsquo; he said. Imagine that&mdash;the
+instincts&mdash;whereupon Betty, of course,
+flounced off and left him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She would,&rdquo; Nancy said. Then a storm of
+real anger surged through her. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll turn her
+out of my place to-morrow. I&rsquo;ll never look at
+her or speak to her again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it would be more to the point,&rdquo;
+Caroline said, &ldquo;to turn out Collier Pratt.
+That was certainly an extraordinary way for
+him to speak of you to a girl who is a stranger
+to him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Caroline, you&rsquo;re almost as bad as Betty is.
+You&rsquo;re both of you hopelessly&mdash;helplessly&mdash;provincially
+American. I don&rsquo;t think that was
+extraordinary or impertinent even,&rdquo; Nancy
+said. &ldquo;I&mdash;I understand how that man means
+things.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>The car drove up in front of the office of
+the justice of the peace in the town beyond
+that in which they had had their unauspicious
+luncheon party.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are we stopping here for any particular
+reason?&rdquo; Caroline said.</p>
+<p>Nancy had not spoken in more than a monosyllable
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112' ></a>112</span>
+since they had resumed their places in
+the car again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not now,&rdquo; Dick said wearily. &ldquo;I thought
+I&rsquo;d point out the sights of the town. This
+place is called the Gretna Green of America,
+you know. A great many runaway couples
+come out here to be married. The man inside
+that office, the one with whiskers and no collar,
+is the one that marries them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Does he?&rdquo; Billy asked a trifle uncertainly.</p>
+<p>Nancy turned to Dick with a real appeal in
+her voice. It was the first time during the
+day that she had addressed him with anything
+like her natural tenderness and sweetness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! Dick, can&rsquo;t we start on?&rdquo; she said.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113' ></a>113</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_VIII_SCIENCE_APPLIED'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Science Applied</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Gaspard was ill&mdash;very ill. He lay in the
+little anteroom at the top of the stairs and
+groaned thunderously. He had a pain in his
+back and a roaring in his head, and an extreme
+disorder in the region of his solar plexus.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure an&rsquo; he&rsquo;s no more nor less than a
+human earthquake,&rdquo; Michael reported after an
+examination.</p>
+<p>Nancy applied ice caps and hot-water bags
+to the afflicted areas without avail. The
+stricken man had struggled from his bed in
+the Twentieth Street lodging-house that he
+had chosen for his habitation, and staggered
+through the heavy morning heat to his post in
+the basement kitchen of Nancy&rsquo;s Inn, there to
+collapse ignominiously between his cooking
+ranges. With Molly and Dolly and Hildeguard
+at his feet and herself and Michael and a dishwasher
+at his head they had managed to get him
+up the two short flights of stairs. It developed
+that it would be necessary to remove him in an
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114' ></a>114</span>
+ambulance later in the day, but for the time
+being he lay like a contorted Colossus on the
+fragile-looking cot that constituted his improvised
+bed of pain: &ldquo;Like the great grandfather,&rdquo;
+to quote Michael again, &ldquo;of all of
+them Zeus&rsquo;es and gargoyles, and other cavortin&rsquo;
+gentlemen in the yard down-stairs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>With the luncheon menu before her, Nancy
+decided that the hour had come for her to prove
+herself. She had assumed the practical management
+of the business of the Inn only to
+have the responsibility and much of the
+authority of her position taken from her by
+the very efficiency of her staff. She was
+far too good a business woman not to realize
+that this condition was distinctly to her advantage,
+and to encourage it accordingly, but
+there was still so much of the child in her
+that she secretly resented every usurpation of
+privilege.</p>
+<p>With Gaspard ill she was able to manipulate
+the affairs of the kitchen exactly as she chose,
+and even in the moment of applying the &ldquo;hot
+at the base of the brain and the cold at the
+forehead&rdquo; that the doctor had prescribed as
+the most effective method for relieving the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115' ></a>115</span>
+pressure of blood in the tortured temples of the
+suffering man, she had been conscious of that
+thrill of triumph that most human beings feel
+when the involuntary removal of the man
+higher up invests them with power.</p>
+<p>Michael did the marketing, and the list went
+through as Gaspard had planned it, with some
+slight adaptations to the exigency, such as the
+substitution of twenty-five cans of tomato
+soup for the fresh vegetables with which Gaspard
+had planned to make his tomato bisque,
+and brandied peaches in glass jars instead of
+peach souffl&eacute;.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I allow myself a little handicap in the
+matter of details,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I know I can put
+everything else through as well as Gaspard;&rdquo;
+whereupon she enveloped herself in a huge
+linen apron, tucked her hair into one of the
+chef&rsquo;s white caps, and attacked the problem of
+preparing luncheon for from sixty-five to two
+hundred people, who were scheduled to appear
+at uncertain intervals between the hours of
+twelve and two-thirty. Later she must be
+ready to serve tea and ices to a problematical
+number of patrons, but she tried not to think
+beyond the immediate task.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116' ></a>116</span></div>
+<p>She could make a very good tomato bisque
+by adding one cup of milk and a dash of cream
+to one half-pint can of MacDonald&rsquo;s tomato
+soup, enough to serve three people adequately,
+and she proceeded to multiply that recipe by
+twenty-five. She didn&rsquo;t think of getting large
+cans till Michael in the process of opening the
+half-pint tins made the belated suggestion,
+which she greeted with some hauteur.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not the person to mind a little extra
+work, Michael, when I am sure of my results.
+Precision&mdash;that&rsquo;s the secret of the difference
+between American and French cooking.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;An&rsquo; sure and I fail to see the difference
+between the preciseness of a quart can and
+four half-pint ones, but I suppose it&rsquo;s my
+ignorance now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your supposition is correct, Michael,&rdquo; she
+said airily, but out of the corner of her eye she
+saw him smiling to himself over the growing
+heap of half-pint tins, and reddened with
+mortification at her naivet&eacute; in the matter.</p>
+<p>She looked at the vat of terra-cotta pur&eacute;e
+with considerable dismay when she had stirred
+in the last measure of cream. Twenty-five
+pints of tomato bisque is a rather formidable
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117' ></a>117</span>
+quantity of a liquid the chief virtue of which
+is its sparing and judicious introduction into
+the individual diet scheme. Nancy hardly felt
+that she wanted to be alone with it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;ll soon lick it all up, and be polishing
+their plates like so many Tom-cats,&rdquo; Michael
+said, indicating their potential patronage by
+waving his hand toward the courtyard. &ldquo;Here
+comes Miss Betty, now. She&rsquo;ll be after lending
+a hand in the cooking.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Keep her away, Michael,&rdquo; Nancy cried; &ldquo;go
+out and head her off. Make her go up-stairs
+and sit with Gaspard,&mdash;anything, but don&rsquo;t let
+her come in here. If she does I won&rsquo;t answer
+for the consequences. I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know
+what I&rsquo;ll do to her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Throw her in the soup kettle, most likely,&rdquo;
+Michael chuckled. &ldquo;Faith, an&rsquo; I never saw a
+woman yet that wasn&rsquo;t ready to scratch the
+eyes out of the next one that got into her kitchen.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She isn&rsquo;t safe,&rdquo; Nancy said darkly. &ldquo;I need
+every bit of brain and self-control I have to
+put this luncheon through. You keep Miss
+Betty&rsquo;s mind on something else&mdash;anything but
+me and the way I am doing the cooking.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118' ></a>118</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis done,&rdquo; said Michael; &ldquo;sure an&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll protect
+her from you, if I have to abduct her myself!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish he would,&rdquo; Nancy said to herself
+viciously, &ldquo;before she gets another chance at
+Collier Pratt.&mdash;Creamed chicken and mushrooms.
+It&rsquo;s a lucky thing that Gaspard diced
+the chicken last night, and fixed that mac&eacute;doine
+of vegetables for a garnish.&mdash;She&rsquo;s a
+dangerous woman; she might wreck one&rsquo;s
+whole life with her unfeeling, histrionic nonsense.&mdash;I
+wonder if thirteen quarts of cream
+sauce is going to be enough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It turned out to be quite enough after the
+crises in which the butter basis got too brown,
+and the flour after melting into it smoothly
+seemed unreasonably inclined to lump again as
+Nancy stirred the cold milk into it, but the
+result after all was perfectly adequate, except
+for the uncanny brown tinge that the whole
+mixture had taken on. Nancy was unable to
+restrain herself from taking a sample of it to
+Gaspard&rsquo;s bedside.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Mais</i>&mdash;but I can not eat it now,&rdquo; he cried,
+misunderstanding the purpose of her visit, &ldquo;nor
+again&mdash;nor ever again. <i>Jamais!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119' ></a>119</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want you to eat it, Gaspard, I want
+you to look at it, and tell me what makes it
+that color. It turned tan, you see. I don&rsquo;t
+want to poison any one.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am too miserable,&rdquo; Gaspard said. &ldquo;The
+sauce&mdash;you have made into B&eacute;chamel with the
+browning butter, <i>voil&agrave; tout</i>. It is better so,&mdash;it
+would not hurt any one in the world but me&mdash;and
+me it would kill.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor thing,&rdquo; sighed Nancy, as she took her
+place by the kitchen dresser again, trying to
+remember where she had last seen brown eyes
+that reflected the look of stricken endurance
+that glazed Gaspard&rsquo;s velvet orbs, recalled with
+a start that Dick had gazed at her in much
+the same helpless fashion on their drive home
+from their recent motor trip in Connecticut.
+She had been too absorbed in her own distresses
+to consider anybody&rsquo;s state of mind but her
+own, on that occasion, but now Dick&rsquo;s expression
+came back to her vividly, and she nearly
+ruined a big bowl of French dressing, at the
+crucial moment of putting in the vinegar, trying
+to imagine which one of the events of that
+inauspicious day might conceivably have
+caused it.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120' ></a>120</span></div>
+<p>After the actual serving of the meal began,
+however, she had very little time for reflection
+or reminiscence. The distribution of food
+to the waitresses as they called for it required
+the full concentration of her powers. Molly and
+Dolly coached her, and with their assistance
+she was soon able to fill the bewilderingly
+rapid orders from the line of girls stretching
+from the door to the open space in front of her
+serving-table, which never seemed to diminish
+however adequately its demands were met.</p>
+<p>Mechanically she took soup and meat dishes
+from the hooded shelves at the top of the
+range where they were kept warming, and
+ladled out the brick-colored bisque, the creamed
+chicken and garnishing of the individual
+orders. The chicken looked delicious with its
+accompaniment of vari-colored vegetables,&mdash;Nancy
+had done away with the side dish long
+since&mdash;and each serving was assembled with
+special reference to its decorative qualities.
+The girls went up-stairs to put the salad on
+the plates, where the desserts were already
+dished in the quaint blue bowls in which
+stewed fruits and the more fluid sweets were
+always served.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121' ></a>121</span></div>
+<p>In her mind&rsquo;s eye Nancy could see the picture.
+At noon the court was almost entirely
+in the shade, and instead of the awning top,
+which shut out the air, there were gay striped
+umbrellas at the one or two tables that were
+imperfectly protected from the sun. She had
+recently invested in some table-cloths with
+bright blue woven borders. Flowers were arranged
+in low bowls and baskets on respective
+tables. Nancy instinctively grouped tired
+young business men in blue serge and soft collars
+at the tables decorated with the baskets of
+blue flowers; and pale young women in lingerie
+blouses before the bowls of roses. She could
+see them,&mdash;those big-eyed girls with delicate
+blue veins accentuating the pallor of their white
+faces&mdash;sinking gratefully into the wicker seats
+and benches, and sniffing rapturously at the
+faint far-away fragrance of the woodland blossoms.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I hope they will steal a great many of
+them,&rdquo; she thought, for her patrons were given
+to despoiling her flower vases in a way that
+scandalized the good Hildeguard, who was a
+just but ungenerous soul in spite of her ample
+proportions and popular qualities. Molly and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122' ></a>122</span>
+Dolly were rather given to encouraging the
+vandals, knowing that they had Nancy&rsquo;s tacit
+approval.</p>
+<p>Automatically dipping the huge metal ladle&mdash;one
+filling of which was enough for a service&mdash;into
+the big soup kettle, she stood for a
+moment gazing into its magenta depths oblivious
+to everything but the rhapsodic consideration
+of her realized dream. Now for the first
+time she was contributing directly her own
+strength and energy to the public which she
+served. She had prepared with her own hands
+the meal which her grateful patrons were consuming.
+The little girls with the tired faces,
+the jaded men, the smart, weary business women&mdash;buyers
+and secretaries and modistes,&mdash;who
+were occupied in the neighborhood were all
+being literally nourished by her. She had actually
+manufactured the product that was to
+sustain them through the weary day of heat
+and effort.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do they like the lunch, Molly?&rdquo; she
+asked, as she deftly deposited the forty-fifth
+serving of chicken with B&eacute;chamel sauce on the
+exact center of the plate before her. &ldquo;Are
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123' ></a>123</span>
+they pleased with the soup? Are they saying
+complimentary things about the chicken?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some of them is, Miss Nancy. Some of
+them is complaining that they can&rsquo;t get any
+other kind of soup. Them that usually gets
+invalid broth don&rsquo;t understand our running
+out of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I forgot about the specials,&rdquo; Nancy cried.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That red-haired girl that we feed on custards
+and nut bread and that special cocoa
+Gaspard makes for her, she acted real bad.
+They get expecting certain things, and then
+they want them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll make all those
+things to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The old feller that always has the stewed
+prunes is terrible pleased though. I give him
+two helps of the peaches, and he wanted
+another. He was pleased to get white bread
+too. He complains something dreadful about
+his bran biscuit every day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I meant to send to the woman&rsquo;s exchange
+for different kinds of health bread, but I forgot
+it,&rdquo; Nancy moaned. &ldquo;Do they like the
+peaches at all?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124' ></a>124</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Most of them likes them too well. There
+was one old lady that got one whiff of them,
+and pushed back her chair and left. I guess
+she had took the pledge, and the brandy went
+against her principles.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never thought of that. I only thought
+that brandied peaches would be a treat to so
+many people who didn&rsquo;t have them habitually
+served at home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The picture in Nancy&rsquo;s mind changed in
+color a trifle. She could see sour-faced spinsters
+at single tables pushing back their
+chairs, overturning the rose bowls in their
+hurry to shake the dust of her restaurant
+from their feet.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t accept any money from people who
+don&rsquo;t like their luncheon,&rdquo; she admonished
+Molly, who was next in line with several
+orders to be filled at once. &ldquo;Tell them that
+the proprietor of Outside Inn prefers not to be
+paid unless the meal is entirely satisfactory.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid there wouldn&rsquo;t never be any
+satisfactory meals if I told them that, Miss
+Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want any one ever to pay for anything
+he doesn&rsquo;t like,&rdquo; Nancy insisted. &ldquo;Slip
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125' ></a>125</span>
+the money back in their coat pockets if you
+can&rsquo;t manage it any other way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s lots of complaints about the soup,&rdquo;
+Dolly said; &ldquo;so many people don&rsquo;t like tomato
+in the heat. Gaspard, he always had a choice
+even if it wasn&rsquo;t down on the menu. I might
+deduct, say fifteen cents now, and slip it back
+to them with their change.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Please do,&rdquo; Nancy implored. &ldquo;Tell Molly
+and Hildeguard.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hilda would drop dead, but Molly&rsquo;d like the
+fun of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was hot in the kitchen. The soup kettle
+bad been emptied of more than half its contents,
+but the liquid that was left bubbled
+thickly over the gas flame that had been newly
+lit to reheat it. The pungent, acrid odor of
+hot tomatoes affronted her nostrils. She had
+a vision now of the pale tired faces of the little
+stenographers turning in disgust from the contemplation
+of the flamboyant and sticky pur&eacute;e
+on their plates, annoyed by the color scheme
+in combination with the soft wild-rose pink
+of the table bouquets, if not actually sickened
+by the fluid itself. For the first time since
+his abrupt seizure that morning she began to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126' ></a>126</span>
+hope in her heart that Gaspard&rsquo;s illness might
+be a matter of days instead of weeks. She
+served Hildeguard and one of the other waitresses
+with more soup, and then began to boil
+some eggs to eke out the chicken, which, owing
+to her unprecedented generosity in the matter
+of portions, seemed to be diminishing with
+alarming rapidity.</p>
+<p>From the kitchen closet beyond came the
+clatter of dishwashing, the interminable
+splashing of water, and stacking of plates,
+punctuated by the occasional clang of smashing
+glass or pottery. She had discharged two
+dishwashers in less than two weeks&rsquo; time,
+with the natural feeling that any change in
+that department must be for the better, but
+the present incumbent was even more incompetent
+than his predecessors. Even Nancy&rsquo;s
+impregnable nerves began to feel the strain of
+the continual clamorous assault on them.</p>
+<p>Betty appeared in the doorway that led
+directly from the restaurant stairs.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to intrude,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+blame Michael, I&rsquo;m breaking my parole to get
+in here. He locked me in and made me swear
+I&rsquo;d keep out of the kitchen before he&rsquo;d let me
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127' ></a>127</span>
+out at all, but I had to tell you this. The
+tomato soup has curdled and you ought not to
+serve it any more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I thought it looked rather funny,&rdquo;
+Nancy moaned.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It won&rsquo;t do anybody any harm, you know.
+It just looks bad, and a lot of people are kicking
+about it. Did Molly tell you about the
+old fellow that got tipsy on the peaches?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, she didn&rsquo;t. I sent Michael out for some
+ripe peaches and other fruit to serve instead.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a good idea. How&rsquo;s the food holding
+out? There are lots of people you know up-stairs,&rdquo;
+she rattled on, for Nancy, who was
+getting more and more distraught with each
+disquieting detail, made no pretense of answering
+her. &ldquo;Dolly has probably kept you
+informed. Dick&rsquo;s aunt is here, and that terribly
+highbrow cousin of Caroline&rsquo;s; and that
+good-looking young surgeon that suddenly got
+so famous last winter, and admired you so
+much. Dr. Sunderland&mdash;isn&rsquo;t that his name?
+I never saw Collier Pratt here for lunch before.
+There&rsquo;s a little girl with him, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Collier Pratt?&rdquo; Nancy cried, &ldquo;Oh, Betty,
+he isn&rsquo;t here. He couldn&rsquo;t be. Don&rsquo;t frighten
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128' ></a>128</span>
+me with any such nonsense. He never comes
+here in the day-time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He is though,&rdquo; Betty said, &ldquo;and a queer-looking
+little child with him, a dark-eyed
+little thing dressed in black satin.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It seems a good deal to me as if you were
+making that up,&rdquo; Nancy cried in exasperation;
+&ldquo;it&rsquo;s so much the kind of thing you do
+make up.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; Betty said, unexpectedly
+reasonable, &ldquo;but as it happens I&rsquo;m not. Collier
+Pratt really is up-stairs with a poor little
+orphan in tow. Ask any one of the girls.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At this moment Dolly, her ribbons awry and
+her china-blue eyes widened with excitement,
+appeared with a dramatic confirmation of
+Betty&rsquo;s astonishing announcement.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a little girl took sick from the
+peaches, and moved up-stairs in the room
+next to Gaspard&rsquo;s,&rdquo; she cried breathlessly.
+&ldquo;The doctor that was sitting at the next
+table, had her moved right up there. He
+wants to see the lady that runs the restaurant,
+and he wants a lot of hot water in a pitcher,
+and some baking soda.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; Betty said, &ldquo;go on up, I&rsquo;ll take
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129' ></a>129</span>
+your place here. Dolly, get the things the
+doctor asked for.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy stripped off her cap and her apron
+and resigned her spoons and ladles to Betty
+without a word. She was still incredulous of
+what she would find at the top of the three
+flights of creaking age-worn stairs that
+separated her from the nest of rooms that
+were the storm quarters of her hostelry, now
+converted by a sudden malevolence on the part
+of fate into a temporary hospital. As she
+took the last flight she could hear Gaspard&rsquo;s
+stertorous breathing coming at the regular intervals
+of distressful slumber, and through
+that an ominous murmur of grave and low-voiced
+conference, such as one hears in the
+chambers of the dead. The convulsive application
+of a powder puff to the tip of her burning
+nose&mdash;her whole face was aflame with
+exertion and excitement&mdash;was merely a part
+of her whole subconscious effort to get herself
+in hand for the exigency. Her mind, itself, refused
+any preparation for the scene that
+awaited her.</p>
+<p>On one of the cushioned benches against the
+wall in the most decorative of the dining-rooms
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130' ></a>130</span>
+of the up-stairs suite, a little girl was
+lying stark against the brilliant blue of the
+upholstery. She was a child of some seven or
+eight, lightly built and delicate of features and
+dressed all in black. Her eyes were closed,
+but the long lashes emphasizing the shadows in
+which they were set, prepared you for the
+revelation of them. Nancy understood that
+they were Collier Pratt&rsquo;s eyes, and that they
+would open presently, and look wonderingly
+up at her. She recognized the presence of Dr.
+Sunderland, of Michael and several of the
+waitresses, and a flighty woman in blue taffeta&mdash;an
+ubiquitous patron,&mdash;but she made
+her way past them at once, and sank on her
+knees before the prostrate child.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nothing very serious, Miss Martin,&rdquo;
+the young surgeon reassured her, &ldquo;delicate
+children of this type are likely to have these
+seizures. It&rsquo;s not exactly a fainting fit. It
+belongs rather to the family of hysteria.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t it the peaches?&rdquo; Nancy asked
+fearfully. &ldquo;They&mdash;they had a little brandy in
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They may have been a contributing cause,&rdquo;
+Dr. Sunderland acknowledged, &ldquo;but the child&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131' ></a>131</span>
+condition is primarily responsible. Let her
+alone until she rouses,&mdash;then give her hot
+water with a pinch of soda in it at fifteen-minute
+intervals. Keep her feet hot and her
+head cold and don&rsquo;t try to move her until
+after dark, when it&rsquo;s cooler.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take care of
+her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here comes her poor father, now,&rdquo; the
+lady in taffeta announced with the dramatic
+commiseration of the self-invited auditor.
+&ldquo;He thought an iced towel on her head might
+make her feel better. Is the dear little thing
+an orphan&mdash;I mean a half orphan?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The assembled company seeming disinclined
+to respond, she repeated her inquiry to Collier
+Pratt himself, as with the susceptive grace
+that characterized all his movements, he
+swung the compress he was carrying sharply
+to and fro to preserve its temperature in
+transit. &ldquo;Is the poor little thing a half orphan?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The poor little thing is nine-tenths orphan,
+madam,&rdquo; said Collier Pratt, &ldquo;that is&mdash;the only
+creature to whom she can turn for protection is
+the apology for a parent that you see before
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132' ></a>132</span>
+you. Would you mind stepping aside and giving
+me a little more room to work in?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not at all.&rdquo; Irony was wasted on the indomitable
+sympathizer in blue. &ldquo;Hasn&rsquo;t she really
+anybody but you to take care of her?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt arranged the towel precisely in
+position over the little girl&rsquo;s forehead, smoothing
+with careful fingers the cloud of dusky hair
+that fell about her face.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She has not,&rdquo; he answered with some savagery.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hasn&rsquo;t she any women friends or relatives
+that would be willing to take charge of her?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, madam.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then some woman that has no child of her
+own to care for ought to adopt her, and relieve
+you of the responsibility. It&rsquo;s a shame and disgrace
+the way these New York women with no
+natural ties of their own go around crying for
+something to do, when there are sweet little
+children like this suffering for a mother&rsquo;s care.
+I&rsquo;d adopt her myself if I was able to. I certainly
+would.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m perfectly willing to give over the technical
+part of her bringing up to some one of the
+women whom you so feelingly describe,&rdquo; Collier
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133' ></a>133</span>
+Pratt said. &ldquo;The trouble is to find the woman&mdash;the
+right woman. The vicarious mother is
+not the most prevalent of our modern types,
+I regret to say.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The little girl on the couch stirred softly, and
+the hand that Nancy was holding, a pathetic,
+thin, unkempt little hand, grew warm in hers.
+The lids of the big eyes fluttered and lifted.
+Nancy looked into their clouded depths for an
+instant. Then she turned to Collier Pratt
+decisively.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take care of your little girl for you, if
+you will let me,&rdquo; she said.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134' ></a>134</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_IX_SHEILA'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Sheila</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>&ldquo;I had <i>mal de mer</i> when I was on the
+steamer,&rdquo; the child said, in her pretty,
+painstaking English&mdash;she spoke French habitually.
+&ldquo;I do not like to have it on the land.
+The gentleman in there,&rdquo; she pointed to the
+room beyond where Gaspard was again distressfully
+sleeping the sleep of the spent after a period
+of the most profound physical agitation,
+&ldquo;he does not like to have it, too,&mdash;I mean
+either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy had propped the little girl up on
+improvised pillows made of coats and wraps
+swathed in towels and covered her with some
+strips of canton flannel designed to use as
+&ldquo;hushers&rdquo; under the table covers. As soon as
+the intense discomfort and nausea that had followed
+the first period of faintness had passed,
+Nancy had slipped off the shabby satin dress,
+made like the long-sleeved kitchen apron of
+New England extraction, and attired the child
+in a craftily simulated night-gown of table
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135' ></a>135</span>
+linen. Collier Pratt had worked with her,
+deftly supplementing all her efforts for his
+little girl&rsquo;s comfort until she had fallen into the
+exhausted sleep from which she was only now
+rousing and beginning to chatter. Her father
+had left her, still sleeping soundly, in Nancy&rsquo;s
+care, and gone off to keep an appointment with
+a prospective picture buyer. He had made no
+comment on Nancy&rsquo;s sudden impulsive offer to
+take the child in charge, and neither she nor he
+had referred to the matter again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you comfortable now, Sheila?&rdquo; Nancy
+asked. She had expected the child to have a
+French name, Suzanne or Japonette or something
+equally picturesque, but she realized as
+soon as she heard it that Sheila was much more
+suitable. The cloudy blue-black hair, and steel-blue
+eyes, the slight elongation of the space
+between the upper lip and nose, the dazzling
+satin whiteness of the skin were all Irish in
+their suggestion. Was the child&rsquo;s mother&mdash;that
+other natural protector of the child, who had
+died or deserted her&mdash;Nancy tried not to wonder
+too much which it was that she had done,&mdash;an
+Irish girl, or was Collier Pratt himself of
+that romantic origin?</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136' ></a>136</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Oui</i>, Mademoiselle, I mean, yes, thank you.
+I do not think I will say to you Miss Martin.
+We only say their names like that to the people
+with whom we are not <i>intime</i>. We are <i>intime</i>
+now, aren&rsquo;t we, now that I have been so very
+sick <i>chez vous</i>? In Paris the <i>concierge</i> had a
+daughter that I called Mademoiselle Cherie, and
+we were <i>very intime</i>. I think I would like to
+call you Miss Dear in English after her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should like that very much,&rdquo; Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad the sick gentleman is called Gaspard.
+So many <i>messieurs</i>&mdash;I mean gentlemen
+in Paris are called Gaspard, and hardly any in
+the United States of America. American things
+are very different from things in Paris, don&rsquo;t
+you think so, Miss Dear?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid they are,&rdquo; Nancy acquiesced
+gravely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid they are too,&rdquo; the child said,
+&ldquo;but afraid is what I try not to be of them. My
+father says America is full of beasts and devils,
+but he does not mind because he can paint
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you live in a studio?&rdquo; Nancy asked
+after a struggle to prevent herself from asking
+the question. She felt that she had no right to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137' ></a>137</span>
+any of the facts about Collier Pratt&rsquo;s existence
+that he did not choose to volunteer for himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Miss Dear, but not like Paris. There
+we had a door that opened into a garden, and
+the birds sang there, and I was allowed to go
+and play. Here we have only a fire-escape,
+and the <i>concierge</i> is only a janitor and
+will not allow us to keep milk bottles on it. I
+do not like a janitor. <i>Concierges</i> have so much
+more <i>politesse</i>. Now, no one takes care of me
+when father goes out, or brings me soup or
+<i>g&acirc;teaux</i> when he forgets.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Does he forget?&rdquo; Nancy cried, horrified.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes. He forgets himself, too, very
+often except dinner. He remembers that because
+he likes to come to this Outside Inn restaurant,
+where the cooking is so good. He
+brought me here to-day because it was my birthday.
+I think the cooking is very good except
+that I was so sick of eating it, but father swore
+to-day that it was not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Swore?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He said damn. That is not very bad swearing.
+I think <i>nom de Dieu</i> is worse, don&rsquo;t you,
+Miss Dear?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to take you up in my arms,&rdquo; said
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138' ></a>138</span>
+Nancy with sudden passion. &ldquo;I want to feel how
+thin you are, and I want to feel how you&mdash;feel.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, your eyes are wetting,&rdquo; the little girl
+exclaimed as she nestled contentedly against
+Nancy&rsquo;s breast, where Nancy had gathered her,
+converted table-cloth and all.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s your not having enough to eat,&rdquo; Nancy
+cried. &ldquo;Oh! baby child, honey. How could
+they? It&rsquo;s your calling me Miss Dear, too,&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;I&mdash;I can&rsquo;t stand the combination.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The child patted her cheek consolingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;my father cries because
+I get so hungry, when he forgets, but he
+does forget again as soon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Would you like to come and live with me,
+Sheila?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think so, Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you shall,&rdquo; Nancy said devoutly.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt found his child in Nancy&rsquo;s arms
+when he again mounted the stairs to the third
+floor of Outside Inn. The place was curiously
+cool to one who had been walking the sun-baked
+streets, and he gave an appreciative glance at
+the dim interior and the tableau of woman and
+child. Nancy&rsquo;s burnished head bent gravely
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139' ></a>139</span>
+over the shadowy dark one resting against her
+bosom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right again, is she?&rdquo; he inquired with
+the slow rare smile that Nancy had not seen
+before that day.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;she&rsquo;s better. She&rsquo;s under-nourished,
+that&rsquo;s what the trouble is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suspected that,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said ruefully.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not specially talented as a parent.
+I feed her passionately for days, and then I
+stop feeding her almost entirely. Artists in my
+circumstances eat sketchily at best. The only
+reason that I am fed with any regularity is that
+I have the habit of coming to this restaurant
+of yours. By the way, is it yours? I found you
+in charge to-day to my amazement.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am in charge to-day,&rdquo; Nancy acknowledged;
+&ldquo;in fact I have taken over the management
+of it for&mdash;for a friend.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The mysterious philanthropist.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye-es.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I will refrain from any comment on
+the lunch to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! that&mdash;that was a mistake,&rdquo; Nancy
+cried, &ldquo;an experiment. Gaspard the <i>chef</i>&mdash;was
+ill.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140' ></a>140</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;He was very ill, father, dear,&rdquo; Sheila added
+gravely, &ldquo;like crossing the Channel, much sicker
+than I was. I was only sick like crossing the
+ocean, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These fine distinctions,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said,
+&ldquo;she&rsquo;s much given to them.&rdquo; His eyes narrowed
+as they rested again on the picture
+Nancy made&mdash;the cool curve of her bent neck,
+the rise and fall of the breast in which the
+breathing had quickened perceptibly since his
+coming,&mdash;the child swathed in the long folds of
+white linen outlined against the Madonna blue
+of the dress that she was wearing. Nancy
+blushed under the intentness of his gaze, understanding,
+thanks to Caroline&rsquo;s report of his
+conversation with Betty, something of what
+was in his mind about her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Gaspard is going to be taken away in an ambulance,&rdquo;
+the child said, &ldquo;to the hospital.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then who is going to cook my dinner?&rdquo;
+Collier Pratt asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good lord, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Nancy cried,
+roused to her responsibilities.</p>
+<p>She looked at the watch on her wrist, a platinum
+bracelet affair with an octagonal face that
+Dick had persuaded her to accept for a Christmas
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141' ></a>141</span>
+present by giving one exactly like it to
+Betty and Caroline. It was twenty-five minutes
+of five. Dinner was served every night
+promptly at half past six, and there was absolutely
+no preparation made for it, not so much
+as a loaf of bread ordered. Instead of doing
+the usual marketing in the morning she had
+sent Michael out for the things that she needed
+in the preparation of luncheon, and planned to
+make up a list of things that she needed for
+dinner just as soon as her midday duties in the
+kitchen had set her free. She thought that she
+would be more like Gaspard, &ldquo;inspired to buy
+what is right&rdquo; if she waited until the success
+of her luncheon had been assured. The ensuing
+events had driven the affairs of her cuisine
+entirely out of her mind. She was constrained
+by her native tendency to concentrate on the
+business in hand to the exclusion of all other
+matters, big and little. She had dismissed
+Betty during the excitement that followed Sheila&rsquo;s
+illness, and Betty had seemed unnaturally
+willing to leave the hectic scene and go about
+her business. Michael had made several ineffectual
+attempts to speak to her, but she had
+waved him away impatiently. She knew that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142' ></a>142</span>
+neither he nor any one else on the restaurant
+staff would believe that she hadn&rsquo;t made some
+adequate and mysterious provision for the serving
+of the night meal. She had never failed
+before in the smallest detail of executive policy.
+She set the child back upon the cushion, and
+arranged her perfunctorily in position there.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know <i>what</i> you are going to have
+for dinner,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;much less who&rsquo;s going
+to cook it for you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps I had better arrange to have it
+elsewhere, since this seems to be literally the
+cook&rsquo;s day out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;ll be dinner,&rdquo; said Nancy uncertainly.</p>
+<p>Dick came up the stairs three at a time, and
+in his wake she heard the murmur of women&rsquo;s
+voices&mdash;Caroline&rsquo;s and Betty&rsquo;s.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I heard you were in difficulties,&rdquo; Dick said,
+&ldquo;so I made Sister Betty and Caroline give up
+their perfectly good trip into the country, in
+order to come around and mix in.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know Betty was going driving with
+you,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;She didn&rsquo;t say so. Oh!
+Dick, there isn&rsquo;t any dinner. I forgot all about
+it. This is Mr. Collier Pratt and his little
+daughter,&mdash;Mr. Richard Thorndyke. She&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143' ></a>143</span>
+coming to live with me soon, I hope, and let
+Hitty take care of her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The two men shook hands.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hold on a minute,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;that paragraph
+is replete with interest, but I want to
+get it assimilated. Sure, Betty was going driving
+with me. I told her to ask you if she
+thought it would be any use, but she allowed
+it wouldn&rsquo;t. I am delighted to meet Mr. Pratt,
+and pleased to know that his daughter is coming
+to live with you, but isn&rsquo;t that rather sudden?
+Also, what&rsquo;s this about there not being
+any dinner?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy was beginning, when
+she realized that Caroline and Betty, who had
+followed closely on Dick&rsquo;s footsteps, were looking
+at her with faces pale with consternation
+and alarm. She could see the anticipatory collapse
+of Outside Inn writ large on Caroline&rsquo;s
+expressive countenance. Caroline was the type
+of girl who believed that in the very nature of
+things the undertakings of her most intimate
+friends were doomed to failure. &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t
+any dinner yet,&rdquo; Nancy corrected herself, &ldquo;but
+you go up to my place, Dick, and get Hitty.
+Tell her she&rsquo;s got to cook dinner for this restaurant
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144' ></a>144</span>
+to-night. She can cook three courses
+of anything she likes, and have <i>carte blanche</i>
+in the kitchen. You have more influence with
+her than anybody, so, no matter what she says,
+make her do it. Then when she decides what
+she wants to cook, drive her around until she
+collects her ingredients. She won&rsquo;t let anybody
+do the marketing for her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do my best.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have to do more than that,&rdquo; Betty
+laughed as he started off, &ldquo;but you&rsquo;re perfectly
+capable of it. How do you do, Mr. Pratt? This
+is Miss Eustace, pale with apprehension about
+the way things are going, but still recognizable
+and answering to her name.&rdquo; Betty always enjoyed
+introducing Caroline with an audacious
+flourish, since Caroline always suffered so much
+in the process.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And this is little Miss Sheila Pratt,&rdquo; Nancy
+supplemented.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Enchant&eacute;</i>,&rdquo; the little girl said, &ldquo;I mean, I
+am very pleased to meet you. I was very sick,
+but I am better now, and I am going to live
+with Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It seems to be settled,&rdquo; her father said,
+shrugging.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145' ></a>145</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Would you mind it so very much?&rdquo; Nancy
+asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t mind it at all,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said.
+&ldquo;I think it would be a delightful arrangement,&mdash;if
+I&rsquo;m to take you seriously.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy is always to be taken seriously,&rdquo;
+Betty put in. &ldquo;What she really wants of the
+child is to use her for dietetic experiment, I&rsquo;m
+sure.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what she&rsquo;s used to, poor child,&rdquo; Collier
+Pratt said ruefully.</p>
+<p>The removal of Gaspard created a diversion.
+Nancy took Sheila in to bid him good-by, and
+the great creature was so touched by the farewell
+kiss that she imprinted on his forehead,
+and the revelation of the fact that a fellow being
+had been suffering kindred throes in the
+chamber just beyond his own that he was of
+two minds about letting himself be moved at
+all from her proximity. A group of waitresses
+collected on the second landing, and Nancy and
+her friends stood together at the head of the
+stairs while the white-coated intern from the
+hospital rolled his great bulk upon a fragile-looking
+stretcher, and with the assistance of all
+the male talent in the establishment, managed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146' ></a>146</span>
+to head him down the stairs, and so on across
+the court and into the waiting ambulance.</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s eyes filled with inexplicable tears,
+and she caught Collier Pratt regarding them
+with some amusement.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s such a dear,&rdquo; she said somewhat irrelevantly.
+&ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t care whether he was
+sick or not this morning,&mdash;but you get so fond
+of people that are around all the time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Collier Pratt,&mdash;he spoke very
+lightly, but there was something in his tone
+that made Nancy want to turn and look at him
+intently. She seemed to see for the first time a
+shade of defiant cruelty in his face,&mdash;&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo;
+he reiterated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do,&rdquo; Nancy repeated stubbornly, but as she
+met his slow smile, the slight impression of unpleasantness
+vanished.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We artists are selfish people,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+going to run away now, and leave my daughter
+to cultivate your charming friends. Will you
+come and eat your dinner at my little table to-night,
+and talk, discuss this matter of her visit
+to you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will if there is any dinner,&rdquo; Nancy said,
+putting out a throbbing hand to him.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147' ></a>147</span></div>
+<p>There was a dinner. It was Hitty&rsquo;s conception
+of an emergency meal&mdash;the kind of thing
+that her mother before her had prepared on
+wash-day when an unexpected relative alighted
+from the noon train, and surprised her into inadvertent
+hospitality. It began with steamed
+clams and melted butter sauce. Hitty knew a
+fish market where the clams were imported direct
+from Cape Cod by the nephew of a man
+who used to go to school with her husband&rsquo;s
+brother, and he warranted every clam she
+bought of him. They were served in soup
+plates and the drawn butter in demi-tasses, but
+Hitty would have it no other way. The <i>pi&egrave;ce
+de r&eacute;sistance</i> was ham and eggs, great fragrant
+crispy slices of ham browned faintly gold across
+their pinky surface, and eggs&mdash;Hitty knew
+where to get country eggs, too&mdash;so white, so
+golden-yolked, so tempting that it was difficult
+to associate them with the prosaic process
+of frying, but fried they were. With them were
+served boiled potatoes in their jackets,&mdash;no
+wash-day cook ever removed the peeling from
+an emergency potato,&mdash;and afterward a course
+of Hitty&rsquo;s famous huckleberry dumplings, the
+lightest, most ephemeral balls of dumplings
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148' ></a>148</span>
+that were ever dipped into the blue-black deeps
+of hot huckleberry&mdash;not blueberry, but country
+huckleberry&mdash;sauce.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the coffee?&rdquo; Nancy asked Dolly
+miserably, when the humiliating meal was
+drawing to its close.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She won&rsquo;t make coffee,&rdquo; Dolly whispered;
+&ldquo;she says it will keep everybody awake, and
+they&rsquo;re much better off without it, but Miss
+Betty, she&rsquo;s watching her chance, and she&rsquo;s
+making it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt had received each course in silence,
+but had eaten heartily of the food that
+was set before him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose he was hungry enough to eat
+anything,&rdquo; Nancy thought; &ldquo;the lunch was humiliating
+enough, but this surpasses anything
+I dreamed of.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She had given up trying to estimate the calories
+that each man was likely to average in partaking
+of Hitty&rsquo;s menu. She noticed that a
+great many of her patrons had taken second
+helpings, and that threw her out in her calculation
+of quantities, while the relative digestibility
+of the protein and the fats in pork depend
+so much upon its preparation that she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149' ></a>149</span>
+could not approximate the virtue of Hitty&rsquo;s bill
+of fare without consultation with Hitty.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That was a very excellent dinner,&rdquo; Collier
+Pratt broke through her painful reverie to make
+his pronouncement. &ldquo;Astonishing, but very
+satisfactory. It reminds me of days on my
+grandfather&rsquo;s farm when I was a youngster.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should think it might,&rdquo; Nancy said, for
+the first time in her relation with her new
+friend becoming ironical on her own account.
+Then she added seriously, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Hitty, you know,
+that will have all the real care of Sheila. I&rsquo;m
+pretty busy down here, and I&mdash;&rdquo; she hesitated,
+half expecting him to threaten to remove his
+child at once from the prospective guardianship
+of a creature who reverted so readily to
+the barbarism of ham and eggs.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, if it&rsquo;s Hitty that is to have the care
+of Sheila,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said, and Nancy was
+not longer puzzled as to which element of her
+parentage Sheila owed her Irish complexion,
+&ldquo;why, more power to her!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy dreamed that night that she was married
+to Dick, and that Hitty made and served
+them <i>p&acirc;t&eacute; de foies gras</i> dumplings, while Collier
+Pratt in freckles and overalls sat in a high
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150' ></a>150</span>
+chair, and had his dinner with the family.
+Later it was discovered that Betty had poisoned
+his bread and milk, and he died in Nancy&rsquo;s arms
+in dreadful agony, swearing in a beautiful Irish
+brogue that in all his life he had never looked
+at another woman,&mdash;which even in her dream
+seemed to Nancy a somewhat irreconcilable
+statement.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151' ></a>151</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_X_THE_PORTRAIT'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER X<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>The Portrait</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>To Nancy&rsquo;s surprise Hitty welcomed the little
+girl warmly, when she was introduced
+into the family circle. She liked to be busy all
+day, and her duties in taking care of Nancy
+were not onerous enough to keep her full energy
+employed. She liked children and family life,
+and she seemed to have the feeling that if
+Nancy continued to assemble the various parts
+that go to make up a family, she would end by
+adding to it the essential masculine element,
+though it was Dick and not Collier Pratt that
+she visualized at the head of the table cutting
+up Sheila&rsquo;s meat for her. Collier Pratt
+was to her a necessary but insignificant detail
+in Nancy&rsquo;s scheme of things, a poor artist who
+had &ldquo;frittered away so much time in furrin
+parts&rdquo; that he was incapable of supporting his
+only child&mdash;&ldquo;poor little motherless lamb!&rdquo;&mdash;in
+anything like a befitting and adequate manner.
+Whenever he came to see Sheila she treated him
+with the condescension of a poor relation, and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152' ></a>152</span>
+served his tea in the second best china with the
+kitchen silver and linen, unless Nancy caught
+her at it in time to demand the best.</p>
+<p>Nancy had expected that Collier Pratt would
+try to make some business arrangement with
+her when she took Sheila in charge,&mdash;that he
+would insist on paying her at least a nominal
+sum a week for the child&rsquo;s board. She had
+lain awake nights planning the conversations
+with him in which she would overcome his delicate
+but natural scruples in the matter and persuade
+him to her own way of thinking. She had
+even fixed on the smallest sum&mdash;two dollars and
+a half a week&mdash;at which she thought she might
+induce him to compromise, if all her eloquence
+failed. She knew that he considered her the
+hard working, paid manager of Outside Inn,
+and took it for granted that she had no other
+source of income. She was a little disconcerted
+that he made no effort, beyond thanking her
+sincerely and simply for her kindness, to put
+the matter on a more concrete basis, but when
+he told her presently that he was going to do a
+portrait of her, she scourged herself for her
+New England perspective on an affair that he
+handled with so much delicacy.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153' ></a>153</span></div>
+<p>Her friends were, on the whole, pleased with
+her experiment in vicarious motherhood. Dick
+instinctively resented the fact that Nancy had
+taken Collier Pratt&rsquo;s daughter into her home
+and heart, but the child herself was a delight
+to him, and he spent hours romping with her
+and telling her stories, loading her with toys
+and sweetmeats, and taking her off for enchanting
+holiday excursions &ldquo;over the Palisades and
+far away.&rdquo; Billy was hardly less diverted with
+her, and Betty regarded her advent as a provision
+on the part of Providence against things
+becoming too commonplace. Caroline, as was
+her wont, took the child very seriously, and
+tried to interest Nancy in all the latest educational
+theories for her development, including
+posture dancing, and potato raising.</p>
+<p>Nancy herself had loved the child from the
+moment the big lustrous gray eyes opened, on
+the day of her sudden illness at Outside Inn,
+and looked confidingly up into hers. For the
+first time in her life her maternal ardor&mdash;the
+instinct which made her yearn to nourish and
+minister to a race&mdash;had concentrated on a single
+human being. Sheila, hungry for mothering,
+had turned to her with the simplicity of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154' ></a>154</span>
+people among whom she had been brought up,
+taking her sympathetic response as a matter of
+course; and the two were soon on the closest,
+most affectionate terms.</p>
+<p>Sheila and Outside Inn divided Nancy&rsquo;s time
+to the practical exclusion of all other interests.
+She had, without realizing her processes, taken
+into her life artificial responsibilities in almost
+exact proportion to the normal ones of any
+woman who makes the choice of marriage
+rather than that of a career. She was doing
+housekeeping on a large scale,&mdash;she had a child
+to care for, and she felt that she had entirely
+disproved any lingering feeling in the mind of
+any one associated with her that she ought to
+marry,&mdash;at least that she ought to marry Dick.</p>
+<p>No woman ought to marry for the sake of
+marrying, but she was growing to understand
+now that the experiences of love and marriage
+might be necessary to the true development of
+a woman like herself; that there might even be
+some tragedy in missing them. She was twenty-five,
+practically alone in the world, and the
+growing passion of her life was for a child
+that she had borrowed, and might be constrained
+to relinquish at any moment.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155' ></a>155</span></div>
+<p>She was tired. The unaccustomed confinement
+of the long hours at the Inn, the strain of
+enduring the thick, almost unalleviated heat of
+an exceptionally humid New York summer, and
+the tension engendered by her various executive
+responsibilities, all told on her physically,
+and her physical condition in its turn reacted
+on her mind, till she was conscious of a
+nostalgia,&mdash;a yearning and a hunger for something
+that she could not understand or name,
+but that was none the less irresistible. She fell
+into strange moods of brooding and lassitude;
+but there were two connections in which her
+spirit and ambition never failed her. She
+never failed of interest in the distribution of
+food values to her unconscious patrons, and incidentally
+to Collier Pratt, or in directing the
+activities and diversions of Sheila.</p>
+<p>She bathed and dressed the child with her
+own hands every morning, combed out the
+cloudy black hair, fine spun and wavy, that
+framed the delicate face, and accentuated the
+dazzling white and pink of her coloring. She
+had bought her a complete new wardrobe&mdash;she
+was spending money freely now on every one
+but herself&mdash;venturing on one dress at a time
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156' ></a>156</span>
+in fear and trepidation lest Collier Pratt should
+suddenly call her to account for her interference
+with his rights as a parent, but he seemed
+entirely oblivious of the fact that Sheila had
+changed her shabby studio black for the most
+cobwebby of muslins and linens, frocks that by
+virtue of their exquisite fineness cost Nancy
+considerably more than her own.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I say to my father, &lsquo;See the pretty new gown
+that Miss Dear bought for me,&rsquo; and my father
+says to me, &lsquo;Comb your hair straight back from
+your brow, and don&rsquo;t let your arms dangle from
+your shoulders.&rsquo;&rdquo; Sheila complained, &ldquo;He sees
+so hard the little things that nobody sees&mdash;and
+big things like a dress or a hat he does not
+notice.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Men are like that,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;Last night
+when I put on my new rose-colored gown for
+the first time, your friend Monsieur Dick told
+me he had always liked that dress best of all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Comme il est dr&ocirc;le</i>, Monsieur Dick,&rdquo; Sheila
+said; &ldquo;he asked me to grow up and marry him
+some day. He said I should sit on a cushion
+and sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries,
+sugar and cream&mdash;like the poetry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what did you say?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157' ></a>157</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I said that I thought I should like to marry
+him if I ever got to be big enough,&mdash;but I was
+afraid I should not be bigger for a long time.
+Miss Betty said she would marry him if I was
+<i>trop petite</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What did Dick say to that?&rdquo; Nancy could
+not forbear asking.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He said she was very kind, and maybe the
+time might come when he would think seriously
+of her offer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was a feeling in Nancy&rsquo;s breast as if
+her heart had suddenly got up and sat down
+again. Betty bore no remotest resemblance to
+the pale kind girl, practically devoid of feminine
+allure, that Nancy had visualized as the
+mate for Dick, and frequently exhorted him to
+go in search of.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Betty was only making a joke,&rdquo; she
+told Sheila sharply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We were all making jokes, Miss Dear,&rdquo;
+Sheila explained.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have never loved any one in the world
+quite so much as I love you, Sheila,&rdquo; Nancy
+cried in sudden passion as the little girl turned
+her face up to be kissed, as she always did when
+the conversation puzzled her.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158' ></a>158</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I like being loved,&rdquo; Sheila said, sighing happily.
+&ldquo;My father loves me,&mdash;when he is not
+painting or eating. He is very good to me, I
+think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your father is a very wise man, Sheila,&rdquo;
+Nancy said, &ldquo;he understands beautiful things
+that other people don&rsquo;t know anything about.
+He looks at a flower and knows all about it, and&mdash;and
+what it needs to make it flourish. He
+looks at people that way, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But he doesn&rsquo;t always have time to get the
+flower what it wants,&rdquo; Sheila said; &ldquo;my jessamine
+died in Paris because he forgot to water
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your father needs taking care of himself,
+Sheila. We must plan ways of trying to make
+him more comfortable. Don&rsquo;t you think of
+something that he needs that we could get for
+him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;More socks&mdash;he would like,&rdquo; Sheila said unexpectedly.
+&ldquo;When his socks get holes in them
+he will not wear them. He stops whatever he
+is doing to mend them, and the mends hurt him.
+He mends my stockings, too, sometimes, but I
+like better the holes especially when he mends
+them on my feet.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159' ></a>159</span></div>
+<p>Sheila could have presented no more appealing
+picture of her father to Nancy&rsquo;s vivid
+imagination. Collier Pratt with the incongruous
+sewing equipment of the unaccustomed
+male, using, more than likely, black darning
+cotton on a white sock&mdash;Nancy&rsquo;s mental pictures
+were always full of the most realistic detail&mdash;bent
+tediously over a child&rsquo;s stocking,
+while the precious sunlight was streaming unheeded
+upon the waiting canvas. She darned
+very badly herself, but the desire was not less
+strong in her to take from him all these preposterous
+and unbefitting tasks, and execute them
+with her own hands. She stared at the child
+fixedly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You buy him some socks out of your allowance,&rdquo;
+she said at last. Then she added an anxious
+and inadequate &ldquo;Oh, dear!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you happy?&rdquo; Sheila asked in unconscious
+imitation of Dick, with whom she had
+been spending most of her time for days, while
+Nancy superintended the additions and improvements
+she was making in the up-stairs
+quarters of her Inn, preparatory to moving in
+for the winter.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m happy,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m sort
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160' ></a>160</span>
+of&mdash;stirred, too. I wish you were my own little
+girl, Sheila. I think I&rsquo;ll take you with me to
+the Inn to-day. You might melt and trickle
+away if I left you alone here with Hitty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Quelle joie!</i> I mean, how nice that will be!
+Then I can talk about Paris to Gaspard, and he
+will give me some baba, with a <i>soup&ccedil;on of maraschine</i> in the sauce, if you will tell him that I
+may, Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll think about it.&rdquo; It was Nancy&rsquo;s dearest
+privilege to be asked and grant permission for
+such indulgences. &ldquo;Put on that floppy white
+hat with the yellow ribbon, and take your white
+coat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When I had only one dress to wear I suppose
+I got just as dirty,&rdquo; Sheila reflected, &ldquo;only
+it didn&rsquo;t show on black satin. Now I can tell
+just how dirty I am by looking. I make lots of
+washing, Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, thank heaven,&rdquo; Nancy said, unaccountably
+tearful of a sudden.</p>
+<p>The first part of the day at the Inn went much
+like other days. Gaspard, eager to retrieve
+the record of the week when Hitty and a Viennese
+pastry cook had divided the honors of preparing
+the daily menus between them&mdash;for
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161' ></a>161</span>
+Nancy had never again attempted the feat&mdash;never
+let a day go by without making a new
+<i>plat de jour</i> or inventing a sauce; was in the
+throes of composing a new casserole, and it was
+a pleasure to watch him deftly sifting and sorting
+his ingredients, his artist&rsquo;s eyes aglow with
+the inward fire of inspiration. Nancy called all
+the waitresses together and offered them certain
+prizes and rewards for all the buttermilk,
+and prunes and other health dishes that they
+were able to distribute among ailing patrons,&mdash;with
+the result they were over assiduous at the
+luncheon hour, and a red-headed young man
+with gold teeth made a disturbance that it took
+both Hilda and Michael, who appeared suddenly
+in his overalls from the upper regions where
+he was constructing window-boxes, to quell.
+But these incidents were not sufficiently significant
+to make the day in any way a memorable
+one to Nancy. It took a telephone message
+from Collier Pratt, requesting, nay demanding,
+her presence in his studio for the first sitting
+on her portrait, to make the day stand out
+upon her calendar.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sheila is with me. Shall I bring her?&rdquo;
+Nancy asked.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162' ></a>162</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said uncompromisingly,
+&ldquo;I am not a parent at this hour. She would
+disturb me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What shall I wear?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What have you got on?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That blue cr&ecirc;pe, made surplice,&mdash;the one
+you liked the other night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I want&mdash;Madonna blue.
+Can you get down here in fifteen minutes?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;ll send Michael up-town with Sheila.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The bare, ramshackle studio on Washington
+Square shocked her,&mdash;it was so comfortless, so
+dingy; but the canvases on the walls, set up
+against the wainscoting, stacked on every
+available chair, gave her a new and almost appalling
+impression of his personality, and the
+peculiar poignant power of him. She could not
+appraise them, or get any real sense of their
+quality apart from the astounding revelation of
+the man behind the work.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re wonderful!&rdquo; she gasped, but
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re wonderful&rdquo; were the words she stifled
+on her lips.</p>
+<p>He painted till the light failed him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s this diffused glow,&mdash;this gentle, faded
+afternoon light that I want,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I want
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163' ></a>163</span>
+you to emerge from your background as if you
+had bloomed out of it that very moment. Oh!
+I&rsquo;ve got you at your hour, you know! The
+prescient maternal&mdash;that&rsquo;s what I want. The
+conscious moment when a woman becomes
+aware that she is potentially a mother. Sheila&rsquo;s
+done that for you. She&rsquo;s brought it out in you.
+It was ready, it was waiting there before, but
+now it&rsquo;s come. It&rsquo;s wonderful!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s&mdash;it&rsquo;s come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It hasn&rsquo;t been done, you know. It&rsquo;s a modern
+conception, of course; but they all do the
+thing realized, or incipient. I want to do it
+<i>implicit</i>&mdash;that&rsquo;s what I want. I might have
+searched the whole world over and not found
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, here I am,&rdquo; said Nancy faintly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, here you are,&rdquo; Collier Pratt responded
+out of the fervor of his artist&rsquo;s absorption.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s rather a personal matter to me,&rdquo; Nancy
+ventured some seconds later.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt turned from the canvas he was
+contemplating, and looked at her, still posed as
+he had placed her, upright, yet relaxed in the
+scooped chair that held her without constraining
+her.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164' ></a>164</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Like a flower in a vase,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;to me
+you&rsquo;re a wonderful creature.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you like me,&rdquo; Nancy said, quivering
+a little. &ldquo;This is a rather uncommon experience
+to me, you know, being looked at so
+impersonally. Now please don&rsquo;t say that I&rsquo;m
+being American.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, good God! I don&rsquo;t look at you impersonally.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; Nancy meant her voice to be
+light, and she was appalled to hear the quaver
+in it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo; He glanced toward a
+dun-colored curtain evidently concealing shelves
+and dishes. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s have some tea.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stay for tea.&rdquo; Nancy felt her lips
+begin to quiver childishly, but she could not
+control their trembling. &ldquo;Oh! I had better go,&rdquo;
+she said.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt took one step toward her. Then
+he turned toward the canvas. Nancy read his
+mind like a flash.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re afraid you&rsquo;ll disturb the&mdash;what you
+want to paint,&rdquo; she said accusingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am.&rdquo;  He smiled his sweet slow smile, then
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165' ></a>165</span>
+he took her stiff interlaced hands and raised
+them, still locked together, to his lips where
+he kissed them gently, one after the other.
+&ldquo;Will you forgive me?&rdquo; he asked, and pushed
+her gently outside of his studio door.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166' ></a>166</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XI_BILLY_AND_CAROLINE'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Billy and Caroline</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>It was one night in middle October when Billy
+and Caroline met by accident on Thirty-fourth
+Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
+Caroline stood looking into a drug-store
+window where an automatic mannikin was
+shaving himself with a patent safety razor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a wax feller going to bed in an automatic
+folding settee, a little farther down the
+street,&rdquo; Billy offered gravely at her elbow; &ldquo;and
+on Forty-second Street there is a real live duck
+pond advertising the advantages of electric
+heaters in the home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;H&rsquo;lo,&rdquo; said Caroline, who was colloquial
+only in moments of real pleasure or excitement.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just written to you. I asked you to come
+and see me to-morrow evening,&rdquo; she added more
+seriously, &ldquo;to talk about something that&rsquo;s
+weighing on my mind.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going out with a blonde to-morrow,
+night,&rdquo; Billy said speciously, &ldquo;but what&rsquo;s the
+matter with to-night? I&rsquo;m free until six-fifty
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167' ></a>167</span>
+A. M. and I could spare an hour or two between
+then and breakfast time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t to-night,&rdquo; Caroline said, &ldquo;I promised
+Nancy to dine at the Inn.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That wasn&rsquo;t your line at all,&rdquo; Billy groaned.
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the blonde?&mdash;that was your cue. If
+it&rsquo;s only Nancy you&rsquo;re dining with&mdash;that can be
+fixed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I regard an engagement with Nancy as just
+as sacred as&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So do I,&rdquo; Billy cut in. &ldquo;She is the blonde.
+Well, let to-morrow night be as it may; let&rsquo;s
+you and I call up the Nancy girl now and tell
+her that we&rsquo;re going batting together; she
+won&rsquo;t care.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like doing that,&rdquo; Caroline said; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s
+a nice night for a bat, though.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I walked down Murray Hill and saw the sun
+set in a nice pinky gold setting,&rdquo; Billy said artfully.
+Caroline liked to have him get an artistic
+perspective on New York. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s walk down
+the avenue to the Caf&eacute; des Artistes and have
+Eminc&eacute; Bernard, and a long wide high, tall
+drink of&mdash;ginger ale,&rdquo; he finished lamely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;d have to telephone Nancy,&rdquo; Caroline
+hesitated.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168' ></a>168</span></div>
+<p>Billy took her by the arm and guided her
+into the interior of the drug-store to the side
+aisle where the telephones were, and stepped
+into the first empty booth that offered. Caroline
+stopped him firmly as he was about to shut
+himself inside.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather hear what you say,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>Billy slipped his nickel in the slot and took up
+the receiver.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Madison Square 3403 doesn&rsquo;t answer,&rdquo; Central
+informed him crisply after an interval.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! Nancy, dear,&rdquo; Billy replied softly into
+her astonished ear. &ldquo;Caroline and I are going
+off by ourselves to-night, you don&rsquo;t care, do
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ringing thr-r-ree-four-o-thr-r-ee, Madison
+Square.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s nice of you,&rdquo; Billy responded heartily.
+&ldquo;I thought you&rsquo;d say that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Madison Square thr-r-ree-four-o-t-h-r-r-ree
+doesn&rsquo;t answer. Hang up your receiver and I&rsquo;ll
+call you if I get the party.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I will. You&rsquo;re always so tactful
+in the way you put things, always so generous
+and kind and thoughtful. I can&rsquo;t tell you how
+much I appreciate it.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169' ></a>169</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;What did Nancy say?&rdquo; Caroline asked, as
+they turned away from the booth.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You heard my end of the conversation,&rdquo;
+Billy said blandly. &ldquo;You can deduce hers
+from it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There was something about your end of the
+conversation that sounded queer to me somehow.
+It was odd that Central should have returned
+your nickel to you after you had talked
+so long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, wasn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; Billy asked innocently.
+&ldquo;Well, I suppose mistakes will happen in the
+best regulated telephone companies.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I like you,&rdquo; Billy said contentedly, as the
+lights of the avenue strung themselves out before them.
+&ldquo;I like walking down this royal
+thoroughfare with you. You&rsquo;re a kind of a neutral
+girl, but I like you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a kind of ridiculous boy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you like me a little bit?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, a little.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What did you get engaged to me for if you
+only like me a little?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ought not to be engaged to you. That&rsquo;s one
+of the things I want to talk to you about.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you are engaged to me, and that&rsquo;s one
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170' ></a>170</span>
+of the things I don&rsquo;t care to discuss&mdash;even with
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! Billy,&rdquo; Caroline sighed, &ldquo;why can&rsquo;t we
+be just good friends and see a good deal of each
+other without this perpetual argument about
+getting married?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why we can&rsquo;t, but we can&rsquo;t,&rdquo;
+Billy said firmly. &ldquo;What was the other thing
+you wanted to talk to me about?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s affairs. The reckless&mdash;the criminal
+way she is running that restaurant, and the
+unthinkable expenditure of money involved. I
+can&rsquo;t sleep at night thinking of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And I thought this was going to be a pleasant
+evening,&rdquo; Billy cried to the stars.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish you&rsquo;d be serious about this,&rdquo; Caroline
+said. &ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s the best friend I have in
+the world, and she doesn&rsquo;t seem to be quite right
+in her mind, Billy. Of course, I approve of a
+good part of her scheme. I believe that she
+can be of incalculable value as a pioneer in an
+enterprise of this sort. Her restaurant is
+based on a strictly scientific theory, and every
+person who patronizes it gets a balanced ration,
+if he has the good sense to eat it as it&rsquo;s served.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171' ></a>171</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;And not leave any protein on his plate,&rdquo;
+Billy murmured.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t even mind the slight extra expenditure
+and the deficit that is bound to follow
+her theory of stuffing all her subnormal
+patrons with additional nourishment. That is
+charity. I believe in devoting a certain amount
+of one&rsquo;s income to charity, but what I mind
+about the whole proceeding is the crazy way
+that Nancy is running it. She&rsquo;s not even trying
+to break even. She orders all the delicacies
+of the season&mdash;no matter what they are. She&rsquo;s
+paid an incredible amount for the new set of
+carved chairs she has bought for up-stairs.
+You&rsquo;d think she had an unlimited fortune behind
+her, instead of being in a position where
+the sheriff may walk in upon her any day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Handy men to have around the house,&mdash;sheriffs.
+I knew a deputy sheriff once that
+helped the lady of the house do a baby wash
+while he was standing around in charge of the
+place. All the servants had deserted, and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You pretend to be Nancy&rsquo;s friend, and
+you&rsquo;re the only thing remotely approaching a
+lawyer that she has, and yet you can shake with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172' ></a>172</span>
+joy at the thought of her going into bankruptcy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That isn&rsquo;t what I&rsquo;m shaking with joy
+about.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy must have spent at least twice the
+amount of her original investment.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Just about,&rdquo; Billy agreed cheerfully.</p>
+<p>Caroline turned large reproachful eyes on
+him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy, how can you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Listen to me, Caroline, honey love, it will
+be all right. Nancy isn&rsquo;t so crazy as she seems.
+She is running wild a little, I admit, but there&rsquo;s
+no danger of the sheriff or any other disaster.
+She knows what she&rsquo;s doing, and she&rsquo;s playing
+safe, though I admit it&rsquo;s an extraordinary
+game.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s unhappy,&rdquo; Caroline said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t
+suppose she&rsquo;s going to marry Dick to get out of
+the scrape, and that she&rsquo;s suffering because
+she&rsquo;s had to make that compromise.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Billy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t imagine anything more dreadful
+than to give up your career&mdash;your independence
+because you were beaten before you could demonstrate
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173' ></a>173</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go right in here,&rdquo; Billy said, guiding
+her by the arm through the door of the grill of
+the Caf&eacute; des Artistes which she was ignoring
+in her absorption.</p>
+<p>It was early but the place was already
+crowded with the assortment of upper cut Bohemians,
+Frenchmen, and other discriminating
+diners to whom the caf&eacute; owed its vogue. Billy
+and Caroline found a snowy table by the window,
+a table so small that it scarcely seemed to
+separate them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s Dick that Nancy&rsquo;s depending on,&rdquo;
+Caroline shook out her mammoth napkin vigorously,
+&ldquo;then I think the whole situation is
+dreadful.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why,&rdquo; Billy argued; &ldquo;have him to
+fall back on&mdash;that&rsquo;s what men are for.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your opinion of women, Billy Boynton, just
+about tallies with the most conservative estimate
+of the Middle Ages.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Charmed, I&rsquo;m sure,&rdquo; he grinned, then his
+evil genius prompting, he continued. &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t
+that just about what you have me for&mdash;to fall
+back on? You&rsquo;re fond of me. You know I&rsquo;ll
+be there if the bottom drops out. You&rsquo;re sure
+of me, and you&rsquo;re holding me in reserve against
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174' ></a>174</span>
+the time when you feel like concentrating your
+attention on me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is that what you think?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure, it&rsquo;s the way it is. If I haven&rsquo;t got any
+kick coming I don&rsquo;t see why you should have
+any. You&rsquo;re worth it to me. That&rsquo;s the point.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Caroline opened her lips to speak, and then
+thought better of it. The dangerous glint in
+her pellucid hazel eyes was lost on Billy. He
+was watching the clear cool curve of her cheek,
+the smooth brown hair brushed up from the
+temple, and tucked away under the smart folds
+of a premature velvet turban.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I like those mouse-colored clothes of yours,&rdquo;
+he said contentedly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think the only reason a woman should
+marry a man is that she&mdash;she&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Likes him?&rdquo; Billy suggested.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, that she can be of more use in the
+world married than single. She can&rsquo;t be that
+unless she&rsquo;s going to marry a man who is entirely
+in sympathy with her point of view.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That I know to be unsound,&rdquo; Billy said.
+&ldquo;Caroline, my love, this is a bat. Can&rsquo;t we let
+these matters of the mind rest for a little? See,
+I&rsquo;ve ordered <i>Petite Marmite</i>, and afterward an
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175' ></a>175</span>
+artichoke, and all the nice fattening things that
+Nancy won&rsquo;t let me eat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish you&rsquo;d tell me about Nancy,&rdquo; Caroline
+said. &ldquo;It makes a lot of difference. You
+haven&rsquo;t any idea how much difference it
+makes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;See the nice little brown pots with the soup
+in them,&rdquo; Billy implored her. &ldquo;Cheese, too, all
+grated up so fine and white. Sprinkle it in like
+little snow-flakes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But in spite of all Billy&rsquo;s efforts the evening
+went wrong after that. Caroline was wrapped
+in a mantle of sorrowful meditation the opacity
+of which she was not willing to let Billy penetrate
+for a moment. After they had dined they
+took a taxi-cab up-town and danced for an hour
+on the smooth floor of one of the quieter hotels.
+Billy&rsquo;s dancing being of that light, sure, rhythmic
+quality that should have installed him irrevocably
+in the regard of any girl who had
+ever danced with a man who performed less
+admirably. Caroline liked to dance and fell in
+step with an unexpected docility, but even in
+his arms, dipping, pivoting, swaying to the curious
+syncopation of modern dance time, she
+was as remote and cool as a snow maiden.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176' ></a>176</span></div>
+<p>At the table on the edge of the dancing platform
+where they sat between dances, Billy
+pledged her in nineteen-four <i>Chablis Mouton</i>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is what you look like,&rdquo; he said, holding
+up his glass to the light, &ldquo;or perhaps I ought to
+say what you act like,&mdash;clear, cold stuff,&mdash;lovely,
+but not very sweet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s Dick,&rdquo;&mdash;Caroline refused to be diverted&mdash;&ldquo;Nancy
+is merely taking the easiest
+way out. Just getting married because she
+hasn&rsquo;t the courage to go through any other
+way. She and Dick have hardly a taste in common&mdash;they
+don&rsquo;t even read the same books.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What difference does that make?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t know I can&rsquo;t tell you. When
+you see somebody else in danger of following
+the same course of action that you, yourself,
+are pursuing,&rdquo; she added cryptically, &ldquo;it puts
+a new face on your own affairs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! let&rsquo;s get out of here,&rdquo; Billy said, signaling
+for his check.</p>
+<p>Caroline lived, for the summer while her
+family were away, in an elaborate Madison Avenue
+boarding-house. The one big room into
+which the entrance gave, dim and palatial in
+effect&mdash;at least in the light of the single gas-jet
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177' ></a>177</span>
+turned economically low&mdash;seemed scarcely to
+present a departure from its prototype, the
+great living hall of the private residence for
+which the house was originally designed. It was
+only on the second floor that the character of the
+establishment became unmistakable. Billy took
+Caroline&rsquo;s latchkey from her,&mdash;she usually
+opened the door for herself&mdash;and let her quietly
+into the dim interior. Then he stepped inside
+himself, and closed the door gently after him.
+Being a man he entirely failed to note the drift
+of psychological straws that indicated the sudden
+sharp turn of the wind, and the presage
+of storm in the air. He was thinking only of
+the illusive, desirable, maddening quality of the
+girl that walked beside him, filled with inexplicable
+forebodings for a friend, whom he knew
+to be invulnerable to misfortune. Certain
+phrases of Dick&rsquo;s were ringing in his ears to
+the exclusion of all more immediate conversational
+fragments.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Cave-man stuff&mdash;that&rsquo;s the answer to you
+and Caroline.... This watchful waiting&rsquo;s
+entirely the wrong idea....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy made a great lunge toward the figure
+of his fianc&eacute;e, and caught her in his arms.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178' ></a>178</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never really kissed you before,&rdquo; he
+cried, &ldquo;now I shan&rsquo;t let you go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She struggled in his arms, but he mastered
+her. He covered her cool brow with kisses, her
+hands, the lovely curve of her neck where the
+smooth hair turned upward, and at last&mdash;her
+lips.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re mine, my girl,&rdquo; he exulted, &ldquo;and
+nothing, nothing, nothing shall ever take you
+away from me now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was a click in the latch of the door
+through which they had just entered. Another
+belated boarder was making his way into the
+domicile which he had chosen as a substitute
+for the sacred privacy of home. Caroline tore
+herself out of Billy&rsquo;s arms just in time to exchange
+greetings with the incoming guest with
+some pretense of composure. He was a fat man
+with an umbrella which clattered against the
+balusters as he ascended the carved staircase.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Caught with the goods,&rdquo; Billy tried to say
+through lips stiffened in an effort at control.</p>
+<p>Caroline turned on him, her face blazing with
+anger, the transfiguring white rage of the
+woman whose spiritual fastnesses have been
+invaded through the approach of the flesh.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179' ></a>179</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;There is no way of my ever forgiving you,&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;No way of my ever tolerating you,
+or anything you stand for again. You are utterly&mdash;utterly&mdash;utterly
+detestable in my eyes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is&mdash;is that so?&rdquo; Billy stammered, dizzied by
+the suddenness of the onslaught.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got some decent hold on my pride
+and self-respect&mdash;even if Nancy hasn&rsquo;t, and I&rsquo;m
+not going to be subjugated like a cave woman
+by mere brute force either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; said Billy weakly, his mind in
+a whirl still from the lightning-like overthrow
+of all his theories of action.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to do what Nancy is going to
+do, just out of sheer temperamental weakness,
+and&mdash;and tendency to follow the line of least
+resistance.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy had no idea of the significance of her
+last phrase, and let it go unheeded. Caroline
+turned and walked away from him, her head
+high.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, good lord, Nancy isn&rsquo;t going to do it,&rdquo;
+he called after her retreating figure, but all the
+answer he got was the silken swish of her petticoat
+as she took the stairs.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180' ></a>180</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XII_MORE_CAVEMAN_STUFF'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>More Cave-Man Stuff</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>When Nancy left Collier Pratt&rsquo;s studio
+on the day of her first sitting for the
+portrait he was to do of her, she never expected
+to enter it again. She was in a panic of hurt
+pride and anger at his handling of the situation
+that had developed there, and in a passion of
+self-disgust that she had been responsible for it.</p>
+<p>It was a simple fact of her experience that
+the men she knew valued her favors, and exerted
+themselves to win them. She had always
+had plenty of suitors, or at least admirers who
+lacked only a few smiles of encouragement to
+make suitors of them, and she was accustomed
+to the consideration of the desirable woman,
+whose privilege it is to guide the conversation
+into personal channels, or gently deflect it
+therefrom. An encounter in which she could
+not find her poise was as new as it was bewildering
+to her.</p>
+<p>From the moment that she had begun to
+realize Collier Pratt&rsquo;s admiration for her she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181' ></a>181</span>
+had scarcely given a thought to any other man.
+With the insight of the artist he had seen
+straight into the heart of Nancy&rsquo;s secret&mdash;the
+secret that she scarcely knew herself until he
+translated it for her, the most obvious secret
+that a prescient universe ever throbbed with,&mdash;that
+a woman is not fulfilled until she is a mate
+and a mother. The nebulous urge of her spirit
+had been formulated. In Nancy&rsquo;s world there
+was no abstract sentimentality&mdash;if this man indulged
+himself in emotional regret for her frustrated
+womanhood&mdash;she called it that to herself&mdash;it
+must in some way concern him. She had
+never in her life been troubled by a condition
+that she was not eager to ameliorate, and she
+could not conceive of an emotional interest in
+an individual disassociated from a certain responsibility
+for that individual&rsquo;s welfare. She
+took Collier Pratt&rsquo;s growing tenderness for her
+for granted, and dreamed exultant dreams of
+their romantic association.</p>
+<p>The scene in the studio had shocked her only
+because he put his art first. He had taken a
+lover&rsquo;s step toward her, and then glancing at
+the crudely splotched canvas from which his
+ideal of her was presently to emerge, he had
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182' ></a>182</span>
+thought better of it, soothing her with caresses
+as if she were a child, and like a child dismissing
+her. She felt that she never wanted to see
+again the man who could so confuse and humiliate
+her. But this mood did not last. As
+the days went on, and she feverishly recapitulated
+the circumstances of the episode, she began
+to feel that it was she who had failed to respond
+to the beautiful opportunity of that hour.
+She had inspired the soul of an artist with a
+great concept of womanhood, and had, in effect,
+demanded an immediate personal tribute from
+him. He had been wise to deflect the emotion
+that had sprung up within them both. After
+the picture was done&mdash;. She became eager to
+show him that she understood and wanted to
+help him conserve the impression of her from
+which his inspiration had come, and when he
+asked her to go to the studio again the following
+week she rejoiced that she had another chance
+to prove to him how simply she could behave in
+the matter.</p>
+<p>She looked in the mirror gravely every night
+after she had done her hair in the prescribed
+pig-tails to try to determine whether or not the
+look he had discovered in her face was still
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183' ></a>183</span>
+there,&mdash;the look of implicit maternity that she
+had been fortunate enough to reflect and symbolize
+for him,&mdash;but she was unable to come to
+any decision about it. Her face looked to her
+much as it had always looked&mdash;except that her
+brow and temples seemed to have become more
+transparent and the blue veins there seemed to
+be outlined with an even bluer brush than usual.</p>
+<p>She was busier than she had ever been in her
+life. The volume of her business was swelling.
+With the return of the native to the city of his
+adoption&mdash;there is no native New Yorker in the
+strict sense of the word&mdash;Outside Inn was besieged
+by clamorous patrons. Gaspard, with the
+adaptability of his race, had evolved what was
+practically a perfect system of presenting the
+balanced ration to an unconscious populace, and
+the populace was responding warmly to his
+treatment. It had taken him a little time to
+gauge the situation exactly, to adapt the supply
+to the idiosyncrasies of the composite demand,
+but once he had mastered his problem he dealt
+with it inspiredly. His southern inheritance
+made it possible for him to apprehend if he
+could not actually comprehend the taste of a
+people who did not want the flavor of nutmeg
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184' ></a>184</span>
+in their cauliflower, and who preferred cocoanut
+in their custard pie, and he realized that
+their education required all the diplomacy and
+skill at his command.</p>
+<p>Nancy found him unexpectedly intelligent
+about the use of her tables. He grasped the essential
+fact that the values of food changed in
+the process of cooking, and that it was necessary
+to Nancy&rsquo;s peace of mind to calculate the
+amount of water absorbed in preparing certain
+vegetables, and that the amount of butter and
+cream introduced in their preparation was an
+important factor in her analysis. He also
+nodded his head with evident appreciation when
+she discoursed to him of the optimum amount
+of protein as opposed to the actual requirements
+in calories of the average man, but she never
+quite knew whether the matter interested him,
+or his native politeness constrained him to listen
+to her smilingly as long as she might choose
+to claim his attention. But the fact remained
+that there was no such cooking in any restaurant
+in New York of high or low degree, as that
+which Gaspard provided, and as time went on,
+and he realized that expense was not a factor
+in Nancy&rsquo;s conception of a successfully conducted
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185' ></a>185</span>
+restaurant, the reputation of Outside
+Inn increased by leaps and bounds.</p>
+<p>To Nancy&rsquo;s friends&mdash;with the exception, of
+course, of Billy, who was in her confidence&mdash;the
+whole business became more and more puzzling.
+Caroline, her susceptibility to vicarious distress
+being augmented by the sensitiveness of her
+own emotional state, yearned and prayed over
+her alternately. Betty, avid of excitement,
+spent her days in the pleasurable anticipation
+of a dramatic bankruptcy. It was on Dick,
+however, that the actual strain came. He saw
+Nancy growing paler and more ethereal each
+day, on her feet from morning till night manipulating
+the affairs of an enterprise that seemed
+to be assuming more preposterous proportions
+every hour of its existence. He made surreptitious
+estimates of expenditures and suffered
+accordingly, approximating the economic unsoundness
+of the Inn by a very close figure, and
+still Nancy kept him at arm&rsquo;s length and flouted
+all his suggestions for easing, what seemed to
+him now, her desperate situation.</p>
+<p>He managed to pick her up in his car one day
+with Sheila, and persuaded her to a couple of
+hours in the open. She was on her way home
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186' ></a>186</span>
+from the Inn, and had meant to spend that time
+resting and dressing before she went back to
+consult with Gaspard concerning the night meal.
+She had no complaint to make now of the usurpation
+of her authority or the lack of actual
+executive service that was required of her.
+With the increase in the amount of business
+that the Inn was carrying she found that every
+particle of her energy was necessary to get
+through the work of the day.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m worried about you,&rdquo; Dick said, as they
+took the long ribbon of road that unfurled in
+the direction of Yonkers, and Nancy removed
+her hat to let the breeze cool her distracted
+brow. His man Williams, was driving.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, don&rsquo;t tell me so,&rdquo; she answered a trifle
+ungraciously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Dear is cross to-day,&rdquo; Sheila explained.
+&ldquo;The milk did not come for Gaspard to make
+the poor people&rsquo;s custard, <i>cr&ecirc;me renvers&eacute;</i>, he
+makes&mdash;deliciously good, and we give it to the
+clerking girls.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The buttermilk cultures were bad,&rdquo; Nancy
+said. &ldquo;And I wasn&rsquo;t able to get any of the preparations
+of it, that I can trust. There are one
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187' ></a>187</span>
+or two people that ought to have it every day
+and their complexions show it if they don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose so,&rdquo; Dick said, with a grimace.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These people who have worked in New York
+all summer have run pretty close to their margin
+of energy. You&rsquo;ve no idea what a difference
+a few calories make to them, or how
+closely I have to watch them, and when I have
+to substitute an article of diet for the thing
+they&rsquo;ve been used to, it&rsquo;s awfully hard to get
+them to take it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should think it might be,&rdquo; Dick said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+true about people who have worked in New
+York all summer, though. I have&mdash;and you
+have.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;m all right,&rdquo; Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So am I,&rdquo; Sheila said, &ldquo;and so is Monsieur
+Dick, <i>n&rsquo;est-ce pas</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Vraiment, Mademoiselle.&rdquo;</i></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Father isn&rsquo;t very right, though. Even when
+Miss Dear has all the beautiful things in the
+most beautiful colors in the world cooked for
+him and sent to him, he won&rsquo;t eat them unless
+she comes and sits beside him and begs him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s very fond of <i>sauce verte</i>,&rdquo; Nancy said
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188' ></a>188</span>
+hastily, &ldquo;and <i>apricot mousse</i> and <i>c&egrave;pes et pimentos</i>,
+things that Gaspard can&rsquo;t make for the
+regular menu,&mdash;bright colored things that
+Sheila loves to look at.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He likes <i>petit pois avec laitue</i> too and <i>haricot
+coup&eacute;</i>, and <i>artichaut mousselaine</i>. Sometimes
+when he does not want them Miss Dear
+eats them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad they are diverted to some good
+use,&rdquo; Dick said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been looking into the living conditions
+of my waitresses.&rdquo; Nancy changed the subject
+hastily. &ldquo;Did you realize, Dick, that the
+waitresses have about the unfairest deal of any
+of the day laborers? They&rsquo;re not organized,
+you know. Their hours are interminable, the
+work intolerably hard, and the compensation
+entirely inadequate. Moreover, they don&rsquo;t last
+out for any length of time. I&rsquo;m trying out a
+new scheme of very short shifts. Also, I&rsquo;m
+having a certain sum of money paid over to
+them every month from my bank. If they don&rsquo;t
+know where it comes from it can&rsquo;t do them any
+harm. That is, I am not establishing a precedent
+for wages that they won&rsquo;t be able to earn
+elsewhere. I consider it immoral to do that.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189' ></a>189</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;You are paying them an additional sum of
+money out of your own pocket? You told me
+you paid them the maximum wage, anyhow, and
+they get lots of tips.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! but that&rsquo;s not nearly enough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy,&rdquo; Dick said dramatically, &ldquo;where do
+you get the money?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;it comes
+along. The restaurant makes some.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very little.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I could make it pay any time that I wanted
+to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes I wonder if you are in full possession
+of your senses.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Caroline is affected that way, too. I feel
+that she is likely to get an alienist in at any
+time. She is so earnest in anything she undertakes.
+She and Billy have had a scrap, did you
+know it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy wants to marry her, and he has
+shocked her delicate feelings by suggesting it
+to her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I imagine you have a good deal to do with
+her feelings on the subject,&rdquo; Dick said gloomily.
+&ldquo;I suppose at heart you don&rsquo;t believe in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190' ></a>190</span>
+marriage, or think you don&rsquo;t and you&rsquo;ve communicated
+the poison to Caroline.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done nothing of the kind,&rdquo; Nancy insisted
+warmly. &ldquo;I do believe in marriage with
+all my heart. I think the greatest service any
+woman can render her kind in this mix-up
+age is to marry one man and make that marriage
+work by taking proper scientific care of
+him and his children.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is news to me,&rdquo; Dick said. &ldquo;I thought
+that <i>you</i> thought that the greatest service a
+woman could do was to run Outside Inn, and
+stuff all the derelicts with calories.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a service, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They were out beyond the stately decay of the
+up-town drive, with its crumbling mansions and
+the disheveled lawns surrounding them, beyond
+the view of the most picturesque river in the
+world, though, comparatively speaking, the
+least regarded, covering the prosaic stretch of
+dusty road between Van Courtland Park and
+the town of Yonkers.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I like the <i>Bois</i> better,&rdquo; Sheila said, &ldquo;but I
+like Central Park better than the <i>Champs Elyse&eacute;s</i>.
+In Paris the children are not so gay as
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191' ></a>191</span>
+the grown-up people. Here it is the grown-up
+people who are without smiles on the streets.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why is that, Dick?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s always true of the maturer races, the
+gaiety of the French is appreciative enthusiasm,&mdash;if
+I may invent a phrase. The children
+haven&rsquo;t developed it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I would like to have my hand held, Monsieur
+Dick,&rdquo; Sheila announced. &ldquo;I always feel
+homesick when I think about Paris. I was so
+contente and so <i>malheureuse</i> there.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why were you unhappy, sweetest?&rdquo; Nancy
+asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My father says I am never to speak of those
+things, and so I don&rsquo;t&mdash;even to Miss Dear, my
+<i>bien aim&eacute;e</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick lifted Sheila into his lap, he took the
+hand that still clung to Nancy&rsquo;s in his warm
+palm, and held them both there caressingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My <i>bien aim&eacute;e</i>,&rdquo; he said softly.</p>
+<p>Beyond the town a more gracious and magnificent
+country revealed itself; lovely homes
+set high on sweeping terraces, private parks
+and gardens and luxuriant estates, all in a blaze
+of October radiance with the glorious pigments
+of the season.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192' ></a>192</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it time to go back?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; Dick said. &ldquo;I want to show you
+something. There&rsquo;s an old place here I want
+you to see. That colonial house set way back
+in the trees there.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Williams is driving in,&rdquo; Nancy said as they
+approached it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been here before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are we going to get out?&rdquo; Sheila asked.</p>
+<p>Dick was already opening the door of the
+tonneau and assisting Nancy out of the car.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to leave Sheila with Williams, and
+take you over the house, Nancy. She&rsquo;ll be more
+interested in the grounds than she would in the
+interior. I want you to see the inside.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He took a key out of his pocket, and unlocked
+the stately door. Everything about the place
+was gigantic, stately,&mdash;the huge columns that
+supported the roof of the porch, the big elms
+that flanked it, and the great entrance hall, as
+they stepped into its majestic enclosure.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a biggish sort of place, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; Nancy
+said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s rather lovely, don&rsquo;t you think so?&rdquo;
+Dick asked anxiously. &ldquo;These old places are
+getting increasingly hard to find,&mdash;real old
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193' ></a>193</span>
+homes, dignified and beautiful, within a reasonable
+distance from town.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is lovely,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;it could be made
+perfectly wonderful to live in. I can see this
+big hall&mdash;furnished in mahogany or even
+carved oak that was old enough. Thank heaven,
+we&rsquo;re no longer slaves to a <i>period</i> in our decorating;
+we can use anything that&rsquo;s beautiful
+and suitable and not intrinsically incongruous
+with a clear conscience.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come up-stairs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy lingered on the landing of the fine old
+staircase, white banistered with a mahogany
+hand-rail, that turned only once before it led
+into the region up-stairs.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather see the kitchen,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The kitchen isn&rsquo;t the thing that I&rsquo;m proudest
+of. Its plumbing is early English, or Scottish,
+I&rsquo;m afraid. I think this arrangement up
+here is delightful. See these front suites, one
+on either side of the hall. Bedroom, dressing-room,
+sitting-room. Which do you like best? I
+thought perhaps I might take the one that overlooks
+the orchard.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy stopped still on her way from window
+to window.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194' ></a>194</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Dick Thorndyke, whose house <i>is</i> this?&rdquo; she
+demanded.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yours&mdash;have you bought it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I put the deed in my safe deposit vault
+yesterday. Come in here. Isn&rsquo;t this a cunning
+little guest chamber nested in the trees? Be
+becoming to Betty&rsquo;s style of beauty, wouldn&rsquo;t
+it?&rdquo; He held the door open for her ingratiatingly,
+and she passed under his arm perfunctorily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What on earth did you buy a house like
+this for?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought you might like it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;what have I to do with it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick turned the rusty key in the lock deliberately,
+and put it in his pocket, thus closing
+them into the little musty room which had no
+other exit. A branch of flaming maple leaves
+tapped lightly on the window.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve a whole lot to do with it, Nancy,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s yours, and I&rsquo;m yours, and I want to
+know how much longer you&rsquo;re going to hedge.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not hedging,&rdquo; Nancy blazed. &ldquo;Take that
+key out of your pocket. This is moving-picture
+stuff.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195' ></a>195</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I know it is. I can&rsquo;t get you to talk to me
+any other way, so I thought I&rsquo;d try main force
+for a change.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it is a change,&rdquo; she agreed. &ldquo;Shall I
+begin to scream now, or do you intend to give
+me some other provocation?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be coarse, darling.&rdquo; There is a certain
+disadvantage in having known the woman
+who is the object of your tenderest emotions all
+your life, and to be on terms of the most familiar
+badinage with her. Dick was feeling this
+disadvantage acutely at the moment. He took
+a step toward her, and put a heavy hand on her
+shoulder. &ldquo;Nancy, don&rsquo;t you love me?&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;don&rsquo;t you really?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Nancy said deliberately, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t, and
+you know very well I don&rsquo;t. Unlock that door,
+and let&rsquo;s be sensible.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you know, dear, or care that you&rsquo;re
+hurting me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;You say so, and I
+hear you, but I don&rsquo;t really believe it. If I
+did&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you did&mdash;what?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;d be sorrier.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t sorry at all, as it stands.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196' ></a>196</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I find it&rsquo;s awfully hard to be sorry for you,
+Dick, in any connection. There&rsquo;s really nothing
+pathetic about you, no matter how tragic you
+think you are being. You&rsquo;re rich and lucky and
+healthy. You have everything you want&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not everything.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you live the way you want to, and eat
+the food you want to&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The ruling passion.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And make the jokes you want to.&rdquo; Nancy
+literally stuck up a saucy nose at him. &ldquo;There
+is really nothing that I could contribute to your
+happiness. I mean nothing important. You
+are not a poor man whom I could help to work
+his way up to the top, or a genius that needs
+fostering, or a&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dyspeptic that needs putting on a special
+diet,&mdash;but for all that I do need a mother&rsquo;s love,
+Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe you do,&rdquo; Nancy said, a trifle
+absently. &ldquo;Unlock the door, Dick. I don&rsquo;t think
+Sheila put on that sweater when I told her to,
+and I&rsquo;m afraid she&rsquo;ll get cold.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Kiss me, Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Will you unlock the door if I do?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&rsquo;um.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197' ></a>197</span></div>
+<p>Nancy put up cool fragrant lips to meet a
+brother&rsquo;s kiss, and for the moment was threatened
+with a second salute that was very much
+less fraternal, but the danger passed. Dick unlocked
+the door and let her pass him without
+protest.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you had been any other girl,&rdquo; he mused,
+as they went down the stairs together companionably,
+&ldquo;you wouldn&rsquo;t have got away with
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With what?&rdquo; Nancy asked innocently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t tell
+you. If you&rsquo;d been any other girl I should have
+thrown that key out of the window when you
+began to sass me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And then?&rdquo; Nancy inquired politely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And then,&rdquo; Dick replied finally and firmly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are there any other girls?&rdquo; Nancy asked,
+faintly curious, as they stood on the deep steps
+of the porch waiting for Sheila and Williams
+who were emerging from the middle entrance.</p>
+<p>Dick met her glance a little solemnly, and
+hesitated for a perceptible instant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are there, Dick?&rdquo; she insisted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, dear,&rdquo; he said.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198' ></a>198</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XIII_THE_HAPPIEST_DAY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>The Happiest Day</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>It was thoroughly characteristic of Nancy to
+turn her back on the most significant facts
+of her experience, and occupy herself exclusively
+with its by-products. She refused to
+consider herself as an heiress entitled to spend
+money lavishly for her own uses, but she squandered
+it on her pet enterprise. She dismissed
+the idea that Dick, whom she neglected to discourage
+as decisively as her growing interest in
+another man would seem to warrant, had
+bought a country estate for the sole purpose of
+ensconcing her there as mistress. She dreamed
+of Collier Pratt and his ideal of her, and presented
+herself punctually at his studio as a
+model for that ideal, while ignoring absolutely
+the fact that he was nearly a hundred dollars
+in debt to her for meals served at Outside Inn.
+She had sufficient logic and common sense to
+apply to these matters, and sufficient imagination
+to handle them sympathetically, had she
+chosen to consider them at all, but she did not
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199' ></a>199</span>
+choose. She was deep in the adventure of her
+existence as differentiated from its practical
+working out.</p>
+<p>The day Collier Pratt finished his portrait of
+her she was not alone in the studio with him.
+Sheila, in a fluffy white dress with a floppy
+black satin hat framing her poignant little face,
+was omnipresent at the interview which succeeded
+the actual two hours of absorption when
+he put in the last telling strokes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s done,&rdquo; he said, as he set aside pigments
+and brushes, and divested himself of his painting
+apron. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to look at it now. I&rsquo;ve
+got it, but I can&rsquo;t stand the strain of contemplating
+it till my brain cools a trifle. Let&rsquo;s go
+out and celebrate.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where shall we go?&rdquo; Nancy said. This was
+the moment she had dreamed of for weeks, the
+hour of fruition when the work was done, and
+they could face each other, man and woman
+again with no strip of canvas between them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The place I always go when I&rsquo;ve finished a
+picture is a little caf&eacute; under the shadow of
+<i>Notre Dame</i>, where I get cakes and beer and an
+excellent perspective on all my favorite gargoyles.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200' ></a>200</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;And the little birds flutter in the sun, and
+eat my crumbs and the great music swells out
+while you ask the <i>gar&ccedil;on</i> for another <i>bock</i>. Do
+you remember, father dear, the day that <i>she</i>
+found us there?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I remember only that you made yourself ill
+eating <i>Madelaines</i> and had to be taken home
+<i>en voiture</i>,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said quickly. &ldquo;We
+will go and have some coffee at the Caf&eacute; des
+Artistes, and discuss ships and shoes and sealing
+wax&mdash;anything but the art of painting.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And cabbages and kings,&rdquo; Sheila contributed
+ecstatically. &ldquo;I used to think when I was a very
+little girl and couldn&rsquo;t read English very well
+that it was really Heaven where Alice went,
+and it made me sad to think she was dead and
+I didn&rsquo;t understand it, but now Miss Dear has
+explained to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Dear has made a good many things
+clear to us both,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said, but he
+said no more that might be even remotely construed
+as referring to the issue between them,
+and Nancy finished out her day with dragging
+limbs and an aching empty heart that a word
+of tenderness would have filled to running over.</p>
+<p>But after her work for the day was done, and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201' ></a>201</span>
+she was back in her own apartment with Sheila
+tucked snugly in bed, and Hitty out for the
+night with a sick friend, there came the touch
+on her bell that she knew was Collier Pratt&rsquo;s;
+and she opened the door to find him standing
+on her threshold.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I knew you&rsquo;d come,&rdquo; she said, as women
+always say to the man they have that hour
+given up looking for.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t sure I would,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said,
+&ldquo;but I did, you see.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why weren&rsquo;t you sure?&rdquo; She stood beside
+him in her little rectangular hall while he
+divested himself of his cape, and placed his hat,
+stick and gloves in orderly sequence on the
+oak settee beside it. She liked to watch the
+precision with which he always arranged these
+things.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why should I be sure?&rdquo; He turned and
+faced her. &ldquo;Miss Dear,&rdquo; he said to himself
+softly, &ldquo;Miss Dear,&rdquo; and she saw that in his eyes
+which made the moment simpler for her to
+bear.</p>
+<p>She led the way into her drawing-room.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Light the candles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this firelight
+is too good to drown in a flood of electric light!&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202' ></a>202</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Is that better?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
+<p>They were standing before the fireplace; the
+embers had burned to a gentle glowing radiance.
+Of the four candles she had lighted, the wick
+of only one had taken fire and was burning.
+Nancy&rsquo;s breath caught in her throat, and she
+could not steady it. Collier Pratt took a step
+forward and held out his arms.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, this is better,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought there was some place in the world
+where I could be&mdash;comfortable,&rdquo; Nancy said,
+when she finally lifted her head from the
+shoulder of the shabby, immaculate black suit,
+&ldquo;but I wasn&rsquo;t quite sure.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you sure now, you little wonder
+woman?&rdquo; He held her at the length of his
+arm for a moment and gazed curiously into
+her face. Then he drew her slowly toward
+him again. She met his kiss bravely, so bravely
+that he understood the quality of her courage.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t realize that this would be the first
+time,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There couldn&rsquo;t have been any other time,&rdquo;
+Nancy breathed, &ldquo;you know that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said thoughtfully.
+&ldquo;Oh! you little American girls, with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203' ></a>203</span>
+your strange, straight-laced little bodies and
+your fearless souls!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty told you something,&rdquo; Nancy cried,
+scarcely hearing him, &ldquo;but it wasn&rsquo;t true.
+There never has been anybody else.&rdquo; She put
+her head down on his shoulder again. &ldquo;It is
+comfortable here,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;where I belong.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She felt the sudden passion sweep through
+him,&mdash;the high avid wave of tenderness and
+desire,&mdash;and she exulted as all purely innocent
+women exult when that madness surges first
+through the veins of the man they love. He
+put his hands on her shoulders and pressed her
+into the armchair by the fire, and there she took
+his head on her breast and understood for all
+time what it means for a woman to be called
+the mother of men.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You wonder woman,&rdquo; he murmured again.</p>
+<p>She brushed the dark hair back from his
+forehead and kissed his eyes. &ldquo;You dear,&rdquo; she
+said, &ldquo;you boy, you little boy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Suddenly through the darkness came the
+sound of a shrill cry, and the thud of a fall in
+some room down the corridor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s Sheila,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;she has those
+little nightmares and falls out of bed.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204' ></a>204</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I know she does,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said, &ldquo;but
+she picks herself up again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not always,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t you want
+to come in and help me put her back?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said with unnecessary
+emphasis.</p>
+<p>Nancy was of two minds about picking the
+child up in her little white night-gown and
+bringing her out to her father, flushed and lovely
+with sleep as she was. It was Collier Pratt&rsquo;s
+baby she had in her arms; her charge, the child
+she loved, and the child of the man she loved,
+a part of the miracle that was slowly revealing
+itself to her; but a sudden sharp instinct
+warned her that her impulse was ill-timed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I had forgotten the child was here,&rdquo; Collier
+Pratt said when she returned to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said happily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose she has to be somewhere, poor
+little wretch,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s an extraordinarily
+picturesque baby, isn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy crept nearer to him. He stood leaning
+against the mantel and frowning slightly, but
+he made no move toward her again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She doesn&rsquo;t have nightmares often now,&rdquo;
+Nancy said with stiffening lips. &ldquo;She used to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205' ></a>205</span>
+have them almost every night, but by watching
+her diet carefully we have practically eliminated
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Hitty person doesn&rsquo;t like me,&rdquo; Collier
+Pratt said. &ldquo;<i>Pas du tout</i>. She treats me as if I
+were a book agent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She loves Sheila, she&mdash;she&rsquo;d do anything for
+her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The women who do not find me attractive
+are likely to find me quite conspicuously otherwise,
+I am afraid.&rdquo; He had been carefully
+avoiding Nancy&rsquo;s eyes, but her little cry at this
+drew his gaze. She was standing before him,
+slowly blanching as if he had struck her, absolutely
+still except for the trembling of her lips.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What am I,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to hold out against
+all the forces of the Universe? Do you love me,
+Nancy, do you love me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know,&rdquo; she whispered, once more in the
+shelter of the shabby shoulder.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is madness,&rdquo; he swore as he kissed her;
+&ldquo;we&rsquo;re both out of our senses, Nancy; don&rsquo;t you
+know it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The picture is done, anyhow,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t know how I can ever bear to look it in the
+face, but I shall have to.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206' ></a>206</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the best work I&rsquo;ve ever done,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t look like it now, do I?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He held her off to see.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, by jove, you don&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s gone, now&mdash;just
+that thing I painted.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do I look now?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Much more commonplace from the point of
+view from which I painted you. Much more
+beautiful though,&mdash;much more beautiful.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I might paint you again,&mdash;like this. No,
+I swear I won&rsquo;t. I got the thing itself down on
+canvas. I&rsquo;ll never try to paint you again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is&mdash;that flattering?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Supremely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When am I going to have my picture?&rdquo; she
+asked after another interlude. &ldquo;Do you want
+me to send for it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t give you the picture,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+intended to if I had done merely a portrait, but
+I can&rsquo;t part with this. It has got to make my
+fame and fortune.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought I was to have it,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+then she felt she was being ungenerous,
+unworthy, &ldquo;but I couldn&rsquo;t take it, of course,
+it&rsquo;s too valuable.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207' ></a>207</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Please God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It would be wonderful, wouldn&rsquo;t it, if my
+picture did make you famous!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m nothing but a grubby little working girl,
+and you&rsquo;re a great artist,&mdash;and you love me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not a grubby little working girl to
+me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re a glorious creature&mdash;a
+wonder woman. I ought to go down on my
+knees to you for what you&rsquo;ve given me in that
+picture.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In the picture?&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I love you.
+I love you. That wasn&rsquo;t in the picture&mdash;I kept
+it out.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t marry him until he is ready for me,&rdquo;
+she said to herself at one time during the night.
+She lay perfectly quiet till morning, her hands
+folded upon her breast, and her little girl pig-tails
+pulled down on either side of the coverlet,
+wide-eyed and tranquil. She could not bear to
+sleep and forget for a moment the beautiful
+thing that had happened to her between dawn
+and dawn. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take care of him and Sheila,
+and nourish him, and help him to sell my
+picture. It isn&rsquo;t every woman who would understand
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208' ></a>208</span>
+his kind of loving, but I understand
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At eight o&rsquo;clock Hitty came in to her, and
+roused her from the light drowse into which
+she had fallen at last.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You was crying in your sleep again,&rdquo; she
+said, &ldquo;your cheeks is all wet. I heard you the
+minute I put my key into the latch. You&rsquo;re as
+bad as Sheila, only I expect she suffers from
+something laying hard on her stummick. It&rsquo;s
+always something on your mind that starts you
+in.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing on my mind, Hitty,&rdquo; Nancy
+said, sitting up in bed, &ldquo;nothing but happiness,
+I mean. In some ways, Hitty dear, this is the
+happiest day that I&rsquo;ve ever waked up to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then, there&rsquo;s other ways that it isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo;
+Hitty said, opening the door to stalk out
+majestically.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209' ></a>209</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XIV_BETTY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Betty</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lady waiting to see you, sir,&rdquo;
+Dick&rsquo;s man servant informed him on
+his arrival at his apartment one evening when
+he had been dining at his club, and was putting
+in a leisurely appearance at his own place after
+his coffee and cigar.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A lady?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, sir, she has been here since nine. She
+says it&rsquo;s not important, but she insisted on
+waiting.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The deuce she did.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick&rsquo;s quarters were not, strictly speaking,
+of the bachelor variety. That is, he had a suite
+in one of the older apartment houses in the
+fifties, a building that domiciled more families
+and middle-aged married couples than sprightly
+young single gentlemen. Dick had fallen heir
+to the establishment of an elderly uncle, who
+had furnished the place some time in the nineties
+and when he grew too decrepit to keep his
+foothold in New York had retired to the country,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210' ></a>210</span>
+leaving Dick in possession. Even if Dick
+had been a conspicuously rakish young gentleman,
+which he was not, the traditional dignity
+of his surroundings would have certainly protected
+him from incongruous indiscretion in
+their vicinity.</p>
+<p>Betty rose composedly from the pompous
+red velour couch that ran along the wall under
+a portrait of a gentleman that looked like a
+Philip of Spain, but was really Dick&rsquo;s maternal
+great grandfather.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Betty,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;this isn&rsquo;t
+<i>convenable</i> unless you have a chaperon somewhere
+concealed. We don&rsquo;t do things like this.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;I wanted to see you,
+so I came. In these emancipated days ladies
+call upon their men friends if they like. It&rsquo;s
+archaic to prattle of chaperons.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Still we were all brought up in the fear of
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mine were brought up in the fear of me. I
+like this place, Dicky. Why don&rsquo;t you give us
+more parties in it? You haven&rsquo;t had a crowd
+here for months.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Everybody&rsquo;s so busy,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;we don&rsquo;t
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211' ></a>211</span>
+seem to get together any more. I&rsquo;m willing to
+play host any time that the rest want to come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You mean Nancy is so busy with her old
+Outside Inn.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are busy there, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not so busy that I wouldn&rsquo;t come here
+when I was asked, Dicky.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Or even when you weren&rsquo;t?&rdquo; Dick&rsquo;s smile
+took the edge off his obviously inhospitable suggestion.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Or even when I wasn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Betty said impudently.
+&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you sit down, Mr. Thorndyke?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t I call you a cab, Miss Pope?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t wish to go away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty, be reasonable,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s after
+ten o&rsquo;clock. It is not usual for me to receive
+young ladies alone here, and it looks badly.
+I don&rsquo;t care for myself, of course, but for you
+it looks badly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s only for me&mdash;I don&rsquo;t care how it
+looks. Come and sit down beside me, and talk
+to me, Dicky, and I&rsquo;ll tell you really why I
+came.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick folded his arms and looked down at her.
+Betty&rsquo;s piquant little face, olive tinted, and pure
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212' ></a>212</span>
+oval in contour, was turned up to him confidently;
+under the close seal turban the soft
+brown hair framed the childish face, while the
+big dark eyes danced with mischief. She patted
+the couch by her side invitingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go away in fifteen minutes, Dicky dear.
+It certainly wouldn&rsquo;t look well if you put me out
+immediately, after all your establishment knowing
+that I waited here an hour for you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick took out his watch.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fifteen minutes, then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s
+your trouble, Betty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s a long sad story,&rdquo; she temporized.
+&ldquo;Perhaps I had better not begin on it now that
+our time is so short. You wouldn&rsquo;t like to hold
+my hand, would you, Dicky?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to, at any rate.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought you&rsquo;d say that,&rdquo; she sighed.
+&ldquo;Have you seen Nancy lately?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yesterday.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s looking better, don&rsquo;t you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Preston Eustace is back.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is that so? I didn&rsquo;t know he was here yet.
+I knew he was coming.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213' ></a>213</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s to be here six months, or so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you seen him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, Caroline told me.&rdquo; Her voice was carefully
+steadied but Dick noticed for the first
+time the shadows etched under the big brown
+eyes, and the flush of excitement splotched
+high on her cheek-bones. She had been engaged
+to Preston Eustace for three months succeeding
+her twentieth birthday.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On second thoughts I think I will hold your
+hand, Betty,&rdquo; he said, covering that childlike
+member with his own rather brawny one. &ldquo;You
+are not a very big little girl, are you, Betty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My mother used to tell me that I was a very
+destructive child.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if you were that yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let&rsquo;s talk about me. Let&rsquo;s talk about
+you, Dicky.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, please. I think you&rsquo;re a very interesting
+subject.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Having arrived at some conclusion concerning
+this unprecedented attack upon his privacy,
+Dick was disposed to be kind to his unexpected
+visitor. The fact that Preston Eustace was in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214' ></a>214</span>
+town and Betty had not seen him shed an entirely
+new light on her recklessness. Like every
+other incident in Betty&rsquo;s history her love-affair
+had been very conspicuously featured.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The interesting things about me just at present
+are&mdash;&rdquo; he was just about to say &ldquo;six shirts
+of imported gingham&rdquo; but he bethought himself
+that she would be certain to demand to see
+them, so he finished lamely with&mdash;&ldquo;my game of
+golf, and my new dogs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What kind of dogs?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Belgian police dogs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where do you keep them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t taken them over yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I heard that you had bought a place up in
+Westchester, but I asked Nancy, and she said
+she didn&rsquo;t know. I don&rsquo;t think Nancy appreciates
+you, Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That so often happens.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I mean that seriously.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a serious matter&mdash;being appreciated.
+The only person who I ever thought really
+appreciated me was Billy&rsquo;s old aunt. Every
+time she saw me she used to say to me, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re
+such a clean-looking young man I can&rsquo;t take my
+eyes off you.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215' ></a>215</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;You <i>are</i> clean-looking, and awfully good-looking
+too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mind if I smoke, Betty?&rdquo; Dick carefully
+disengaged his hand from her clinging
+fingers, and a look of something like intelligence
+passed between them, before Betty
+turned her ingenuous child&rsquo;s stare on him
+again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not if you&rsquo;ll give me a cigarette, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick fumbled through his pockets.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s awfully stupid, but I haven&rsquo;t any about
+me,&rdquo; he said, fingering what he knew that she
+knew to be the well filled case he always carried
+in his inner pocket. He did not approve of
+women smoking.</p>
+<p>But &ldquo;Poor Dicky!&rdquo; was all she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your fifteen minutes are up, Betty,&rdquo; he said
+presently, taking out his watch.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I suppose I&rsquo;ll have to go then.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick rose politely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You really don&rsquo;t care whether I go or stay,
+do you?&rdquo; she sighed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I would rather have you go, Betty,&rdquo; he said
+gravely.</p>
+<p>Betty&rsquo;s eyes filled with sudden tears, that
+Dick to his surprise realized were genuine.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216' ></a>216</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I wanted you to want me to stay,&rdquo; she said
+incoherently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;re just a miserable little thing
+that doesn&rsquo;t want to be alone,&rdquo; he concluded.
+&ldquo;Come, I&rsquo;ll take you home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The telephone bell on the table beside him
+rang sharply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just going out,&rdquo; he said to Billy, on the
+wire. &ldquo;Betty is here with a fit of the blues.
+I&rsquo;m going to take her home. Ride up with us,
+will you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll meet us down-stairs in ten minutes,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll order a taxi.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to see Billy,&rdquo; Betty said rebelliously.
+She rose suddenly, pulling on her
+gloves, and took a step forward as if about to
+brush by him petulantly, but as she did so she
+staggered, put her hand to her eyes, and fell
+forward against his breast.</p>
+<p>Dick picked up the limp little body, and made
+his way to the couch where he deposited it
+gently among the stiff red pillows there. Then
+he began to chafe her hands, to push back the
+tumbled hair from which the fur hat had been
+displaced, and finally fallen off, and to call out
+her name remorsefully.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217' ></a>217</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty, dear, dearest,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t
+know, I didn&rsquo;t dream,&mdash;I thought you were just
+trying it on. I&rsquo;m so sorry, dear, I am so sorry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She moaned softly, and he bent over her again
+more closely. Then he gathered her up in his
+arms.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty, dear, Betty,&rdquo; he said again.</p>
+<p>She opened her eyes. Her two soft arms stole
+up around his neck, and she lifted her lips.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You little devil,&rdquo; Dick cried, almost at the
+same instant that he kissed her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She deserves to be spanked,&rdquo; he told Billy
+grimly at the door. &ldquo;She got in my apartment
+when I was out, and insisted on staying there
+till I came in, to make me a visit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t understand me,&rdquo; Betty complained,
+as she cuddled confidingly in the corner of
+the taxi-cab, &ldquo;when I&rsquo;m serious he doesn&rsquo;t
+realize or appreciate it, and he doesn&rsquo;t understand
+the nature of my practical jokes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like&mdash;practical jokes,&rdquo; Dick said.
+&ldquo;Have you seen Preston Eustace, Billy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t seen Caroline,&rdquo; Billy said, as if
+that disposed of all the interrogatory remarks
+that might be addressed to him in the present
+or the future.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218' ></a>218</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nice-looking river,&rdquo; Betty said, looking
+out at the softly gleaming surface of the
+Hudson, as their cab took the drive. &ldquo;It looks
+strange to-night, though, laden with all kinds
+of queer little boats. I wonder how it would
+feel to be drifting down it, or up it, on a barque
+or a barkentine&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what a barkentine
+is&mdash;all dead like Elaine or Ophelia,&mdash;with
+your hands neatly folded across your breast?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For heaven sake&rsquo;s, Betty,&rdquo; Billy cried, &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t like your style of conversation. I&rsquo;m in a
+state of gloom myself, to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say I was in a state of gloom,&rdquo;
+Betty said. They rode the rest of the way in
+silence, but when Dick got out of the cab to
+open her door for her, she whispered to him,
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m awfully ashamed, Dick,&rdquo; before she fled
+up-stairs through the darkened hallway of her
+own home.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Queer little thing,&mdash;Betty,&rdquo; Billy said as
+Dick stepped back to the cab again, &ldquo;you never
+know where you have her. Full of the deuce as
+she can stick. Unscrupulous little rascal, too,
+but made of good stuff.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think so?&rdquo; Billy inquired presently
+as Dick did not answer.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219' ></a>219</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Think what?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That Betty&rsquo;s a queer sort of girl.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick took his pipe out of his pocket and began
+stuffing it full of tobacco. When this was satisfactorily
+accomplished, he struck a match on
+his boot heel, and lit the mixture, drawing at it
+critically meanwhile.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Damn&rsquo; queer,&rdquo; he admitted, between puffs.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220' ></a>220</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XV_CLOUDS_OF_GLORY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Clouds of Glory</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Nancy, trailing clouds of glory, took up the
+management of her Inn with renewed
+vigor. She had found her touchstone. The
+flower of love, which she had scarcely understood
+to be indigenous to the soil of her own
+practical little garden, had suddenly lifted up
+its head there in fragrant, radiant bloom. She
+was so happy that she was impatient of all the
+inadequate, inefficient manipulation of affairs in
+the whole world. She felt strong and wise to
+put everything right in a neglected universe.</p>
+<p>She loved. She was satisfied to live in that
+love for the present, with no imagination of the
+future except as her lover should construct it
+for her; and in him she had absolute faith.
+The things that he had said or left unsaid had
+no significance to her. Before she had dreamed
+of a personal relation with him he had singled
+her out as a creature made for the consummation
+and fulfilment of the greatest passion
+of all. The merest suspicion that there had
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221' ></a>221</span>
+been a man in the world who could have frustrated
+this beautiful potentiality in her had
+moved him profoundly. There was nothing in
+her experience to help her to differentiate
+between the sensibility of the artistic temperament
+and the manifestations of the more reliable
+emotions. The presence in the human
+breast of a fire that gave out light and not heat
+was a condition undreamed of in her philosophy.
+To doubt Collier Pratt&rsquo;s love for her in
+the face of his tacit pursuit of her, and the
+acceptance of the obligation she had chosen to
+put him under, would have seemed to her the
+rankest kind of heresy.</p>
+<p>She had been brought up on terms of comradely
+equality with boys and men, and she
+understood the rules of all the pretty games of
+fluffing and light flirtation that young men and
+women play with each other, but serious love-making&mdash;that
+was a thing apart. In the world
+of honor and fair dealing a man took a woman&rsquo;s
+kiss of surrender for one reason and one reason
+only&mdash;&mdash;that she was his woman, and he so held
+her in his heart.</p>
+<p>Now that she was in this sort committed to
+her love for Collier Pratt, her one ambition was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222' ></a>222</span>
+to put her life in order for him,&mdash;to pick up the
+raveling threads of her achievement and prove
+to him and to herself that she was the kind of
+woman who accomplishes that which she
+attempts. In the light of his indefatigable
+patience in all matters that pertained to his
+art&mdash;his clean-cut workmanship&mdash;his skill in
+handling his material&mdash;she blushed for the
+amateur spirit that animated all her undertakings,
+and for the first time recognized it
+for what it was.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Gaspard,&rdquo; she said one morning soon after
+her miracle had been achieved, &ldquo;where do you
+think the greatest leak is? We spend a great
+deal too much money in running this place.
+As you know, that is not the most important
+matter to me. Getting my customers properly
+nourished with invitingly prepared food is the
+essential thing, but if there was a way to adjust
+the economical end of it, I should feel a great
+deal more comfortable in my mind.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But certainly, mademoiselle, I should like
+myself to try the pretty little economies. The
+Frenchman he likes to spend his money when it
+is there, but it hurts him in the heart to waste
+this money without cause.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223' ></a>223</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Am I wasting money without cause, Gaspard,
+in your opinion?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What else?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How can I stop it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By calculation of the tall cost of living,
+and by buying what is good instead of what is
+expensive.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you mean, Gaspard?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Gaspard contemplated her for a moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We have had this week&mdash;squab chicken,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;racks of little unseasonable lambs, sweetbreads,
+guinea fowl and <i>filet du boeuf</i>. We
+have with them mushrooms, fresh string bean,
+cooked endive, and new, not very good peas
+grown in glass. We have the salted nuts, the
+radish, the olive, the celery, the <i>bon bon</i>, all
+extra without pay. Then you make in addition
+to this the health foods, and your bills are
+sky high up. Is it not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid it is, Gaspard. I had no idea I
+was as reckless as all that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But yes, and more of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What would you do if you were running
+this restaurant, Gaspard?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I would give <i>rago&ucirc;t</i>, and rabbits&mdash;so cheap
+and so good too&mdash;stewed in red wine, and the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224' ></a>224</span>
+good pot roast with vegetables all in the delicious
+sauce, and carrots with parsley and the
+peas out of the can, cooked with onion and lettuce,
+and mac&eacute;doine of all the other things left
+over. Lentils and flageolet I should buy dried
+up, and soak them out.&mdash;All those things which
+you have said were needless.&mdash;In my way they
+would be so excellent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You make my mouth water, Gaspard. I
+don&rsquo;t know whether it&rsquo;s a Gallic eloquence, or
+whether that food really would work. They
+might like it for a change anyhow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have many personal patrons now,&rdquo; Gaspard
+said with some pride; &ldquo;all day they send
+me messages, and very good tips. I think what
+I would serve them they would eat.&mdash;But there
+is one thing&mdash;&rdquo; he paused and hesitated dejectedly,
+&ldquo;that, what you say, takes the heart out
+of the beautiful cooking.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What thing is that, Gaspard?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Those calories.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Gaspard, surely you&rsquo;re used to working
+with tables now. It must be almost second
+nature to you. My whole end and aim has been
+to serve a balanced ration.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know, but the ration when he is right,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225' ></a>225</span>
+he balances himself. These tables they are like
+the steps in dancing&mdash;to learn and to forget.
+I figure all day all night to get those calories,
+and then I find I have eight&mdash;and eight are so
+little&mdash;lesser than I would have had without the
+figuring, and if our customer he has taken himself
+one piece of sweetmeat outside, he has
+more than made it up.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I always have worried about what they eat
+between meals,&rdquo; Nancy said,&mdash;&ldquo;but that, of
+course, we can&rsquo;t regulate.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Could I perhaps go to it, as you say, and
+cook like the <i>bourgeoisie</i> for a week or two of
+trials?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I think you could, Gaspard,&rdquo; Nancy
+said thoughtfully. &ldquo;Go to it, as we say, and I
+won&rsquo;t interfere in any way. Maybe they&rsquo;d
+like it. Perhaps our food is getting to be too
+much like hotel food, anyway.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She knew in her heart that the gradually
+increasing scale of luxury on which she had
+been running her cuisine had been largely due
+to her desire to provide Collier Pratt with all
+the delicacies he loved, without making the
+fact too conspicuous. The specially prepared
+dishes sent out to his table had become a matter
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226' ></a>226</span>
+of so much comment among the members of the
+staff, and the target of so much piquant satire
+from Betty that she had become sensitive on the
+subject, especially since Betty had access to the
+books, and knew in actual dollars and cents
+how much this favoritism was costing her.
+Now that matters had been settled between
+herself and her lover, she felt vaguely ashamed
+of this elaboration of method. It was so simple
+a thing to love a man and give him all you had,
+with the eyes of the world upon you, if necessary.
+She felt that she handled the matter
+rather unworthily.</p>
+<p>She had also a consultation with Molly and
+Dolly about the economic problem, and discovered
+that they agreed with Gaspard about the
+unnecessary extravagance of her management.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Them health foods,&rdquo; Dolly said,&mdash;she was
+not the more grammatical of the twins, &ldquo;the
+ones that gets them regular gets so tired of
+them, or else they gets where they don&rsquo;t need
+them any more. There&rsquo;s one girl that crumbs
+up her health muffins and puts them on the
+window-sill every day when I ain&rsquo;t looking, so&rsquo;s
+not to hurt my feelings.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227' ></a>227</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;That accounts for all those chittering sparrows,&rdquo;
+Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And some of those buttermilk men threatens
+not to come any more if I don&rsquo;t stop serving
+it to them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you say to them, Dolly, when they
+object to it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, sometimes I say one thing, and sometimes
+another. Sometimes I say it&rsquo;s orders to
+serve it; and sometimes I say will they please
+to let it stand by their plate not to get me in
+trouble with the management; and sometimes
+I coax them to take it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By an appeal to their better nature,&rdquo; Nancy
+said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad Dick can&rsquo;t hear all this,&mdash;he&rsquo;d
+think it was funny.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have so much trouble with the
+broths,&rdquo; Molly said, &ldquo;but so many people would
+rather have the cream soups Gaspard makes,
+that we waste a good deal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It sours on us,&rdquo; Dolly elucidated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you think would be the best way
+out of that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think to charge for the invalid things,&rdquo;
+Dolly said; &ldquo;people would think more of them
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_228' ></a>228</span>
+if they was specials, and had to be paid good
+money for. Health bread, if you didn&rsquo;t call
+it that, would go good, if it cost five cents
+extra.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What would you call it?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;California fruit nut bread, or something
+like that, and call the custards cr&ecirc;me renvers&eacute;,
+and the ice-cream, French ice-cream.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear!&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;that isn&rsquo;t the way
+I want to do things at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We can slip the ones that needs them a few
+things from time to time, can&rsquo;t we, Molly?&rdquo;
+Dolly said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll do it,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I hate the way
+that the most uninspired ways of doing things
+turn out to be the best policy after all. I don&rsquo;t
+believe in stereotyped philanthropy, but I did
+think I had found a way around this problem of
+feeding up people who needed it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They get fed up pretty good if they do pay
+a regular price for it,&rdquo; Dolly said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t
+get something for nothing in this world, and
+most everybody knows it by now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m managing my restaurant a little differently,&rdquo;
+she told Collier Pratt a few days later,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229' ></a>229</span>
+as she took her place at the little table beside
+him, where she habitually ate her dinner. &ldquo;If
+you don&rsquo;t like it you are to tell me, and I&rsquo;ll see
+that you have things you will like.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This dinner is good,&rdquo; he said reflectively,
+&ldquo;like French home cooking. I haven&rsquo;t had a
+real <i>rago&ucirc;t</i> of lamb since I left the pension of
+Madame Pellissier. Has your mysterious
+patroness got tired of furnishing <i>diners de
+luxe</i> to the populace?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not exactly that,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but she&mdash;she
+wants me to try out another way of doing
+things.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought that would come. That&rsquo;s the
+trouble with patronage of any kind. It is so
+uncertain. There is no immediate danger of
+your being ousted, is there?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;there&mdash;there is no danger
+of that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like that cutting you down,&rdquo; he said,
+frowning. &ldquo;It would be rather a bad outlook
+for us all if she threw you over, now wouldn&rsquo;t
+it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&mdash;she won&rsquo;t, there&rsquo;s nothing to worry
+about, really.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230' ></a>230</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It would be like my luck to have the only
+caf&eacute; in America turn me out-of-doors.&mdash;I should
+never eat again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I promise it won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;can&rsquo;t you
+trust me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never have trusted any woman&mdash;but you,&rdquo;
+he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can trust me,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;The truth
+is, she couldn&rsquo;t put me out even if she wanted
+to. I&mdash;she is under a kind of obligation to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank God for that. I only hope you are
+in a position to threaten her with blackmail.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I could if anybody could,&rdquo; Nancy said. She
+put out of her mind as disloyal, the faintly
+unpleasant suggestion of his words. He owed
+her mythical patron a substantial sum of money
+by this time. He was not even able to pay
+Michael the cash for the nightly teapot full of
+Chianti that Nancy herself now sent out for
+him regularly. For the first time since her
+association with him she was tempted to compare
+him to Dick, and that not very favorably;
+but at the next instant she was reproaching
+herself with her littleness of vision. He was
+too great a man to gauge by the ordinary standards
+of life. Money meant nothing to him
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231' ></a>231</span>
+except that it was the insignificant means to the
+end of that Art, which was to him consecrated.</p>
+<p>They were placed a little to the left of the
+glowing fire&mdash;Nancy had restored the fireplace
+in the big central dining-room&mdash;and the light
+took the brass of the andirons, and all the
+polished surface of copper and pewter and silver
+candelabra that gave the room its quality
+of picturesqueness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some of those branching candlesticks are
+very beautiful,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the impression here
+is a little like that of a Catholic altar just before
+the mass. I&rsquo;ve always thought I&rsquo;d like to have
+my meals served in church, <i>Saint-Germain-des-Pr&eacute;s</i>
+for instance.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is rather dim religious light.&rdquo; Nancy had
+no wish to utter this banality, but it was forced
+from her by her desire to seem sympathetic.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can we go to your place for a little while
+to-night?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>These were the words she had spent her days
+and nights hungering for; yet now she hesitated
+for a perceptible instant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, we can, of course. There is a friend
+of mine&mdash;Billy Boynton, up there this evening.
+He is not feeling very fit, and phoned to ask
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232' ></a>232</span>
+if he could go up and sprawl before my fire, so,
+of course, I said he could.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! yes, Sheila&rsquo;s friend. Can&rsquo;t he be disposed
+of?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think so. We could try.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But at Nancy&rsquo;s apartment they found not
+only Billy, but Caroline, and the atmosphere
+was like that of the glacial regions, both literally
+and figuratively.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hitty had the windows open, and the fire
+went out, and I forgot to turn on the heat,&rdquo;
+Billy explained from his position on the hearth
+where he was trying to build an unscientific
+fire with the morning paper, and the remains of
+a soap box. There was a long smudge across
+his forehead.</p>
+<p>Caroline drew Nancy into the seclusion of her
+bedroom and clutched her violently by the arm.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stand the strain any longer,&rdquo; she
+cried, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve got to tell me. Are you or are
+you not going to marry Dick Thorndyke for his
+money, and is Billy Boynton putting you up to
+it&mdash;out of cowardice?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not and he isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter with you and Billy anyway?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233' ></a>233</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t seen him for weeks before. I just
+happened to be in this neighborhood to-night,
+and ran in here, and there he was.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you take him home with you?&rdquo;
+Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want him to go home with me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you love him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know. That isn&rsquo;t the point.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is the point,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;there isn&rsquo;t
+any other point to the whole of existence.
+There&rsquo;s nothing else in the world, but love, the
+great, big, beautiful, all-giving-up kind of love,
+and bearing children for the man you love; and
+if you don&rsquo;t know that yet, Caroline, go down
+on your bended knees and pray to your God
+that He will teach it to you before it is too
+late.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t know you felt like that,&rdquo; Caroline
+gasped.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I do,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;and I think that
+any woman who doesn&rsquo;t is just confusing issues,
+and taking refuge in sophistry. I wouldn&rsquo;t give
+<i>that</i>&rdquo;&mdash;she snapped an energetic forefinger,
+&ldquo;for all your silly, smug little ideas of economic
+independence and service to the race, and
+all that tommy-rot. There is only one service
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234' ></a>234</span>
+a woman can do to her race, and that is to
+take hold of the problems of love and marriage,&mdash;and
+the problems of life, birth and death that
+are involved in them&mdash;and work them out to
+the best of her ability. They <i>will</i> work out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&mdash;you&rsquo;re a sort of a pragmatist, aren&rsquo;t
+you?&rdquo; Caroline gasped.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy loves you, and you love Billy. Billy
+needs you. He is the most miserable object
+lately, that ever walked the face of the earth.
+I&rsquo;m going to call a taxi-cab, and send you both
+home in it, and when you get inside of it I want
+you to put you arms around Billy&rsquo;s neck, and
+make up your quarrel.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t do that,&rdquo; said Caroline, &ldquo;but&mdash;but
+somehow or other you&rsquo;ve cleared up something
+for me. Something that was worrying me a
+good deal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shall I call the taxi?&rdquo; Nancy said inexorably.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, yes&mdash;if&mdash;if you want to,&rdquo; Caroline
+said.</p>
+<p>The fire was crackling merrily in the drawing-room
+when she stepped into it again after
+speeding her departing guests. Collier Pratt
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235' ></a>235</span>
+was walking up and down impatiently with his
+hands clasped behind his back.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You got rid of them at last,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+was afraid they would decide to remain with
+us indefinitely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t have as much trouble as I anticipated,&rdquo;
+admitted Nancy cryptically.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt made a round of the rose-shaded
+lamps in the room&mdash;there were three including
+a Japanese candle lamp,&mdash;and turned them all
+deliberately low. Then he held out his arms
+to Nancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll snatch at the few moments of joy the
+gods will vouchsafe us,&rdquo; he said.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236' ></a>236</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XVI_CHRISTMAS_SHOPPING'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Christmas Shopping</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Sheila and Nancy were doing their Christmas
+shopping. The weather, which had
+been like mid-May&mdash;even to betraying a bewildered
+Jersey apple tree into unseasonable bloom
+that gave it considerable newspaper notoriety,&mdash;had
+suddenly turned sharp and frosty.
+Sheila, all in gray fur to the beginning of her
+gray gaiters, and Nancy in blue, a smart blue
+tailor suit with black furs and a big black
+satin hat&mdash;she was dressing better than she had
+ever dressed in her life&mdash;were in that state of
+physical exhilaration that follows the spur of
+the frost.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We mustn&rsquo;t dance down the avenue, Sheila,&rdquo;
+Nancy said, &ldquo;it isn&rsquo;t done, in the circles in
+which we move.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is you who are almost very nearly dancing,
+Miss Dear,&rdquo; Sheila said, &ldquo;I was only walking
+on my toetips.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! don&rsquo;t you feel good, Sheila?&rdquo; Nancy
+cried.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237' ></a>237</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you, Miss Dear?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel almost too good,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;as if
+in another minute the top of the world might
+come off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The top of the world is screwed on very
+tight, I think,&rdquo; said Sheila. &ldquo;I used to think
+when I was a little girl that it was made out of
+blue plush, but now I know better than that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It might be,&rdquo; Nancy argued, &ldquo;blue plush
+and bridal veils. There&rsquo;s a great deal of filmy
+white about it, to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a long way off from Fifth Avenue,&rdquo;
+Sheila sighed, &ldquo;too far. I am not going to
+think about it any more. I am going to think
+hard about what to give my father. Michael
+said to get a smoking set, but I don&rsquo;t know
+what a smoking set is. Hitty said some hand
+knit woolen stockings, but I am afraid he would
+be scratched by them. Gaspard said a big bottle
+of <i>Cointreau</i>, but I do not know what that is
+either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t we give him a beautiful brocaded
+dressing-gown and a Swiss watch, thin as a
+wafer, and some handkerchiefs cobwebby fine,
+and a dozen bottles of <i>Cointreau</i>, and&mdash;then get
+the other things as we think of them?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238' ></a>238</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Are we rich enough to do <i>that</i>?&rdquo; Sheila
+asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rich enough to buy anything we want,
+Sheila,&rdquo; Nancy cried. &ldquo;I had no idea it was going
+to be such a heavenly feeling. When you
+say your prayers to-night, Sheila, I hope you
+will ask God to bless somebody you&rsquo;ve never
+heard of before. <i>Elijah Peebles Martin</i>, do you
+think you could remember that long name,
+Sheila?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Miss Dear,&mdash;do you remember him in
+your prayers every night?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I haven&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but I intend
+to from now on. Do you think Collier&mdash;father&mdash;would
+like to have a new pipe?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Shelia said; &ldquo;wouldn&rsquo;t Uncle
+Dick like to have one?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whether Uncle Dick is going to
+want a Christmas present from me or not,
+Sheila.&rdquo; Nancy answered seriously. &ldquo;There
+may be&mdash;reasons why he won&rsquo;t come to see us
+for a while when he knows them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear,&rdquo; Sheila said, &ldquo;but I can buy him a
+Christmas present myself, can&rsquo;t I? I don&rsquo;t
+want it to be Christmas if I can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239' ></a>239</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, dear. What shall we buy Aunt
+Caroline and Uncle Billy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some pink and blue housekeeping dishes, I
+think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to have trouble buying Caroline
+<i>anything</i>,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s so sure I can&rsquo;t
+afford it. If I give a silver chest I&rsquo;ll have to
+make Billy say it came from his maiden aunt.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What shall we give Aunt Betty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know exactly why,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but
+someway I feel more like giving her a good
+shaking than anything else.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For a little surprise,&rdquo; Sheila said presently,
+&ldquo;do you think we could go down to see my father
+in his studio, after we have shopped? I
+feel like seeing my father to-day. Sometimes I
+wake up in the morning and I think of Hitty
+and my breakfast, and the canary bird, and of
+you, Miss Dear, fast asleep where I can hear
+you breathing in your room&mdash;if I listen to it&mdash;and
+then other mornings I wake up thinking
+only of my father, and how he looks in his
+shirt-sleeves and necktie. I was thinking of
+him this morning like that. So now I should
+like to see him.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240' ></a>240</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;You shall, dear. I want him to see you in
+your new clothes. He&rsquo;ll think you look like a
+little gray bird with a scarlet breast.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I must open the front of my coat when
+I go in so he shall see my vest at once, mustn&rsquo;t
+I?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know how much I love you, Sheila?&rdquo;
+Nancy cried suddenly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is it a great deal, Miss Dear?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s more than I&rsquo;ve ever loved anybody in
+this world but one person, and if I should ever
+be separated from you I think it would break
+my heart&mdash;so that you could hear it crack with
+a loud report, Sheila.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The little girl slipped her gray gloved hand
+into Nancy&rsquo;s and held it there silently for a
+moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then we won&rsquo;t ever be separated, Miss
+Dear,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>The shops were crowded with the usual conglomerate
+Christmas throng, and their progress
+was somewhat retarded by Sheila&rsquo;s desire to
+make the acquaintance of every department-store
+and Salvation Army Santa Claus that
+they met in their peregrinations. In the toy
+department of one of the Thirty-fourth Street
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241' ></a>241</span>
+shops there was a live Kris Kringle with animated
+reindeers on rollers, who made a short
+trip across an open space in one end of the department
+for a consideration, and presented
+each child who rode with him a lovely present,
+tied up in tissue and marked &ldquo;Not to be opened
+until Christmas.&rdquo; Sheila refused a second trip
+with him on the ground that it would not be
+polite to take more than one turn.</p>
+<p>Nancy was able to discover the little girl&rsquo;s
+preferences by a tactful question here and there
+when they were making the rounds of the different
+counters. She wanted, it developed, a
+golden-haired doll with a white fur coat, a pair
+of roller skates, an Indian costume, a beaded
+pocketbook, with a blue cat embroidered on it, a
+parchesi board to play parchesi with her Uncle
+Dick, some doll&rsquo;s dinner dishes, a boy&rsquo;s bicycle,
+some parlor golf sticks, a red leather writing
+set, a doll&rsquo;s manicure set, a sailor-boy paper
+doll, a dozen small suede animals in a box, a
+drawing book and crayon pencils and several
+other trifles of a like nature. The things she
+did not want she rejected unerringly. It
+pleased Nancy to realize that she knew exactly
+what she did want, even though her range of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242' ></a>242</span>
+taste was so extensive. Nancy had a sheaf of
+her own cards with her address on them in her
+pocketbook, and each time Sheila saw the thing
+her heart coveted Nancy nodded to the saleswoman
+and whispered to her to send it to the
+address given and charge to her account.</p>
+<p>They took their lunch in a famous confectionary
+shop, full of candy animals and alluring
+striped candy sticks and baskets. Here
+Sheila&rsquo;s eye was taken by a basket of spun
+sugar flowers, which she insisted on buying for
+Gaspard. By the time they were ready to resume
+their shopping tour, Sheila began to show
+signs of fag, so they bought only brooches for
+the waitresses, and the watch as thin and exquisite
+of workmanship as a man&rsquo;s pocket watch
+could be, for Collier Pratt.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think we had better give it to him now,
+Miss Dear,&rdquo; Sheila decided. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how
+he can wait till Christmas for it&mdash;it is so beautiful.
+He has not had a gold watch since that
+time in Paris when we had all that trouble.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What trouble, Sheila dear?&rdquo; Nancy said.
+She had tucked the child in a hansom, and they
+were driving slowly through the lower end of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243' ></a>243</span>
+Central Park to restore Sheila&rsquo;s roses before
+she was exhibited to her parent.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When we lost all our money, and my father
+and some one I must not speak of, had those
+dreadful quarrelings, and we ran away. I do
+not like to think of it. My father does not like
+to think of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then, you mustn&rsquo;t, dear,&rdquo; Nancy said,
+&ldquo;but just be glad it is all over now. I don&rsquo;t
+like to realize that so many hard things happened
+to you and him before I knew you, but
+I do like to think that I can perhaps prevent
+them ever happening to you again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She closed resolutely that department of her
+mind that had begun to occupy itself with conjectures
+concerning the past of the man to
+whom she had given her heart. The child&rsquo;s
+words conjured up nightmare scenes of unknown
+panic and dread. It was terrible to her
+to know that Collier Pratt had the memory of
+so much bitterness and distress of mind and
+body locked away in the secret chambers of his
+soul. &ldquo;Some one of whom I must not speak,&rdquo;
+Sheila had said, &ldquo;and some one of whom I must
+not think,&rdquo; Nancy added to herself. It was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244' ></a>244</span>
+probably some one with whom he had quarreled
+and struggled passionately maybe, with disastrous
+results. He could not have injured or
+killed anybody, else how could he be free and
+honorably considered in a free and honorable
+country? She laughed at her own melodramatic
+misgivings. It was only, she realized, that
+she so detested the connotation of the words
+&ldquo;ran away.&rdquo; Nancy had never run away from
+anything or anybody in her life, and she could
+not understand that any one who was close to
+her should ever have the instinct of flight.</p>
+<p>The most conscientious objector to New
+York&rsquo;s traffic regulations can not claim that
+they fail to regulate. The progress of their
+cab down the avenue was so scrupulously regulated
+by the benignant guardians of the semaphores
+that twilight was deepening into early
+December evening before they reached their
+objective point,&mdash;the ramshackle studio building
+on the south side of Washington Square
+where the man she loved lived, moved and had
+his being, with the gallant ease and grace which
+made him so romantic a figure to Nancy&rsquo;s imagination.</p>
+<p>She had never been to his studio before without
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245' ></a>245</span>
+an appointment, and her heart beat a little
+harder as, Sheila&rsquo;s hand in hers, they tiptoed
+up the worn and creaking stairs, through the
+ill-kept, airless corridors of the dingy structure,
+till they reached the top, and stood breathless
+from their impetuous ascent, within a few
+feet of Collier Pratt&rsquo;s battered door.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel a little scared, Miss Dear,&rdquo; Sheila
+whispered. &ldquo;I thought it was going to be so
+much fun and now I don&rsquo;t think so at all. Do
+you think he will be very angry at my coming?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think he will be angry at all,&rdquo; Nancy
+said. &ldquo;I think he will be very much surprised
+and pleased to see both of us. Turn around,
+dear, and let me be sure that you&rsquo;re neat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Sheila turned obediently. Nancy fumbled
+with her pocket mirror, and then thought better
+of it, but passed a precautionary hand over the
+back of her hair to reassure herself as to its
+arrangement, and straightened her hat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now we&rsquo;re ready,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>But Sheila put out her hand, and clutched at
+Nancy&rsquo;s sleeve.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s some one in there,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;somebody
+crying. Oh! don&rsquo;t let&rsquo;s go in, Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>From behind the closed door there issued suddenly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246' ></a>246</span>
+the confused murmur of voices, one&mdash;a
+woman&rsquo;s&mdash;rising and falling in the cadence of
+distress, the other low pitched in exasperated
+expostulation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s Collier,&rdquo; Nancy said mechanically, &ldquo;and
+some woman with him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Sheila shrank closer into the protecting shelter
+of her arms.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let&rsquo;s go in, Miss Dear,&rdquo; she repeated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It may be just some model,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll wait a minute here and see if she doesn&rsquo;t
+come out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I don&rsquo;t want to see who comes out,&rdquo; the
+child said, her face suddenly distorted.</p>
+<p>There was a sharp sound of something falling
+within, then Collier Pratt&rsquo;s voice raised
+loud in anger.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better go now,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;before you
+do any more damage. I don&rsquo;t want you here.
+Once and for all I tell you that there is no place
+for you in my life. Weeping and wailing won&rsquo;t
+do you any good. The only thing for you to do
+is to get out and stay out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This was answered by an indistinguishable
+outburst.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t tell you where the child is,&rdquo; Collier
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247' ></a>247</span>
+Pratt said steadily. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s well taken care of.
+God knows you never took care of her. There&rsquo;s
+nothing you can do, you know. You might sue
+for a restitution of conjugal rights, I suppose,
+but if you drag this thing into the courts I&rsquo;ll
+fight it out to the end. I swear I will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You brute,&mdash;you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At the first clear sound of the woman&rsquo;s voice
+the child at Nancy&rsquo;s side broke into sobs of
+convulsive terror.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Take me away, Miss Dear. Oh! take me
+away from here, quickly, quickly, I&rsquo;m so frightened.
+I&rsquo;m so afraid she&rsquo;ll come out and get me.
+It&rsquo;s my <i>mother</i>,&rdquo; she moaned.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248' ></a>248</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XVII_GOODBY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Good-By</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Nancy had no memory of her actions during
+the time that elapsed between leaving
+the studio building and her arrival at her own
+apartment. She knew that she must have
+guided Sheila to the beginning of the bus route
+at the lower end of the square, and as perfunctorily
+signaled the conductor to let her off at
+the corner of Fifth Avenue and her own street,
+but she could never remember having done so.
+Her first conscious recollection was of the few
+minutes in Sheila&rsquo;s room, while she was slipping
+off the child&rsquo;s gaiters, in the interval before
+she gave her over to Hitty for the night.
+The little girl was still sobbing beneath her
+breath, though her emotion was by this time
+purely reflexive.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t understand that your mother was
+living, Sheila,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She isn&rsquo;t very nice,&rdquo; the little girl said miserably.
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t tell any one. She always
+cries and screams and makes us trouble?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249' ></a>249</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Did she live with you in Paris?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Only sometimes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Does she do&mdash;something that she should not
+do, Sheila?&rdquo; Nancy asked, with her mind on inebriety,
+or drug addiction.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She just isn&rsquo;t very nice,&rdquo; Sheila repeated.
+&ldquo;She is <i>hist&eacute;rique</i>; she pounded me with her
+hands, and hurt me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy telephoned to the Inn that she had a
+headache, and shut herself into her room, without
+food, to gather her scattered forces. She
+lay wide-awake all the night through, her mind
+trying to work its way through the lethargy of
+shock it had received. She remembered falling
+down the cellar stairs, when she was a little
+girl, and lying for hours on the hard stone floor,
+perfectly serene and calm, without pain, until
+she tried to do so much as move a little finger
+or lift an eyelid, when the intolerable nausea
+would begin. She was calm now, until she
+made the attempt to think what it was that had
+so prostrated her, and then the anguish spread
+through her being and convulsed her with unimaginable
+distress of mind and body.</p>
+<p>By morning she had herself in hand again,&mdash;at
+least to the extent of dealing with the unthinkable
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250' ></a>250</span>
+fact that Collier Pratt, her lover, the
+man to whom she had given the lover&rsquo;s right to
+hold her in his arms and cover her upturned
+face with kisses, had a living wife, and that he
+was not free to make honorable love to any
+woman.</p>
+<p>Her life had been too sound, too sweet, to
+give her any perspective on a situation of the
+kind. It was inconceivable to her that a married
+man should make advances to an unmarried
+woman,&mdash;but gradually she began to make
+excuses for this one man whose circumstances
+had been so exceptional. Tied to an insane
+creature, who beat his child, who made him
+strange hectic scenes, and followed him all over
+the world to threaten his security, and menace
+that beautiful and inexplicable creative instinct
+that animated him like a holy fire, and set him
+apart from his kind; she began to see how it
+might be with him. She was still the woman he
+loved,&mdash;she believed that; he was weaker than
+she had thought,&mdash;that was all, weaker and not
+so wise. This being true, she must put aside
+her own pain and bewilderment, her own devastating
+disillusionment, and comfort him, and
+help him. She rose from her bed that morning
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251' ></a>251</span>
+firmly resolved to see him before the day was
+through.</p>
+<p>She breakfasted with Sheila, and made a
+brave attempt to get through the morning on
+her usual schedule, but once at the Inn she collapsed,
+and Michael and Betty had to put her
+in a cab and send her home again, where Hitty
+ministered to her grimly,&mdash;and she slept the
+sleep of exhaustion until well on into the evening,
+and into the night again.</p>
+<p>On the day following she was quite herself;
+but she still hesitated to bring about the momentous
+interview that she so dreaded, and yet
+longed for. She intended to take her place at
+the table beside Collier Pratt when he came for
+his dinner that night, but when the time came
+she could not bring herself to do it, and fled
+incontinently. Later in the evening he telephoned
+that he wanted to see her, and she told
+him that he might come.</p>
+<p>She faced him with the facts, breathlessly,
+and in spite of herself accusingly,&mdash;and then
+waited for the explanation that would extenuate
+the apparent ugliness of his attitude toward
+her, and set all the world right for her again.
+As she looked into his face she felt that it must
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252' ></a>252</span>
+come. She noted compassionately how the
+shadows under the dark eyes had deepened;
+how weary the pose of the fine head; and for the
+moment she longed only to rest it on her breast
+again. Even as she spoke of the thing that had
+so tortured her it seemed insignificant in
+light of the fact that he was there beside her,
+within reach of her arms whenever she chose
+to hold them out to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I regret that the revelation of my private
+embarrassments should have been thrust upon
+you so suddenly,&rdquo; he said, when she had poured
+out the story to him. &ldquo;My marriage has proved
+the most uncomfortable indiscretion that I ever
+committed; and unfortunately my indiscretions
+have been numberless as the well-known leaves
+of Vallombrosa.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You always said that Sheila was motherless,&rdquo;
+Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is simpler than stating that she is worse
+than motherless.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me you were married?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt smiled at her&mdash;kindly it seemed
+to Nancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It hadn&rsquo;t anything to do with <i>us</i>,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I should never want to marry again&mdash;even if
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253' ></a>253</span>
+I were free. The thought is horrible to me.
+You mean a great deal to me. <i>Think</i>, if you
+doubt that and think again. I have had in this
+little front room of yours the only real moments
+of peace and happiness that I have had
+for years. I value them&mdash;you can not dream or
+imagine how much&mdash;but surely it is understood
+between us that our relation can not be anything
+but transitory. I am an artist with a way
+to make for my art: you are a working woman
+with a career, odd as it is,&rdquo; he smiled whimsically,
+&ldquo;that you have chosen, and that you will
+pursue faithfully until some stalwart young
+man dissuades you from it, when you will take
+your place in your niche as wife and mother,
+and leave me one more beautiful memory.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;you know it isn&rsquo;t&mdash;like
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is it like then?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy felt every sane premise, every eager
+hope and delicate ideal slipping beyond her
+reach as she faced his mocking, tender eyes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It can&rsquo;t be that you believe you have been&mdash;fair
+with me,&rdquo; she faltered.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I have been unfair,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;I have made no protestations, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254' ></a>254</span></div>
+<p>Nancy shut her eyes. Curious scraps of her
+early religious education came back to her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You have partaken of my bread and wine,&rdquo;
+she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t exactly consecrated.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it was,&rdquo; she said faintly. &ldquo;Oh!
+don&rsquo;t you understand that that isn&rsquo;t a way for
+a man to think or to feel about a woman like
+me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Little American girl,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said,
+&ldquo;little American girl, don&rsquo;t you understand that
+there is only one way for a woman to think or
+feel about a <i>man</i> like <i>me</i>? I have had my life,
+and I haven&rsquo;t liked it much. I&rsquo;m to be loved
+warmly and lightly till the flesh and blood
+prince comes along, but I&rsquo;m never to be mistaken
+for him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe you&rsquo;re sincere,&rdquo; Nancy cried;
+&ldquo;women must have loved you deeply, tragically,
+and have suffered all the torture there is, at
+losing you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That may be. Sincerity is a matter of so
+many connotations. You haven&rsquo;t known many
+artists, my dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Nancy. &ldquo;No, but I thought they
+were the same as other men, only worthier.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255' ></a>255</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;How should they be? He who perceives a
+merit is not necessarily he who achieves it.
+Else the world would be a little more one-sided
+than it is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t believe those things,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;I want to believe in you. You <i>must</i> care for
+me, and what becomes of me. You have known
+so long what I was like, and what I was made
+for. All this seems like a terrible nightmare.
+I want you to tell me what it is you want of me,
+and let me give it to you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am proving some faint shadow of worthiness
+at least, when I say to you that I want
+absolutely nothing of you. I love, but I
+refrain.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You love,&rdquo; Nancy cried, &ldquo;you <i>love</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not as you understand loving, I am afraid.
+In my own way I love you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like your way, then,&rdquo; Nancy said
+wearily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re both so poor, little girl,&mdash;that&rsquo;s one
+thing. If I were free and could overcome my
+prejudice against matrimony, and could be a
+little surer of my own heart and its constancy,&mdash;even
+then, don&rsquo;t you see, practical considerations
+would and ought to stand in our way. I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256' ></a>256</span>
+couldn&rsquo;t support you, you couldn&rsquo;t possibly support
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Nancy. &ldquo;Would you marry me
+If I were rich?&rdquo; she said slowly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I already have one wife,&rdquo; Collier Pratt
+smiled. Nancy remembered afterward that he
+smiled oftener during this interview than at
+any other. &ldquo;But if somebody died, and left you
+a million, she might possibly be disposed of.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>For one moment, perhaps, his fate hung in
+the balance. Then he took a step forward.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Kiss me good night, dear,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and let
+us end this bitter and fruitless discussion.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Kiss you good night,&rdquo; Nancy cried. &ldquo;Kiss
+you good night. Oh! how dare you!&mdash;How dare
+you?&rdquo; And she struck him twice across his
+mouth. &ldquo;I wish I could kill you,&rdquo; she blazed.
+&ldquo;Oh! how dare you,&mdash;how dare you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! very well,&rdquo; said Collier Pratt calmly,
+wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. &ldquo;If
+that&rsquo;s the way you feel&mdash;then our pleasant little
+acquaintanceship is ended. I&rsquo;ll take my hat and
+stick and my child&mdash;and go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your child?&rdquo; Nancy cried aghast. &ldquo;You
+wouldn&rsquo;t take Sheila away from me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel exactly tempted to leave her with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257' ></a>257</span>
+you,&rdquo; he said deliberately. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind a
+woman striking me&mdash;I&rsquo;m used to that; it is one
+of my charming wife&rsquo;s ways of expressing herself
+in moments of stress&mdash;but I do object to
+any but the most purely formal relations with
+her afterward. There is a certain degree of intimacy
+involved in your having charge of my
+child. I think I will take the little girl away
+with me now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Please, please, please don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;I love her. I couldn&rsquo;t bear it now. You can&rsquo;t
+be so cruel.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Better get it over,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said. &ldquo;Will
+you call Hitty, or shall I?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sheila is in bed,&rdquo; Nancy cried. &ldquo;You
+wouldn&rsquo;t take her out of her warm bed to-night.
+I&rsquo;ll send her to you to-morrow at whatever hour
+you ask.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I ask for her now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was no fight left in Nancy. She called
+Hitty and superintended the dressing of the little
+girl to its last detail. She could not touch
+her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you kiss me good night, Miss Dear?&rdquo;
+Sheila said, drowsily, as she took her father&rsquo;s
+hand at the door.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258' ></a>258</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Not to-night,&rdquo; Nancy said hoarsely. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+a bad throat, dear, I wouldn&rsquo;t want you to
+catch it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know where I&rsquo;m going,&rdquo; the little
+girl said, &ldquo;but I suppose my father knows. I&rsquo;ll
+come back as soon as I can.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, dear,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;Good-by.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt turned at the door and made an
+exaggerated gesture of farewell.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We part more in anger than in sorrow,&rdquo; he
+said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! Go,&rdquo; Nancy cried.</p>
+<p>As the door closed upon the two Nancy sank
+to her knees, and thence to a crumpled heap on
+the floor, but remembering that Hitty would
+find her there shortly, and being entirely unable
+to regain her feet unaided, she started to
+crawl in the direction of her own room, and
+presently arrived there, and pushed the door to
+behind her with her heel.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259' ></a>259</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XVIII_TAME_SKELETONS'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Tame Skeletons</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>It was Sunday night, and New Year&rsquo;s Eve.
+Gaspard was preparing, and Molly and Dolly
+were serving a special dinner for Preston Eustace,
+planned weeks before on his first arrival
+in New York.</p>
+<p>Before the great logs&mdash;imported by Michael
+for the occasion&mdash;that blazed in the fireplace, a
+round table was set, decorously draped in the
+most immaculate of fine linen, and crowned
+with a wreath of holly and mistletoe, from
+which extended red satin trailers with a present
+from Nancy for each guest, on the end of each.
+All the impedimenta of the restaurant was
+cleared away, and a couch and several easy
+chairs that Nancy kept in reserve for such occasions
+were placed comfortably about the
+room. Only the innumerable starry candles
+and branching candelabra were reminiscent of
+the room&rsquo;s more professional aspect.</p>
+<p>Billy and Caroline were the first to arrive,&mdash;Caroline
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260' ></a>260</span>
+in pale floating green tulle, which accentuated
+the pure olive of her coloring, and
+transported Billy from his chronic state of
+adoration to that of an almost agonizing worship.
+Dick and Betty were next. He had realized
+the possible awkwardness of the situation
+for her, and had been thoughtful enough to offer
+to call for her. She was in defiant scarlet
+from top to toe, and had never looked more
+entrancing. Preston Eustace was to come in
+from Long Island where he was spending the
+holidays with a married sister. Michael received
+the guests and did the honors beamingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Nancy?&rdquo; Dick asked, as, divested
+of his outer garments, he appeared without
+warning in the presence of the lovers. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+bother to drop her hand, Billy. I don&rsquo;t see how
+you have the heart to, she&rsquo;s so lovely to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know where Nancy is,&rdquo; Caroline
+answered for him. &ldquo;It seems to be all right,
+though. She&rsquo;s expected, Michael says.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Nancy?&rdquo; Betty asked, in her turn,
+appearing on the threshold with every hair most
+amazingly in place.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Coming,&rdquo; Dick reassured her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Has anybody heard from her?&rdquo; Betty asked.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261' ></a>261</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Michael has, I think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t worried about her, are you?&rdquo;
+Caroline asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I am,&rdquo; Betty said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought you and Nancy were rather on the
+outs,&rdquo; Caroline suggested. &ldquo;It seems odd to
+have you worrying about her like her maiden
+aunt.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You wait till you see her, you&rsquo;ll be worried
+about her, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s wrong?&rdquo; Dick asked quickly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s lost Sheila for one thing. That unspeakable
+Collier Pratt&mdash;I hope he chokes on
+his dinner to-night, and I hope it&rsquo;s a rotten dinner&mdash;has
+taken the child away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The devil he has.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was a step on the rickety stair.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hush! There she is now,&rdquo; Caroline cried.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Betty said quietly, listening. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+not Nancy. That&rsquo;s your brother, Caroline.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t heard his step for such a long time
+I&rsquo;ve forgotten it,&rdquo; Billy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t heard it for a long time either,&rdquo;
+Betty said, her face draining of its last bit of
+color.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Promises to be one of those merry little
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262' ></a>262</span>
+meals when everybody present is attended by a
+tame skeleton,&rdquo; Billy whispered, &ldquo;except us,
+Caroline.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel that we have any right to be so
+happy with the whole continent of Europe in
+the state it&rsquo;s in,&rdquo; Caroline whispered in reply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel better about the continent of Europe
+than I did a while back,&rdquo; Billy said, contentedly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hello, everybody,&rdquo; Preston Eustace said as
+Michael held the door for him. &ldquo;How&rsquo;s everything,
+Caroline?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; Caroline said. Then she added
+unnecessarily, &ldquo;You&mdash;you know Betty, don&rsquo;t
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I used to know Betty,&rdquo; he said slowly.</p>
+<p>The two looked at each other, with that look
+of incredulity with which lovers sometimes
+greet each other after absence and estrangement.
+&ldquo;This can&rsquo;t be you,&rdquo; their eyes seem to
+be saying, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve disposed of you long since, God
+help me!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you do, Preston?&rdquo; Betty said, giving
+him her hand. Then she smiled faintly, and
+added with a caricature of her usual manner:
+&ldquo;Lovely weather we&rsquo;re having for this time of
+year, aren&rsquo;t we?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263' ></a>263</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very fond of you, Betty,&rdquo;&mdash;Dick smiled
+as she sank into the chair beside him and Preston
+turned to his sister. &ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re a little
+sport.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how you can, Dicky,&rdquo; she
+smiled at him forlornly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a bad black
+heart, and I play the wrong kind of games.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I see through them, so it&rsquo;s all right.
+What&rsquo;s this about Nancy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you later,&rdquo; Betty said; &ldquo;there she
+comes now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy, stimulated by massage and steam, her
+hair dressed by a professional; powdered, and
+for the first time in her life rouged to hide the
+tell-tale absence of her natural quickening color,
+came forward to meet her guests in supreme
+unconsciousness of the pathos of the effect she
+had achieved. She was dressed in snowy white
+like a bride,&mdash;the only gown she had that was
+in keeping with the holiday decorations, and
+she moved a little clumsily, as if her brain had
+found itself suddenly in charge of an unfamiliar
+set of reflexes. Her lids drooped over burning
+eyes that had known no sleep for many nights,
+and every line and lineament of her face was
+stamped with pain.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264' ></a>264</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m so sorry to have kept you waiting,&rdquo; she
+said. Her voice, curiously, was the only natural
+thing about her. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been scouring off every
+vestige of my work-a-day self, and that takes
+time. Thank you for the roses, Dick, but the
+only flowers I could have worn with this color
+scheme would have been geraniums.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll send you some geraniums to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;How do you do, Preston?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She gave him a cold hand, and he stared at
+her almost as he had stared at Betty. He was
+a tall grave-looking youth, with Caroline&rsquo;s
+straight features and olive coloring, and a shock
+of heavy blond hair.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I hope you&rsquo;ll like your party,&rdquo; Nancy hurried
+on. &ldquo;Gaspard is bursting with pride in it.
+I think it would be a nice thing to have him in
+and drink his health after the coffee. He would
+never forget the honor.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My God!&rdquo; Dick said in an undertone to
+Betty, &ldquo;how long has she been like this?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you later,&rdquo; she promised him again.</p>
+<p>With the serving of the first course of dinner&mdash;Gaspard&rsquo;s
+wonderful <i>Pur&eacute;e Mongol</i>&mdash;an artist&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265' ></a>265</span>
+dream of all the most delicate vegetables in
+the world mingled together as the clouds are
+mingled, the tensity in the air seemed to break
+and shatter about them in showers of brilliant,
+artificial mirth, which presently, because they
+were all young and fond of one another and
+their group had the habit of intimacy, became
+less and less strained and unreal.</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s tired eyes lost something of their
+unnatural glitter, and Betty seemed more of a
+woman than a scarlet sprite, while Caroline&rsquo;s
+smile began to reflect something of the real
+gladness that possessed her soul. Dick and
+Billy took up the burden of the entertainment
+of the party, and gave at least an excellent imitation
+of inspirational gaiety.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This <i>filet of sole</i>,&rdquo; Billy observed as he sampled
+his second course appreciatively, &ldquo;is common
+or barnyard flounder,&mdash;and the shrimp
+and the oyster crab, and that mushroom of the
+sea, and the other little creature in the corner
+of my plate who shall be nameless, because I
+have no idea what his name is,&mdash;are all put in
+to make it harder.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Gaspard is using some of the simpler native
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266' ></a>266</span>
+products now instead of the high-priced imported
+ones,&rdquo; Nancy said eagerly, &ldquo;and he is
+getting wonderful results, I think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Flounder <i>a la Fran&ccedil;aise</i> is all right,&rdquo; Dick
+said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our restaurant has reformed,&rdquo; Betty said.
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re running it on a strictly business basis.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And making money?&rdquo; Dick asked quickly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not losing much,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+a great improvement.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some of those little girls from the publishing
+houses look paler to me than they did,&rdquo;
+Nancy said. &ldquo;I wish I could give them hypodermics
+of protein and carbohydrates.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Give me the name and address of any of
+your customers that worry you,&rdquo; Dick said,
+&ldquo;and I&rsquo;ll buy &rsquo;em a cow or a sugar plum tree
+or a flivver or anything else they seem to be in
+need of.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t those things tend to pauperize the
+poor?&rdquo; Caroline&rsquo;s brother put in gravely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure they do,&rdquo; Billy agreed, &ldquo;only Nancy
+has kind of given up her struggle not to pauperize them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I started in with some very high ideals about
+scientific service,&rdquo; Nancy explained. &ldquo;I was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267' ></a>267</span>
+never going to give anybody anything they
+hadn&rsquo;t actually earned in some way, except to
+bring up the average of normality by feeding
+my patrons surreptitious calories. I had it all
+figured out that the only legitimate charity was
+putting flesh on the bones of the human race,&mdash;that
+increasing the general efficiency that way
+wasn&rsquo;t really charity at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t believe that now?&rdquo; Preston Eustace
+asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I believe now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is scientific charity, anyhow?&rdquo; Dick
+looked about inquiringly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There ain&rsquo;t no such animal,&rdquo; Billy contributed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s substituting the cool human intellect for
+the warm human heart, I guess,&rdquo; Betty said
+dreamily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But that so often works,&rdquo; Caroline said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was never going to make any mistakes,&rdquo;
+Nancy said. &ldquo;I was going to keep my fists scientifically
+shut, and my heart beatifically open.&rdquo;
+She hesitated. &ldquo;I&mdash;I was going to swing my
+life, and my undertakings&mdash;right.&rdquo; It became
+increasingly hard for her to speak, and a little
+gasp went round the table. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve&mdash;I&rsquo;ve made
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268' ></a>268</span>
+nothing&mdash;nothing but mistakes,&rdquo; she finished
+piteously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you&rsquo;ve rectified them,&rdquo; Betty put in vigorously.
+&ldquo;Nancy, dear, I&rsquo;ve never known you
+to make a mistake that you haven&rsquo;t rectified,
+and that is more than I can say of any other
+person in the world.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sirloin and carrots,&rdquo; Caroline said, as the
+next course came in. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll wager you&rsquo;ve cut
+the price of this dinner in two by judicious
+ordering.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing else but field salad,&rdquo; Nancy
+said, still piteously, &ldquo;and raspberry <i>mousse</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy, you&rsquo;ll break my heart,&rdquo; Betty said,
+wiping her eyes frankly, but Nancy only looked
+at her wonderingly, wistfully, preoccupied and
+remote, while Preston Eustace gazed at Betty
+as if he too would find a welcome relief in shedding
+a heavy tear or two.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Collier Pratt has broken her heart, Dick,&rdquo;
+Betty told him in the limousine on the way
+home. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been going on ever since the first
+time she saw him. Down at the restaurant
+we&rsquo;ve all known it. She&rsquo;s been eating at his
+table every night for months, and Gaspard and
+everybody else in the place, in fact, has been a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269' ></a>269</span>
+slave to his lightest whim. I&rsquo;ve always disliked
+him intensely, myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me before, Betty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t my business to tell you. I thought
+it was coming off, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What was coming off?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Their affair. I thought it was past my
+meddling.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mean to say that you thought Nancy
+was going to marry Collier Pratt&mdash;<i>Nancy</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, yes, if I hadn&rsquo;t I&mdash;I wouldn&rsquo;t have
+acted up the way I did in your rooms that
+night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Dick neither heard nor understood her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mean to say that you think Collier
+Pratt has been making love to her?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But the damned scoundrel is married.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; Betty cried. &ldquo;<i>Oh!</i>&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t know
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve known it&mdash;I&rsquo;ve always known it,&rdquo; Dick
+said. &ldquo;I never dreamed that Nancy had any
+special interest in him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, she had. She&rsquo;s going through everything,
+Dick, even Sheila&mdash;you know how she
+loved Sheila?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270' ></a>270</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; Dick said grimly. &ldquo;Do you mind
+going on home alone, Betty? You&rsquo;ll be perfectly
+safe with Williams, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course not. What are you going to do,
+Dick? Are you going to Nancy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not going to Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Betty, looking at him more closely, realized
+for the first time that she was sitting beside a
+man in whom the rage of the primitive animal
+was gaining its ascendency. His breath was
+coming in short stertorous gasps, his hands
+were clinched, the purplish color was mounting
+to his brows, but he still went through the motions
+of a courteous leave-taking.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where are you going, Dick?&rdquo; she asked
+again, as he stood on the curb where he had
+signaled Williams to leave him, with the door
+of the car in his hand, staring down at it, and
+for the moment forgetting to close it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to find Collier Pratt,&rdquo; he said
+thickly. Then with a slam that splintered the
+hinge of the door he was holding he crashed it
+in toward the car.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271' ></a>271</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XIX_OTHER_PEOPLES_TROUBLES'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Other People&rsquo;s Troubles</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Nancy was trying conscientiously to interest
+herself in other people&rsquo;s troubles.
+After the first great shock of pain following
+her loss at a blow of her lover and Sheila, she
+began automatically to try to work her way
+through her suffering. The habit of application
+to the daily task combined with her instinct for
+taking immediate action in a crisis stood her in
+good stead in her hour of need. She decided
+what to occupy herself with, and then devoted
+herself faithfully to the prescribed occupation.</p>
+<p>The Inn did not need her. With Betty to
+guide him economically Gaspard was able to
+superintend all the details of the establishment
+adequately and artistically. Sheila was gone.
+She packed up several trunks of dresses and
+toys and other childish belongings and sent
+them to Washington Square, but even without
+these constant reminders of her, the hunger
+for the child&rsquo;s presence did not abate. The little
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272' ></a>272</span>
+girl was curiously dissociated from her father
+in Nancy&rsquo;s mind. She had seen so little
+of the two together that they seemed to belong
+to entirely different compartments of her consciousness.
+It was only the anguish of losing
+them that linked them together.</p>
+<p>Nancy decided to devote a certain proportion
+of her days and nights to remedying such evils
+as lay under her immediate observation;&mdash;to
+helping the individuals with whom she came
+into daily contact&mdash;the dependents and tradespeople
+with whom she dealt. She had always
+been convinced that the people who ministered
+to her daily comfort in New York should occupy
+some part in her scheme of existence. It was
+one of her favorite arguments that a little more
+energy and imagination on the part of New
+York citizens would develop the communal
+spirit which was so painfully lacking in the
+soul of the average Manhattanite.</p>
+<p>So the milkman and the corner grocer, the
+newspaper man, and Hitty&rsquo;s small brood of
+grand nieces and nephews, to say nothing of the
+Italian fruit man&rsquo;s family, and her laundress&rsquo;s
+invalid daughter, were all occupying a considerable
+place in Nancy&rsquo;s daily schedule. In a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273' ></a>273</span>
+very short interval she had the welfare of more
+than half a dozen families on her hands, and
+was involved in all manner of enterprises of a
+domestic nature,&mdash;from the designing of confirmation
+gowns to the purchase of rubber-tired
+rolling chairs, and heterogeneous woolen garments
+and other intimate necessities.</p>
+<p>She was a little ashamed of her new line of
+activities, and still hurt enough to shun the
+scrutiny of her friends, and thereby succeeded
+in mystifying and alarming Billy and Dick and
+Betty and Caroline almost beyond the limit of
+their endurance by resolutely keeping them at
+arm&rsquo;s length. She was supremely unconscious
+of anything at all remarkable in her behavior,
+and believed that they accepted her excuses and
+apologies at their face value. She had no conception
+of the fact that her tortured face, with
+tragedy looking newly out of her eyes, kept
+them from their rest at night.</p>
+<p>Sheila wrote to thank her for sending the
+trunks.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>&ldquo;My dear, <i>ma ch&egrave;re</i>, Miss Dear,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;<i>Merci beaucoup pour</i> my clothes and other
+beautiful things. I like them. <i>Je t&rsquo;aime&mdash;je
+t&rsquo;aime toujours</i>. My father will not permit me
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274' ></a>274</span>
+to go back. <i>Comme</i>&mdash;how I desire to see you!
+My father has been sick. He fell down or was
+hurt in the street. There was blood&mdash;a great
+deal. Are they well&mdash;the others? Tell Monsieur
+Dick I give him <i>tout mon coeur</i>. Come to
+see me if it is <i>permit</i>. No more. You could
+write <i>peut-&ecirc;tre</i>. <i>Je t&rsquo;aime</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p class='ralign'>&ldquo;Yours,<span class='rindent8'>&nbsp;</span><br />
+&ldquo;<span class='smcap'>Sheila.</span>&rdquo;<span class='rindent2'>&nbsp;</span></p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>Nancy read this letter, in the quaint childish
+hand, with a great wave of dumb sickness
+creeping over her&mdash;a devastating, disintegrating
+nausea of soul and body. The most significant
+fact in it, however, that Collier Pratt had
+fallen down &ldquo;or been hurt in the street,&rdquo; of
+course escaped her entirely, except to stir her
+with a kind of dim pity for his distress.</p>
+<p>In one of her long night vigils Preston Eustace&rsquo;s
+face came back to her oddly. She remembered
+suddenly the strange sad way he had
+stared at Betty on the evening of her party at
+the Inn. She reconstructed Betty&rsquo;s love-story,
+and its sudden breaking off, three years before,
+and with her new insight into the human heart,
+decided that these two loved each other still,
+and must be helped to the consummation of
+their happiness. She telephoned to them both
+the next day that they could be of service to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275' ></a>275</span>
+her; and made an appointment to meet them at
+a given hour the next evening at her apartment.</p>
+<p>She expected and intended to be there herself
+to give the meeting the semblance of coincidence,
+and to offer them the hospitality of her
+house before she was inspired with the excuse
+that would permit her an exit that left them
+alone together; but she found herself in the
+slums of Harlem by an Italian baby&rsquo;s bedside at
+that hour, and decided that even to telephone
+would be superfluous, as once finding each other
+the lovers would be oblivious to all other considerations.</p>
+<p>What actually happened was that Preston
+Eustace, exactly on time as was his habit, had
+been waiting some ten minutes on Nancy&rsquo;s
+hearth-rug when Betty, delayed by the eccentricities
+of a casual motor-bus engine, and frantic
+with anxiety for her friend, burst in upon
+him. So full was she of the most hectic speculations
+concerning Nancy&rsquo;s sudden appeal to
+her that she scarcely noticed who was waiting
+there to greet her, and when she did notice,
+scarcely heeded that recognition.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Nancy?&rdquo; she demanded breathlessly.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_276' ></a>276</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, Betty,&rdquo; Preston Eustace said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t Hitty know?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She says she doesn&rsquo;t!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How did you happen to be here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She sent for me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s probably sent for everybody else,&rdquo;
+Betty said. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s killed herself, I know she
+has.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What makes you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Her heart is broken, she&rsquo;s been suffering
+terribly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think she would have sent for me
+if she had been going to kill herself,&rdquo; Preston
+Eustace said, a little as if he would have added,
+&ldquo;We are not on those terms.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose she would,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;But
+oh, Preston, I&rsquo;m so worried about her. I don&rsquo;t
+know where she is or anything. I tell you her
+heart is broken.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know you believed in hearts&mdash;broken
+or otherwise, Betty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe in Nancy&rsquo;s heart.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You never believed in mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You never gave me much reason to, Preston.
+You&mdash;you let me give you back your ring the
+first time I threatened to.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_277' ></a>277</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I did.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You never came near me again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You let three years go by without a word.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you say &lsquo;of course I did&rsquo; again I&rsquo;ll fly
+straight up through this roof. If you&rsquo;d ever
+loved me you wouldn&rsquo;t have gone away and
+left me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I hadn&rsquo;t loved you I wouldn&rsquo;t have gone
+away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear,&rdquo; Betty sighed. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how
+you can stand there and think about yourself
+with Nancy out in the night&mdash;we don&rsquo;t know
+where.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ourselves, Betty&mdash;did you ever really love
+me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t make any difference whether I
+did or not,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;I hate men.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;d better be going,&rdquo; Preston Eustace
+said, his face dark with pain. He was
+rather a literal-minded young man, as Caroline&rsquo;s
+brother would have been likely to be.</p>
+<p>Betty buried her face in her hands.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My head aches,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I was never
+in my life so mad and so miserable. I can&rsquo;t
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_278' ></a>278</span>
+understand why everything and everybody
+should behave so&mdash;devilishly. You and every
+one else, I mean. I just simply can&rsquo;t bear to
+have Nancy suffer so. My head aches and my
+heart aches and my soul aches.&rdquo; She lifted her
+head defiantly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think I had better be going,&rdquo; Preston Eustace
+repeated, looking down at her sorrowfully.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! don&rsquo;t be going,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;What in
+the name of sense do you want to be going for?&rdquo;
+Then without warning or premeditation she
+hurled herself at his breast. &ldquo;Oh! Preston, if
+there is anything comforting in this world,&rdquo;
+she said, &ldquo;tell it to me, now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Preston Eustace gathered her to his breast
+with infinite tenderness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I love you,&rdquo; he said with his lips on her
+brow. &ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t that comfort you a little?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she admitted, &ldquo;yes,&rdquo; winding her arms
+about his neck, &ldquo;but you have no idea what a
+little devil I am, Preston.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to have any idea,&rdquo; he said, still
+holding her hungrily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t think you do,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;Oh!
+kiss me again, dear, and tell me you won&rsquo;t ever
+let me go now.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_279' ></a>279</span></div>
+<p>When Nancy came in she found the lovers so
+oblivious to the sound of her key in the latch or
+her footstep in the corridor that she decided to
+slip into bed without disturbing them, and did
+so, without their ever realizing that for the latter
+part of the evening at least, they had a
+hostess within range of the sound of their voices&mdash;indeed,
+she was obliged to stuff the pillow
+into her ears to prevent herself from actually
+hearing what they were saying.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>At first her freedom&mdash;her release from the
+monotonous constraint of her daily confinement
+at the Inn&mdash;the unaccustomed independence of
+her new activities which justified her most
+untoward goings and comings&mdash;was very soothing
+to her. She liked the feeling of slipping out
+of the house at night, accountable to no one
+except the redoubtable Hitty to whom she presented
+any explanation that happened to occur
+to her,&mdash;however wide its departure from the
+actual facts&mdash;and losing herself in the resurgent
+town. But after a while her liberty lost its
+savor. She began to feel uncared for and neglected.
+The unaccountable anguish in her
+breast was neither assuaged nor mitigated by
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_280' ></a>280</span>
+the geographical latitude she permitted herself.
+She kept doggedly on with her personally conducted
+philanthropies, but she began to feel a
+little frightened about her capacity for endurance.
+Her body and brain began to show
+strange signs of fatigue. She was afraid that
+one or the other might suddenly refuse to
+function.</p>
+<p>One night, on coming out into the heterogeneous
+human stream on Avenue A, after a visit
+to a Polish family in the model tenements on
+Seventy-ninth Street, she ran into Dick.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Dick,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;what an extraordinary
+place to find you!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My business often
+brings me up this way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your business? What business?&rdquo; she asked
+incredulously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know exactly what business it is.
+The ministering business, I guess.&rdquo; He motioned
+toward the basket on her arm: &ldquo;Let me
+carry that, and you, too, if you&rsquo;ll let me, Nancy.
+You look tired.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am tired, Dick,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Have you got
+a car anywhere around?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can phone for it in two shakes,&rdquo; he said.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_281' ></a>281</span>
+&ldquo;Here in this ice-cream parlor. Can I buy you
+a cone while you&rsquo;re waiting?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Buy cones for that crowd of children and I&rsquo;ll
+watch them eat them. Doesn&rsquo;t that little girl
+in the pink dress look like Sheila, Dick?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She sank down on a stool in the interior of
+the candy shop and rested her elbows on the
+damp marble table in front of her, splotched
+and streaked still with the refreshment of the
+last customer who occupied the seat there and
+watched the horde of dirty clamorous street
+children devouring ice-cream cones and cheap
+sweets to the limit of their capacity.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know you believed in this promiscuous
+feeding of children between meals,&rdquo; Dick
+said, when she was settled comfortably at last
+among the cushions of his car, which had arrived
+on the scene with an amazing, not to say,
+suspicious promptness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;in the least; but I
+don&rsquo;t <i>really</i> believe in the things I believe in
+any more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Nancy!&rdquo; Dick said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had some trouble, Dick. I&rsquo;m shaken all
+out of my poise. I can&rsquo;t seem to get my universe
+straight again.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_282' ></a>282</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry for that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Anything I
+can do?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stand by; that&rsquo;s all, I guess.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You couldn&rsquo;t tell me a little more about it,
+could you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I couldn&rsquo;t, Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not even to guess?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You couldn&rsquo;t guess. It&rsquo;s the kind of thing
+that&rsquo;s entirely outside of&mdash;of the probabilities.
+I think it&rsquo;s outside of the range of your understanding,
+Dick. I don&rsquo;t think you know that
+there is exactly that kind of trouble in the
+world.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you think you&rsquo;d better not enlighten
+me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t, Dick, even if I wanted to. Funny
+you happened to be in this part of town to-night
+just when I really needed you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He smiled. Every night of his life he followed her,
+watching over her, dodging down
+dark alley ways, waiting at squalid entrances
+until she came out. To-night he had ventured
+to speak to her only because he knew her to be
+in need of actual physical assistance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Awfully glad to be anywhere around when
+you need me,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;still I hope you don&rsquo;t
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283' ></a>283</span>
+mind my suggesting that this is a Gehenna of a
+place for either of us to be in.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you any feeling for the downtrodden?&rdquo;
+Nancy asked, with a faint reflection of
+what Billy referred to as her &ldquo;older and better
+manner.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m downtrodden myself, Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She smiled in her turn.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t look very downtrodden to me,&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;<i>You&rsquo;ve</i> got everything to live for.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Everything?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, money and freedom and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Money is the only thing I&rsquo;ve got that you
+haven&rsquo;t, and that doesn&rsquo;t mean much unless you
+can share it with the person you love.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, it doesn&rsquo;t, does it?&rdquo; Nancy said unexpectedly.
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that scar on your forehead?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a scratch I got.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shaving or fighting, or something like that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Was</i> it fighting, Dick?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who were you fighting with?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t fighting. I was assaulting and
+battering.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_284' ></a>284</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Dick!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s any satisfaction to you to know it I
+made one grand job of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why should it be any satisfaction to me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Dick!&rdquo; Nancy said again. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t
+know you had any of that kind of brutality in
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What happens to a man when he&mdash;does a
+thing like that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He gets jugged.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did he get jugged?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, that wasn&rsquo;t the part that interested
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>An odd picture presented itself to Nancy&rsquo;s
+mind of the men of the world engaged in one
+grand m&ecirc;l&eacute;e of brawling; struggling, belaying
+one another with their bare fists, drawing
+blood; brutes turned on brutes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Men are queer things,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>Dick&rsquo;s face was turned away from her. It
+was not at the moment a face she would have
+recognized. The eyes were contracted: the
+nostrils quivering: the teeth set.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m always at your service, Nancy,&rdquo; he said
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285' ></a>285</span>
+presently. &ldquo;Is there anything in the world you
+want that I can get for you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The only thing I want is something you
+can&rsquo;t get?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And that is?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sheila.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Dick said. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t get Sheila for you.
+I&rsquo;m sorry. I suppose that&rsquo;s the whole answer
+to you,&rdquo; he went on musingly. &ldquo;You want
+something, somebody to mother&mdash;to minister
+to. It doesn&rsquo;t make so much difference what
+else it is, so long as it&rsquo;s&mdash;downtrodden. That&rsquo;s
+why I&rsquo;ve never made more of a hit with you.
+I&rsquo;ve never been downtrodden enough. I didn&rsquo;t
+need feeding or nursing. I&rsquo;ve always sort of
+cherished the feeling that I liked to be the one
+creature you didn&rsquo;t have to carry on your back.
+I thought that to stand behind <i>you</i> was a pretty
+good stunt, but you&rsquo;ve never needed anything
+yet to fall back on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I ever shall,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;Not,&mdash;not in the way you mean, Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So be it,&rdquo; he said, folding his arms. &ldquo;But
+there&rsquo;s still one thing you&rsquo;ll take from me, and
+that&rsquo;s the thing I&rsquo;ve got that you haven&rsquo;t&mdash;money.
+I never have cared much about it
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_286' ></a>286</span>
+before, but now that there are so many things
+I can&rsquo;t put right for you, I know you won&rsquo;t be
+selfish enough to deny this one satisfaction.
+Let me make over to you all the money you need
+to get you out of your difficulties with the Inn.
+Let me hand out a good round sum for all these
+charities of yours. If you knew how everything
+else in connection with you had conspired
+to hurt me,&mdash;how this being discounted and losing
+out all around has cut into me, you wouldn&rsquo;t
+deny me this one privilege. You don&rsquo;t want
+<i>me</i>, you wouldn&rsquo;t take me, but for God&rsquo;s sake,
+Nancy, take this one thing that I can give you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They had just swung into the lower entrance
+of the Park, and the big car was speeding silently
+into the deepening night, low hung with
+silver stars, and jeweled with soft lights.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re awfully good to me, Dick,&rdquo; Nancy
+said, &ldquo;and I appreciate every word you&rsquo;ve been
+saying. I&rsquo;d take your money, not for myself,
+but for the things I&rsquo;m doing, if I needed it, but
+I don&rsquo;t, you know.&rdquo; She looked out into the
+coolness of the evening, lulled by the transition
+to a region of so much airiness and space,
+soothed by the soft motion, and the presence of
+a friend who loved her. The conversation in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287' ></a>287</span>
+which she was engaged suddenly became trivial
+and unimportant to her. She was very tired,
+and she found herself beginning to rest and
+relax. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t need it,&rdquo; she repeated vaguely.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got plenty of money of my own. Over a
+million, Billy says now. Uncle Elijah left it to
+me. I didn&rsquo;t want him to, but perhaps it was
+all for the best.&rdquo; She put her head back against
+the cushions and shut her eyes. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m terribly
+sleepy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and as for the Inn&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+making money, too, you know. Last month we
+cleared more than two hundred dollars.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And Dick saying nothing, but continuing to
+stare into space&mdash;the panoramic space fleeting
+rhythmically by the car window,&mdash;she let herself
+gradually slip into the depths of sudden
+drowsiness that had overtaken her.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_288' ></a>288</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XX_HITTY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Hitty</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Hitty put on her bonnet&mdash;she had worn
+widow&rsquo;s weeds for twenty-five years&mdash;and
+went out into the morning. She finally
+succeeded in boarding a south-bound Sixth
+Avenue car,&mdash;though since it was her habit to
+ignore the near side stop regulation, she always
+had considerable trouble in getting on any car,&mdash;and
+in seating herself bolt upright on the
+lengthwise seat, her black gloved hands folded
+indomitably before her.</p>
+<p>At Fourth Street she descended and made
+her way east to the square, and thence to the
+top floor of the studio building to which Collier
+Pratt had taken his little daughter on the memorable
+occasion when he had plucked her from
+her warm nest of blankets and led her, sleepy
+and shivering, into the cold of the night. She
+had been at some pains to secure the address
+without taking Nancy into her confidence.</p>
+<p>She took each creaking stair with a snort of
+disgust, and reaching the battered door with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_289' ></a>289</span>
+Collier Pratt&rsquo;s visiting card tacked on the
+smeary panel on a level with her eye, she
+knocked sharply, and scorning to wait for a reply,
+turned the knob and walked in.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt was making coffee on a small
+spirit lamp, set on the wash-stand, which was
+decorously concealed during the more formal
+hours of the day behind a soft colored Japanese
+screen. He was wearing a smutty painter&rsquo;s
+smock, and though his face was shining with
+soap and water, his hair was standing about
+his face in a disorder eloquent of at least a
+dozen hours&rsquo; neglect. Sheila, in a mussy gingham
+dress, was trying to pry off the pasteboard
+covering of a pint bottle of milk with a pair of
+scissors, and succeeding only indifferently. They
+both turned on Hitty&rsquo;s entrance, and the milk
+bottle went crashing to the floor when the little
+girl recognized her friend, but after one terrified
+look at her father she made no move at all
+in Hitty&rsquo;s direction.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And to what,&rdquo; Collier Pratt ejaculated
+slowly and disagreeably, as is any man&rsquo;s wont
+before he has had his draught of breakfast
+coffee, &ldquo;am I to attribute the pleasure of this
+visit?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290' ></a>290</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It ain&rsquo;t no pleasure to me,&rdquo; Hitty said, advancing,
+a figure of menace, into the center of
+the dusty workshop, strangely uncouth and unprepossessing
+in the cold morning light,&mdash;&ldquo;and
+if it&rsquo;s any pleasure to you, that&rsquo;s an effect that
+I ain&rsquo;t calculated to produce. I&rsquo;ve come here on
+business&mdash;the business of collecting that poor
+neglected child there, and taking her back
+where she belongs, where there&rsquo;s folks that
+knows enough to treat her right.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Another of Miss Martin&rsquo;s friends and well-wishers,
+I take it. These American girls are
+given to surrounding themselves with groups
+of warm and impulsive associates. Do you by
+any chance happen to know a young lawyer by
+the name of Boynton, Hitty? A collection
+lawyer?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll thank you to call me Mrs. Spinney, if you
+please, or if you don&rsquo;t please. Mrs. Spinney is
+the name I go by when I&rsquo;m spoken to by them
+that knows their manners. If Billy Boynton
+thinks he can collect blood out of a stone he&rsquo;s
+welcome to try, but I should think he was too
+long headed to waste his time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I gave him my I. O. U.,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said
+wearily. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t mind, Hitty,&mdash;I really
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291' ></a>291</span>
+must be excused from your inexcusable surname&mdash;I
+am going to drink a cup of coffee before
+we continue this interesting discussion&mdash;<i>caf&eacute;
+noir</i>, our late unfortunate accident depriving
+me of <i>caf&eacute; au lait</i> as usual. Sheila, get the
+cups.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t mean to say that you feed that
+peaked child with full strength coffee, do you?
+It&rsquo;ll stunt her growth; ain&rsquo;t you got the sense
+to know that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like <i>big</i> women,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said.
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s very fond of coffee.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well! I&rsquo;ve come to get her and take her
+away where you won&rsquo;t be in a position to stunt
+her growth, whatever your ideas on the subject
+is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt seated himself at the deal table
+that Sheila had set with the coffee-cups and a
+big loaf of French bread, and began slowly
+consuming a bowl of inky fluid, strong of chicory,
+into which from time to time he dipped a
+portion of the loaf. Sheila imitated his processes
+with less daintiness and precision, since
+she was shaken with excitement at Hitty&rsquo;s
+appearance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should spread a newspaper down if I was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292' ></a>292</span>
+you,&rdquo; Hitty said, &ldquo;before I et my vittles off a
+table that way. If a table ain&rsquo;t scrubbed as
+often as twice a day it ain&rsquo;t fit to be et off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know your breed,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;d be capable of taking your breakfast off
+<i>The Evening Telegram</i> if no more appropriately
+colored sheet were at hand. Tell me, did Miss
+Martin send you here this morning, or was the
+inspiration to come entirely your own?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nobody had to send me. Wild horses
+wouldn&rsquo;t have kept me away from here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nor drag you away from here, I suppose,
+until your gruesome visit is accomplished.
+What makes you think that I would give up
+Sheila to you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t <i>think</i> you would. I know you&rsquo;re
+a-goin&rsquo; to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Indeed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We want the child. You don&rsquo;t want her,
+and you can&rsquo;t pretend to me that you do. Even
+if you did want her you can&rsquo;t take care of her
+in no way that&rsquo;s decent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a great deal in what you say, Hitty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What you&rsquo;re going to do is to sign a paper
+giving up your claim to her, and then Nancy
+can adopt her when she sees fitting to do so.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_293' ></a>293</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;What would you suggest my doing about the
+child&rsquo;s mother? She has a mother living, you
+know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I didn&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Hitty said, &ldquo;but now
+I do know I guess I ain&rsquo;t going to have so much
+trouble as I thought I was. You&rsquo;re just a plain
+low-down yellow cur that any likely man I know
+would come down here and lick the lights out
+of.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, don&rsquo;t send any more of them, Hitty,&rdquo;
+Collier Pratt protested. &ldquo;My work won&rsquo;t
+stand it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You &rsquo;tend to the child&rsquo;s mother then, and
+I&rsquo;ll &rsquo;tend to you. You&rsquo;d better let Sheila come
+away peaceable without any more trouble.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you propose doing to me if I don&rsquo;t?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s so many different things I could
+use,&rdquo; Hitty said thoughtfully, &ldquo;that I don&rsquo;t
+know which one to hold over your head first.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how you could use anything
+you&rsquo;ve got.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d just as soon use something I hadn&rsquo;t got,&rdquo;
+Hitty said grimly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d sue you for breach o&rsquo;
+promise myself ruther than lose what I come
+after.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t doubt you&rsquo;re capable of it,&rdquo; Collier
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_294' ></a>294</span>
+Pratt said, surveying her ruefully. &ldquo;That certainly
+would ruin my reputation. But seriously,
+supposing I were to give my consent to
+Sheila&rsquo;s going back to Miss Martin&mdash;Sheila&rsquo;s
+fond of her, and I should be very glad to do
+Miss Martin a service&mdash;little as you may be inclined
+to believe it of me. I&rsquo;m fond enough of
+the child, but she is a considerable embarrassment
+to a man situated as I am. Supposing I
+should consent to giving her up as you suggest,
+how can a woman situated as Miss Martin is
+situated undertake such a charge permanently?
+How could she afford it? What kind of a future
+should I be surrendering my little girl to?
+One has to think of those things. Miss Martin is
+a poor girl&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lucky thing that you didn&rsquo;t know it
+before,&rdquo; Hitty said deliberately. &ldquo;What you
+don&rsquo;t know that a woman&rsquo;s got, you wouldn&rsquo;t be
+trying to get away from her. Nancy&rsquo;s Uncle
+Elijah that died last year left her a million
+dollars in his will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The devil he did&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I guess if anybody&rsquo;s going to talk about
+devils it had better be me,&rdquo; Hitty said dryly.
+&ldquo;Does the child go or stay?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295' ></a>295</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! she goes,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+sorry you didn&rsquo;t come after me too, Hitty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nobody from up our way is ever coming
+after you. You can put that in your pipe and
+smoke it. Put on your bonnet, Sheila.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In some ways that is more of a relief than
+you know, Hitty. Some of the young men from
+up your way are so violent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It ain&rsquo;t generally known yet,&rdquo; Hitty said as
+a parting shot when, Sheila&rsquo;s hand in hers, she
+stood at the door preparatory to taking her
+triumphal departure. &ldquo;But Nancy is going to
+marry considerable money in addition to what
+she&rsquo;s inherited.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy finding it impossible to spend an hour
+of her time idly and with no appointments before
+noon that day, was engaged in darning a
+basket full of slum socks that she had brought
+home from the tenements to occupy Hitty&rsquo;s leisure
+moments. She was not very expert at
+this particular task, and the holes were so huge,
+and their method of behaving under scientific
+management so peculiar&mdash;it is hardly necessary
+to say that Nancy knew the theory of
+darning perfectly&mdash;that she was becoming more
+and more dissatisfied with her progress. Hitty&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_296' ></a>296</span>
+unprecedented and taciturn donning of her best
+bonnet in the early morning hours, followed by
+her abrupt departure without explanation or
+apology, was also a little disconcerting to any
+one acquainted with her habits. Nancy was relieved
+to hear her key in the lock again, and put
+down her work to greet her.</p>
+<p>The door opened and Sheila stood on the
+threshold. Hitty was close behind her, but
+Nancy had eyes only for the child.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry, Miss Dear,&rdquo; Sheila said, in her
+arms. &ldquo;I cried hard every night when I was
+gone from you, but now I have come back. My
+father does not want me, and he says that you
+can have me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He signed a paper,&rdquo; Hitty said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got
+it in my bag with my specs. If ever he shows
+his face around here we can have the law on
+him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can I really have Sheila?&rdquo; Nancy cried. &ldquo;I
+can&rsquo;t believe that&mdash;her father would let her go.
+I can&rsquo;t understand it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a kind of a poor soul,&rdquo; Hitty said. &ldquo;He
+ain&rsquo;t got no real contrivance. He&rsquo;s glad enough
+to get rid of her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did he say so?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297' ></a>297</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, nearabout. He has a high-falutin way
+of talking but that was the amount of it. He
+knows which side his bread is buttered. He
+ain&rsquo;t nobody&rsquo;s fool. I&rsquo;ll say that for him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say that you make him out a very
+pleasant character,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s an
+artist, Hitty. Artists don&rsquo;t react to the same
+set of laws that we do. They&rsquo;re different somehow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They ain&rsquo;t so different, when it comes to
+that,&rdquo; Hitty said dryly. &ldquo;They won&rsquo;t take a
+hint, but the harder you kick &rsquo;em the better for
+all concerned. Don&rsquo;t you go sticking up for
+that low-down loon. He ain&rsquo;t worth it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose he isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;he&rsquo;s a
+pretty poor apology for a man as we understand
+men, Hitty, but there&rsquo;s something about him,&mdash;a
+power and a charm that you can&rsquo;t altogether
+discount, even though you have lost every particle
+of your respect for him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He has a kind of way,&rdquo; Hitty conceded, &ldquo;but
+I ain&rsquo;t one o&rsquo; them kind o&rsquo; women that hankers
+much for the society of a man that&rsquo;s once shown
+himself to be more of a sneak than the average.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that I am, either,&rdquo; Nancy said
+gravely.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298' ></a>298</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I want to be your little girl always,&rdquo; Sheila
+announced, &ldquo;if I may talk now, may I? And
+Monsieur Dick&rsquo;s, too, and sit on a cushion and
+sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries,
+sugar and cream. I want to see Monsieur Dick.
+Where is he?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been sick,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but he&rsquo;s getting
+better now, I think. I haven&rsquo;t seen him
+for some time, myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you love him very much and aren&rsquo;t
+you very sorry?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He probably isn&rsquo;t very sick,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think he could be&mdash;but if he were I
+should be sorry, of course.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want him to be sick,&rdquo; Sheila said,
+making herself a nest in Nancy&rsquo;s lap, and curling
+around in it like a kitten. &ldquo;If he was I
+should be very, very unhappy, and I am tired
+of being unhappy, Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s arms closed tight about her little
+body, which was lighter in her arms than she
+had ever known it. &ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;m going to make
+such a strong well, little girl of you,&rdquo; she cried,
+&ldquo;and we&rsquo;re going to have so many pleasant
+times together. I&rsquo;m tired of being unhappy,
+too, Sheila, dear.&rdquo;</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_299' ></a>299</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XXI_LOHENGRIN_AND_WHITE_SATIN'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Lohengrin and White Satin</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Dick, having la grippe, and doing his
+bewildered best to get pneumonia and gastritis
+by creeping out of bed when his temperature
+was highest, and indulging in untrammelled
+orgies of food and drink and exposure to
+draughts, had finally succeeded in making himself
+physically very miserable indeed. His
+mind had been out of joint for weeks. He
+reached the phase presently of refusing all
+nourishment and spiritual consolation, indiscriminately,
+and finding himself unbenefited by
+these heroic methods, decided in his own mind
+that all was over with him.</p>
+<p>He knew nothing about sickness, having led
+a charmed life in that respect since the measles
+period, and the persistent misery in his interior,
+attacking lung and liver impartially,&mdash;to
+say nothing of the top of his head and the back
+of his neck, and as his weakness increased, his
+cardiac region where there was a perpetual palpitation,
+and the calves of his legs which set
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300' ></a>300</span>
+up an ache like that of a recalcitrant tooth,&mdash;persuaded
+him that such suffering as his must
+be a certain indication of the approaching end.
+He had dismissed his doctor after the first visit,
+and denying himself to visitors, found himself
+alone and apparently in a desperate condition,
+with no one to minister to him but paid dependents.
+It was then that the loss of Nancy
+began to assume spectral proportions. He had
+been so long accustomed to think of himself as
+the strong silent lover, equipped with the patience
+and understanding that would outlast all
+the vagaries of Nancy&rsquo;s adventurous tendencies,
+that it was difficult to readjust himself to a new
+conception of her as a woman that another and
+even less worthy man had so nearly won,&mdash;under
+his nose.</p>
+<p>He had never thought much of his money
+until it began to acquire the virtue of an alkahest
+in his mind, an universal solvent that
+would transmute all the baser metals in Nancy&rsquo;s
+life and the lives of the people in whom Nancy
+was interested, into the pure gold of luxury and
+ease. He knew that the conventional fairy gifts
+would mean very little to her, but he had dreamed,
+when she was ready, of working out with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_301' ></a>301</span>
+her some practicable and gracious scheme of
+beneficence. There was one power she coveted
+that he could put in her hands,&mdash;one way that
+he could befriend and relieve her even before
+she conceded him that prerogative. When he
+learned that she had a fortune of her own his
+hopes came tumbling about his head, and he lay
+disconsolate among the ruins. His creeping
+physical disability seemed significant of the
+cataclysmic overthrow of all his dreams and
+desires. From having secretly and in some
+terror arrived at the conclusion that death was
+imminent, he began to look upon such a solution
+of his misery with some favor.</p>
+<p>It was a very gaunt and hollow-eyed caricature
+of the Dick she had known that confronted
+Nancy, when instigated by Betty, who
+had his illness heavily on her mind, she forced
+her way unannounced into the curious Georgian
+living-room of the suite wherein he was incarcerated.
+He had been stretched in an attitude
+of abandon on the couch when she opened the
+oak paneled door, but he jumped to his feet in
+a spasm of rage and alarm when he discovered
+that he had a visitor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Go away,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am not able to see
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_302' ></a>302</span>
+anybody. There&rsquo;s a mistake. I gave strict
+orders that nobody at all was to be admitted.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know, Dick,&rdquo; Nancy said gently, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t
+blame your faithful servitors. I thought I
+should have to use a gun on them, but I explained
+to them that you must be looked after.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to be looked after. I&rsquo;m all
+right, thank you. Are you alone?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, Hitty&rsquo;s outside. Betty simply insisted
+on my bringing her,&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know why, but
+she said you&rsquo;d be kinder to me if I did. I
+don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;re very kind.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A flicker of a smile crossed Dick&rsquo;s face, which
+seemed to say that if anything could bring back
+a momentary relish of existence the mention of
+Betty&rsquo;s name would be that thing. Nancy saw
+the expression and misinterpreted it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to see anybody,&rdquo; Dick repeated
+firmly. &ldquo;Will you be good enough to go away
+and leave me to my misery?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;I never left anybody
+to their misery yet, and I&rsquo;m not going to
+begin on you. Of course, if you&rsquo;d rather see
+Betty, I&rsquo;ll send for her. She seems to know a
+good deal about your habits and customs. You
+look like a monk in that bathrobe. I&rsquo;m glad
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_303' ></a>303</span>
+you&rsquo;re not a fat man, Dick. It&rsquo;s so very hard to
+calculate just how much to cut down on starches
+and sweets without injury to the health. What
+are you feeding up on?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know very well that I&rsquo;m not feeding
+up on anything, but if you think you can come
+around here, and dope out one of your darned
+health menus for me, and sit around watching
+me eat it, you are jolly well mistaken. I wish
+you&rsquo;d go home, Nancy. I don&rsquo;t like you to-day.
+I don&rsquo;t like myself or anybody in this whole
+universe. I&rsquo;m not fit for human society&mdash;don&rsquo;t
+you see I&rsquo;m not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re awful cross, dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t call me dear. I&rsquo;m not Sheila or one
+of your sick waitresses, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sheila&rsquo;s back.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is she?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you care?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I suppose so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She loves you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s unique.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You told me once there were other girls,
+Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re all over it by now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dick, can&rsquo;t I do something for you?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_304' ></a>304</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, leave me alone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen you like this before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, thank God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know you were ever anything but
+sort of smug and superior.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Grand description.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to be in bed, dear&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t mean
+to call you dear, it slipped out, Dicky,&mdash;and taking
+nourishment every hour or so. What does
+the doctor say?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing, he&rsquo;s given me up as a bad job.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Given you up?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, there&rsquo;s nothing he can do for me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Dick, my dear, what is it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! lungs or liver or something. I don&rsquo;t
+know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are you taking, Dick?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you I can&rsquo;t take anything,&rdquo; he said,
+misunderstanding her. &ldquo;It makes me sick to
+eat. Every time I try to eat anything I feel a
+lot worse for it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When did you try last?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yesterday some time. Now what in the
+name of sense makes a woman shed tears at a
+simple statement like that? I&rsquo;m not in shape
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305' ></a>305</span>
+to stand this. Once and for all, Nancy, will
+you get out and leave me? I tell you I never
+wanted to see you less in my life. I&rsquo;ll write
+you a letter and apologize if you&rsquo;ll only go,
+now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ll go,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t really
+believe that you wanted me to,&mdash;that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She started for the door&mdash;but Dick, weakened
+by lack of food, tortured beyond his endurance
+by the sudden assault on his nerves made by
+Nancy&rsquo;s appearance, gave way to his relief at
+her going an instant too soon. Like a small
+boy in pain he crooked his elbow and covered
+his face with his arm.</p>
+<p>Nancy ran to him and knelt at his side, taking
+his head on her breast.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you do want me. We want
+each other. You love me, Dicky, and I am going
+to love you&mdash;if you&rsquo;ll only let me look after
+you and nurse you back to health again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to be nursed,&rdquo; Dick blubbered,
+his head buried in her bosom, &ldquo;I want to look
+out for you, and take care of you, and&mdash;and
+now look at me. You&rsquo;ll never love me after this,
+Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_306' ></a>306</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I shall, dear,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always
+loved you somehow. It&rsquo;ll&mdash;it&rsquo;ll be the saving
+of me, Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then I do want to be nursed. I&mdash;I
+haven&rsquo;t cried before since I had the measles,
+Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you cried, now, then,&rdquo; Nancy said.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;ll want to be married in the
+courtyard of the Inn,&rdquo; Dick said some weeks
+later, when they were conventionally ensconced
+in Nancy&rsquo;s own drawing-room; Hitty happily
+rattling silverware in the butler&rsquo;s pantry in the
+rear, &ldquo;with old Triton blowing his wreathed
+horn above us, and all the nymphs and gargoyles
+and Hercules as interested spectators.
+Well, go as far as you like. I haven&rsquo;t any
+objection. I&rsquo;ll be married in a Roman bath if
+you want me to, and eat bran biscuit and hygienic
+apple sauce for my wedding breakfast.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty and Preston are going to be married
+at the Inn,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;you know her
+mother&rsquo;s an invalid, and they can&rsquo;t have it at
+home. Do you know what I&rsquo;d like to give them
+as a wedding present?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_307' ></a>307</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you know, Preston&rsquo;s firm has gone out
+of existence. The war simply killed it. They
+haven&rsquo;t much money ahead, and he may have
+a harder time than he thinks getting located
+again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought I&rsquo;d like to give them Outside
+Inn for a wedding present. Besides, I don&rsquo;t
+see what else there is to do with it. It&rsquo;s making
+several hundred a month, now, and promises
+to make more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good idea,&rdquo; Dick said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t seem exceedingly interested.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I am,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m more interested in
+our wedding than Betty&rsquo;s wedding present, but
+that doesn&rsquo;t imply a lack of merit in your idea.
+<i>You&rsquo;ll</i> want to be married at the Inn, I take
+it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;d let me, wouldn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure I&rsquo;d let you. When a man marries a
+modern girl with all the trappings and the
+suits of modernity, he ought to be prepared to
+take the consequences cheerfully.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;m going to surprise you. I don&rsquo;t
+want anything modern at all about my wedding.
+I want it in church with a huge bridal bouquet
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308' ></a>308</span>
+and <i>Lohengrin</i> and white satin; Caroline
+for my matron of honor and Betty for my
+bridesmaid, and Sheila for flower girl. I want
+a wedding breakfast at the Ritz and rice and
+old shoes&mdash;just all the old traditional things.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Gee whiz,&rdquo; Dick ejaculated, &ldquo;is this
+straight, or are you only making it up to sound
+good to me? You can have it anyway you like
+it, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way I like it,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+good to be a modern girl, but I really prefer to
+be an old-fashioned wife&mdash;with reservations,&rdquo;
+she added hastily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what we all come to in the end,&rdquo;
+Dick said, &ldquo;no matter how we feel or think
+we feel about it&mdash;being modern with reservations.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I saw Collier Pratt to-day,&rdquo; Nancy said
+suddenly, as she watched a log split apart in the
+fireplace and scatter its tiny shower of sparks,
+&ldquo;on the avenue.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick carefully stamped out two smoldering
+places on the rug before he answered.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did you?&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He had a cheap little creature with him,
+dark haired in messy cerise.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_309' ></a>309</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It may have been his wife. I hear that she&rsquo;s
+living with him again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is she?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy,&rdquo; Dick said with an effort, after a
+few minutes of silence, &ldquo;are you all over that?
+Is it really fair and right of me to take you?
+I&rsquo;ve been puzzling over that lately. I want you
+on any terms, you know, as far as I am concerned,
+but I&rsquo;m a sort of monogamist. If a
+woman has once cared for a person, no matter
+who or what that person is, can she ever care
+again in the same way for any one? Isn&rsquo;t it
+pity you feel for me, after all?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No it isn&rsquo;t pity,&rdquo; Nancy said slowly. &ldquo;I
+cared for that man until I found that he was
+the shadow and not the substance. He isn&rsquo;t
+fit to black your shoes, Dick.&mdash;Besides&mdash;if&mdash;if
+it was pity,&rdquo; she added irrelevantly, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s the
+way to get me started, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I only have got you started&mdash;really.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy crossed the two feet of space between
+them and sank at his feet, leaning her head
+back against his knee while he stroked her
+hair silently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s one way of proving,&rdquo; she said presently,
+&ldquo;if&mdash;if you&rsquo;ve made a woman really care
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_310' ></a>310</span>
+for you. I should think you&rsquo;d know that. I
+told you how you&rsquo;d made me feel about the bridal
+bouquet and <i>Lohengrin</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Does that prove something?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose it does. You mean it proves
+that a woman truly loves a man if he&rsquo;s made
+her feel that she wants to be an old-fashioned
+wife&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And mother, Dick,&rdquo; Nancy finished for him
+bravely.</p>
+<p style='text-align:center; margin-top:2em;'>THE END</p></div>
+
+<!-- generated by ppg.rb version: 3.20 with eppg.rb version 0.01 -->
+<!-- timestamp: Sun Nov 15 19:28:16 -0700 2009 -->
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30483 ***</div>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #30483 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30483)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Outside Inn, by Ethel M. Kelley
+
+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: Outside Inn
+
+Author: Ethel M. Kelley
+
+Illustrator: W. B. King
+
+Release Date: November 16, 2009 [EBook #30483]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTSIDE INN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+OUTSIDE INN
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "If--if you've made a woman really care"]
+
+
+
+
+OUTSIDE INN
+
+By
+
+ETHEL M. KELLEY
+
+Author of
+
+Over Here, Turn About Eleanor, Etc.
+
+With Frontispiece by
+
+W. B. KING
+
+INDIANAPOLIS
+
+THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright 1920
+
+The Bobbs-Merrill Company
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO.
+
+BOOK MANUFACTURERS
+
+BROOKLYN, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE
+        I A GOOD LITTLE DREAM                                        1
+       II APPLICANTS FOR BLUE CHAMBRAY                              19
+      III INAUGURATION                                              33
+       IV CINDERELLA                                                49
+        V SCIENCE                                                   69
+       VI AN ELEEMOSYNARY INSTITUTION                               84
+      VII CAVE-MAN STUFF                                            93
+     VIII SCIENCE APPLIED                                          113
+       IX SHEILA                                                   134
+        X THE PORTRAIT                                             151
+       XI BILLY AND CAROLINE                                       166
+      XII MORE CAVE-MAN STUFF                                      180
+     XIII THE HAPPIEST DAY                                         198
+      XIV BETTY                                                    209
+       XV CLOUDS OF GLORY                                          220
+      XVI CHRISTMAS SHOPPING                                       236
+     XVII GOOD-BY                                                  248
+    XVIII TAME SKELETONS                                           259
+      XIX OTHER PEOPLE'S TROUBLES                                  271
+       XX HITTY                                                    288
+      XXI LOHENGRIN AND WHITE SATIN                                299
+
+
+
+
+OUTSIDE INN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GOOD LITTLE DREAM
+
+
+"I Elijah Peebles Martin, of the city and county of Harrison, in the
+state of Rhode Island, being of sound and disposing mind and memory,
+do make and declare the following, as and for, my last will and
+testament.' ... I wish you'd take your head out of that barrel, Nancy,
+and listen to the document that is going to make you rich beyond the
+dreams of avarice."
+
+"I was beyond them anyway." The young woman in blue serge made one
+last effectual dive into the depths of excelsior, the topmost billows
+of which were surging untidily over the edge of a big crate in the
+middle of the basement floor, and secured a nest of blue and rose
+colored teacups, which she proceeded to unwrap lovingly and display on
+a convenient packing box. "Not one single thing broken in this whole
+lot, Billy.... What is a disposing mind and memory, anyhow?"
+
+"You don't deserve to know," the blond young man in the Norfolk jacket
+assured her, adjusting himself more firmly to the idiosyncrasies of
+the rackety step-ladder he was striding. "You're not human about this.
+Here you are suddenly in possession of a fortune. Money enough to make
+you independently wealthy for the rest of your life--money you didn't
+know the existence of, two weeks ago--fed to you by a gratuitous
+providence. A legacy is a legacy, and deserves to be treated as such,
+and I propose to see that it gets what it deserves, without any more
+shilly-shallying."
+
+"I'm a busy woman," Nancy groaned, "and I've hammered my finger to a
+pulp, trying to open this crate, while you perch on a broken
+step-ladder and prate to me of legacies. The saucers to these cups may
+be in here, and I can't wait to find out. I'm perfectly crazy about
+this ware. It's English--Wedgewood, you know."
+
+"I didn't know." Billy resignedly let himself to the floor, and
+appropriated the screwdriver. "I thought Wedgewood was dove color, and
+consisted chiefly of ladies in deshabille, doing the tango on a parlor
+ornament. I smashed one in my youth, so I know. There, it's open now.
+I may as well unpack what's here. These seem to be demi-tasses.
+
+    'You may tempt your upper classes,
+    With your villainous demi-tasses.
+    But Heaven will protect the working girl,'"
+
+he finished lugubriously, in a wailing baritone, taking an imaginary
+encore by bowing a head picturesquely adorned with a crop of excelsior
+curls, accumulated during his activities in and about the barrel.
+
+"The trouble with the average tea-room, or Arts and Crafts table
+d'hôte," Nancy said, sinking into the depths of a broken armchair in
+the corner of the dim, overcrowded interior, "is that when the pinch
+comes, quantity is sacrificed to quality. Smaller portions of food,
+and chipped chinaware. People who can't keep a place up, let it run
+down genteelly. They won't compromise on quality. I should never be
+like that. I should go to the ten-cent stores and replenish my whole
+establishment, if I couldn't make it pay with imported ware and
+Colonial silver. I'd never go to the other extreme. I'd never be so
+perceptibly second-rate, but in the matter of furnishings as well as
+food values, I'd find my perfect balance between quality and quantity,
+and keep it."
+
+"I believe you would. You are a thorough child, when you set about a
+thing. I'll bet you know the restaurant business from A to Z."
+
+"I do. You know, I studied the organization of every well-run
+restaurant in New York, when I was doing field work from Teachers'
+College. I've read every book on the subject of Diet and Nutrition and
+Domestic Economy that I could get my hands on. I'm just ready now for
+the practical application of all my theories."
+
+"Nancy Calory Martin is your real name. I don't blame you for
+hating to give up this tea-room idea. You've dug so deep into the
+possibilities of it, that you want to go through. I get that."
+
+Nancy's eyes widened in satiric admiration.
+
+"You could understand almost anything, couldn't you, Billy?" she
+mocked.
+
+"All I want now," Billy continued imperturbably, "is a chance to make
+_you_ understand something." He smote the document in his left hand.
+"Of course, your uncle's lawyer has explained all the details in his
+letters to you, but if you won't read the letters or familiarize
+yourself with the contents of this will, somebody has got to explain
+it to you in words of one syllable. My legal training, slight as it
+is--"
+
+"Sketchy is the better word, don't you think so, Billy?"
+
+"Slight as it is"--except for a prodigious frown, Billy ignored the
+interruption, though he took advantage of her suddenly upright
+position to encircle her neatly with a barrel hoop, as if she were the
+iron peg in a game of quoits--"enables me to put the fact before you
+in a few short, sharp, well-chosen sentences. I won't again attempt to
+read the document--"
+
+"You'd better not," Nancy interrupted witheringly, "your delivery is
+poor. Besides, I don't want to know what is in that will. If I had, it
+stands to reason that I would have found out long before this. I've
+had it three days."
+
+"You've had it three days and never once looked into it?" Billy
+groaned. "Who started all this scandal about the curiosity of women,
+anyway?"
+
+"I don't want to know what's in it," Nancy insisted. "As long as I'm
+not in possession of any definite facts, I can ignore it. I've got the
+kind of mind that must deal with concrete facts concretely."
+
+Billy grinned. "I'd hate the job of trying to subpoena you," he said,
+"but you'd make a corking good witness, on the stand. Of course, you
+can proceed for a certain length of time on the theory that what you
+don't know can't hurt you, but take it from me, little girl, what you
+ought to know and don't know is the thing that's bound to hurt you
+most tremendously in the long run. What are you afraid of, anyway,
+Nancy?"
+
+"I'm not _afraid_ of anything," Nancy corrected him, with some heat.
+"I just plain don't want to be interrupted at this stage of my career.
+I consider it an impertinence of Uncle Elijah, to make me his heir. I
+never saw him but once, and I had no desire to see him that time. It
+was about ten years ago, and I caught a grippe germ from him. He told
+me between sneezes that I was too big a girl to wear a mess of hair
+streaming down my back like a baby. I stuck out my tongue at him, but
+he was too near-sighted to see it. Why couldn't he have left his money
+to an eye and ear infirmary? Or the Sailors' Snug Retreat? Or--or--"
+
+"If you really don't want the money," Billy said, "it's your privilege
+to endow some institution--"
+
+"You know very well that I can't get rid of money that way," Nancy
+cried hotly. "I am at least a responsible person. I don't believe in
+these promiscuous, eleemosynary institutions. It would be against
+all my principles to contribute money to any such philanthropy. I know
+too much about them--but he didn't. He could have disposed of his
+money to any one of a dozen of these mid-Victorian charities, but
+no--he was just one of those old parties that want to shift their
+responsibilities on to young shoulders, and so he chose mine."
+
+"You don't speak very kindly of your dear dead relative."
+
+"I don't feel very kindly toward him. He was a meddling old creature.
+He never gave any member of the family a cent when they wanted it and
+needed it. Now that I've just got my life in shape, and know what I
+want to do with it without being beholden to anybody on earth, he
+leaves me a whole lot of superfluous money."
+
+"If I weren't engaged to Caroline, who is a jealous woman, though I
+say it as shouldn't, I'd be tempted to undertake the management of
+your fortune myself," Billy said reflectively; "as it is--honor--"
+
+"I know what I want to do with my life," Nancy continued, as if he had
+not spoken. "I want to run an efficiency tea-room and serve dinner and
+breakfast and tea to my fellow men and women. I want the perfectly
+balanced ration, perfectly served, to be my contribution to the cause
+of humanity."
+
+She looked about her ruefully. The sun, through the barred dusty
+windows, struck in long slant rays, athwart the confusion of the
+cellar, illuminating piles upon piles of gay, blue latticed
+chinaware,--cups set out methodically in rows on the lids and bottoms
+of packing boxes; assorted sizes of plates and saucers, graded
+pyramidically, rising from the floor. There were also individual
+copper casseroles and serving dishes, and a heterogeneous assortment
+of Japanese basketry tangled in excelsior and tissue. A wandering
+sunbeam took her hair, displaying its amber, translucent quality.
+
+"I've just got capital enough to get it going right; to swing it for
+the first year, even if I don't make a cent on it. It's my one big
+chance to do my share in the world, and to work out my own salvation.
+This legacy is a menace to all my dreams and plans."
+
+"I see that," Billy said. "What I don't see is what you gain by
+refusing to let it catch up with you."
+
+"You're not it till you're tagged. That's all. If I don't know whether
+my income is going to be five thousand dollars or twenty-five thousand
+a year, I can go on unpacking teacups with--"
+
+Billy whistled.
+
+"Five thousand or twenty-five--my darling Nancy! You'll have fifty
+thousand a year at the very lowest estimate. The actual money is more
+than five hundred thousand dollars. The stock in the Union Rubber
+Company will amount to as much again, maybe twice as much. You're a
+real heiress, my dear, with wads of real money to show for it. That's
+what I'm trying to tell you."
+
+"Fifty thousand a year!" Nancy turned a shocked face, from which the
+color slowly drained, leaving it blue-white. "Fifty thousand a year!
+You're mad. It can't be!"
+
+"Yes'um. Fifty thousand at least."
+
+Nancy's pallor increased. She closed her eyes.
+
+"Don't do that," Billy said sharply. "No woman can faint on me just
+because she's had money left her. You make me feel like the ghost of
+Hamlet's father."
+
+Nancy clutched at his sleeve.
+
+"Don't, Billy!" she besought. "I'm past joking now. Fifty thousand a
+year! Why, Uncle Elijah bought fifteen-dollar suits and fifteen-cent
+lunches. How could a retired sea captain get all that money by
+investing in a little rubber, and getting to be president of a little
+rubber company?"
+
+"That's how. Be a good sensible girl, and face the music."
+
+"I'll have to give up the tea-room."
+
+Billy laid a consolatory arm over her shoulder, and patted her
+awkwardly.
+
+"Cheer up," he said, "there's worse things in this world than money.
+The time may come when you'll be grateful to your poor little old
+uncle, for his nifty little fifty thousand per annum."
+
+Nancy turned a tragic face to him.
+
+"I tell you I'm not grateful to him," she said, "and I doubt if I ever
+will be. I don't want the stupid money. I want to work life out in my
+own way. I know I've got it in me, and I want my chance to prove it. I
+want to give myself, my own brain and strength, to the job I've
+selected as mine. Now, it's all spoiled for me. I'm subsidized. I'm
+done for, and I can't see any way out of it."
+
+"You can give the money away."
+
+"I can't. Giving money away is a special science of itself. If I
+devote my life to doing that as it should be done, I won't have time
+or energy for anything else. I'm not a philanthropist in that sense. I
+wanted my restaurant to be philanthropic only incidentally. I wanted
+to cram my patrons with the full value of their money's worth of good
+nourishing food; to increase the efficiency of hundreds of people who
+never suspected I was doing it, by scientific methods of feeding.
+That's my dream."
+
+"A good little dream, all right."
+
+"To make people eat the right food; to help them to a fuller and more
+effective use of themselves by supplying them with the proper fuel for
+their functions."
+
+"You could buy a chain of restaurants with the money you've got."
+
+"I don't want a chain of restaurants."
+
+"You can endow a perpetual diet squad. You can buy out the whole Life
+Extension Institute. If you would only stop to think of the advantages
+of having all the money you wanted to spend on anything you wanted,
+you'd--"
+
+"Billy," Nancy said solemnly, "I've been through all that. If I had
+thought I would have been a better person with a great deal of money
+at my disposal, I--I might have--"
+
+"Married Dick," Billy finished for her. "I forgot that interesting
+possibility. I suppose to a girl who has just turned down a cold five
+millions, this meager little proposition"--he flourished the crumpled
+document in his hand--"has no real allure. Lord! What a world this is.
+You'll marry Dick yet. Them as has--_gits_. It never rains but it
+pours. To the victor belong the spoils, _et cetera, et cetera_--"
+
+"Money simply does not interest me."
+
+"Dick interests you. I don't know to what extent, but he interests
+you."
+
+"Don't be sentimental, Billy. Just because you're in love with
+Caroline, you can't make all your other friends marry each other. Tell
+me what to do about this legacy. What is customary when you get a lump
+of money like that? I suppose I'll have to begin to get rid of all
+_this_ immediately." There was more than a hint of tears in her voice,
+but she smiled at Billy bravely. "I'm so perfectly crazy about
+these--these cups and saucers, Billy. See the lovely way that rose is
+split to fit into the design. Oh, when do I come into possession,
+anyway?"
+
+"You don't come into possession right away, you know. You don't
+inherit for a couple of years, under the Rhode Island law. The
+formalities will take--"
+
+"Billy Boynton, do you mean to say that I won't have to do a blessed
+thing about this money for two years?" Nancy shrieked.
+
+"Why, no. It takes a certain amount of red tape to settle an estate,
+to probate a will, etc., and the law allows a period of time, varying
+in different states--"
+
+"Oho! Is there anything in all this universe so stupid as a man?"
+Nancy interrupted fervently. "Why didn't you tell me that before? Do
+you suppose I care how much money I have two years from now? Two years
+of freedom, why, that's all I want, Billy. There you've been sitting
+up winking and blinking at me like a sympathetic old owl, when all I
+needed to know was that I had two years of grace. Of course, I'll go
+on with my tea-room, and not a soul shall know the difference."
+
+"While the feminine temperament has my hearty admiration and my most
+cordial endorsement," Billy murmured, "there are things about it--"
+
+"I won't have to tell anybody, will I?"
+
+"There's no law to that effect. If your friends don't know it from
+you, they're not likely to hear it."
+
+"I haven't mentioned it," Nancy said. "I only told you, because it
+seemed rather in your line of work, and I was getting so much mail
+about it, I thought it would be wise to have some one look it over."
+
+"I've given up my law practice and Caroline for three days in your
+service."
+
+"You've done more than well, Billy, and I'm grateful to you. Of
+course, you would have saved me days of nervous wear and tear if it
+had only occurred to you to tell me the one simple little thing that
+was the essential point of the whole matter. If I had known that I
+didn't inherit for two years, I wouldn't have cared _what_ was in that
+will."
+
+Billy stared at her feelingly.
+
+"A peculiar sensation always comes over me," he said musingly, "after
+I spend several hours uninterruptedly in the society of a woman who is
+using her mind in any way. I couldn't explain it to you exactly. It's
+a kind of impression that my own brain has begun to disintegrate, and
+to--"
+
+"Don't be too hard on yourself, Billy." Nancy soothed him sweetly,--Billy
+was not one of the people to whom she habitually allowed full
+conversational leeway: "Swear you won't tell Caroline or Betty--or Dick."
+
+"I swear."
+
+Nancy held out her hand to him.
+
+"You're a good boy," she said, "and I appreciate you, which is more
+than Caroline does, I'm afraid. Run along and see her now--I don't
+need you any more, and you're probably dying to."
+
+Billy bowed over her hand, lingeringly and politely, but once
+releasing it, he shook his big frame, and straightening up, drew a
+long deep breath of something very like relief.
+
+"With all deference to your delightful sex," he said, "the only
+society that I'm dying for at the present moment is that of the old
+family bar-keep."
+
+As Billy left her, Nancy turned to her basement window, and stood
+looking out at the quaint stone court he had to cross in order to
+reach the high gate that guarded the entrance to the marble worker's
+establishment, under the shadow of which it was her intention to open
+her out-of-door tea-room. She watched him dreamily is he made his way
+among the cinerary urns, the busts and statues and bas-reliefs that
+were a part of the stock in trade of her incongruous business
+associate.
+
+In her investigation of the various sorts and conditions of
+restaurants in New York, she characteristically hit upon the garden
+restaurant, a commonplace in the down-town table d'hôte district, as
+the ideal setting for her adventure in practical philanthropy, while
+the ubiquitous tea-room and antique-shop combination gave her the
+inspiration to stage her own undertaking even more spectacularly. Her
+enterprise was destined to flourish picturesquely in the open court
+during the fair months of the year, and in the winter months, or in
+the event of a bad storm, to be housed under the eaves in the rambling
+garret of the old brick building, the lower floor of which was given
+over to traffic in marbles.
+
+She sighed happily. Billy, extricating himself from the grasp of an
+outstretched marble hand, which bad seemed to clutch desperately at
+his elbow, and narrowly escaping a plunge into a too convenient bird's
+bath, turned to see her eyes following him, and waved gaily, but she
+scarcely realized that he had done so. It was rather with the eye of
+her mind that she was contemplating the dark, quadrangular area
+outstretched before her. In spirit she was moving to and fro among the
+statuary, bringing a housewifely order out of the chaos that
+prevailed,--placing stone ladies draped in stone or otherwise;
+cherubic babies, destined to perpetual cold water bathing; strange
+mortuary furniture, in the juxtaposition that would make the most
+effective background for her enterprise.
+
+She saw the gritty, gray paving stones of the court cleared of their
+litter, and scoured free from discoloration and grime, set with dozens
+of little tables immaculate in snowy napery and shiny silver, and
+arranged with careful irregularity at the most alluring angle. She saw
+a staff of Hebe-like waitresses in blue chambray and pink ribbons, to
+match the chinaware, and all bearing a marked resemblance to herself
+in her last flattering photograph, moving among a crowd of well
+brought up but palpably impoverished young people,--mostly social
+workers and artists. They were _all_ young, and most of them very
+beautiful. In all her twenty-five years, she had never before been so
+close to a vision realized, as she was at that moment.
+
+"Outside Inn," she said to herself, still smiling. "It's a perfect
+name for it, really. Outside Inn!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+APPLICANTS FOR BLUE CHAMBRAY
+
+
+Ann Martin was an orphan of New England extraction. Her father, the
+eldest child of a simple unpretentious country family in Western
+Massachusetts, had been a brilliant but erratic throw-back to
+Mayflower traditions and Puritan intellectualism. He had married a
+girl with much the same ancestry as his own, but herself born and
+brought up in New York, and of a generation to which the assumption of
+prerogative was a natural rather than an acquired characteristic. The
+possession of a comfortable degree of fortune and culture was a matter
+of course with Ann Winslow, while to poor David Martin education in
+the finer things of life, and the opportunity to indulge his taste in
+the choice of surroundings and associates, were hard-won privileges.
+
+Both parents had been killed in a railroad accident when Ann, or Nancy
+as her mother had insisted on calling her from the day of her
+christening, was about seven years old. She had been placed in the
+care of a maternal aunt, and had flourished in the heart of a well
+ordered establishment of the mid-Victorian type, run by a vigorous,
+rather worldly old lady.
+
+From her lovely mother--Ann Winslow had been more than a merely
+attractive or pretty woman; she had the real grace and distinction,
+and purity of profile that placed her in the actual category of
+beauty,--Nancy had inherited a healthy and equitable outlook on life,
+while her father, irresistible and impracticable being that he was,
+had endowed her with a certain eccentric and adventurous spirit in the
+investigation of it.
+
+She had been educated in a boarding-school, forty minutes' run from
+New York, and had specialized in the domestic sciences and basket
+ball; and on attaining her majority had taken up a course or two at
+Columbia, rather more to put off the evil day of assuming the
+responsibility of the stuffy, stately old house in Washington Square
+than because she ever expected to make any use of her superfluous
+education. She was conceded by every one to be her aunt's heir, but
+old Miss Winslow died intestate, very suddenly in Nancy's twenty-third
+year; and the beneficiaries of this accident, most of them extremely
+well-to-do themselves, combined to make Nancy a regular allowance
+until she was twenty-five. On her twenty-fifth birthday fifteen
+thousand dollars was deposited to her account in the Trust Company
+which conserved the family fortunes of the Winslows, and Nancy
+understood that they considered their duty by her to be done. It was
+with this fifteen thousand dollars that she was to inaugurate her
+darling enterprise,--Outside Inn.
+
+Money, as she had truthfully told Billy, meant nothing to her. Her
+aunt, living and giving generously, had furnished her with a
+background of comfortable, unostentatious well being, against which
+the rather vivid elements that went to make up her intimate social
+circle--she was a creature of intimates--stood out in alluring relief.
+She had literally never wanted for anything. Her tastes, to be sure,
+were modest, but the wherewithal to gratify them had always been
+almost stultifyingly near at hand. The excitement and adventure of an
+income to which there was attached some uncertainty had never been
+hers, and she was too much her father's daughter to be interested in
+the playing of any game in which she could not lose. With all she
+possessed staked against her untried business acumen she was for the
+first time in her life concerned with her financial situation, and
+quite honestly resentful of any interruption of her experiment. Her
+life was closely associated with her mother's family. Her father's
+people had at no time entered into her scheme of living,--her uncle
+Elijah less than any member of it, and she found his post-obit
+intervention in her affairs embarrassing in a dozen different
+connections.
+
+The best friend she had in the world, before he had made the tactical
+error of asking her to marry him, was Richard Thorndyke. He was still,
+thanks to his immediate skill in trying to retrieve that error, a very
+good friend indeed. Nancy would normally have told him everything that
+happened to her in the exact order of its occurrence; but partly
+because she did not wish to exaggerate her eccentricity in eyes that
+looked upon her so kindly, and partly because she had the instinct to
+spare him the realization that there was no way in which he might come
+to her rescue in the event of disaster,--she did not inform him of her
+legacy. She knew that he was shrewdly calculating to stand behind her
+venture, morally and practically, and that the chief incentive of his
+encouragement and helpfulness was the hidden hope that through her
+experiment and its probable unfortunate termination she would learn to
+depend on _him_. Nancy was so sure of herself that this attitude of
+Dick's roused her tenderness instead of her ire.
+
+The two girls who were closest to her, Caroline Eustace and Betty
+Pope, had been actively enlisted in the service of Outside Inn and the
+ideals that it represented. Betty, a dimpling, dynamic little being,
+who took a sporting interest in any project that interested her,
+irrespective of its merits, was to be associated with Nancy in the
+actual management of the restaurant. Caroline, who took herself more
+seriously, and was busy with a dozen enterprises that had to do with
+the welfare of the race, was concerned chiefly with the humanitarian
+side of the undertaking and willing to deflect to it only such energy
+as she felt to be essential to its scientific betterment. She was
+tentatively engaged to Billy Boynton,--for what reason no one--not
+even Billy--had been able to determine; since she systematically
+disregarded him in relation to all the interests and activities that
+went to make up her life.
+
+The affairs of the Inn progressed rapidly. It was in the first week of
+May that Nancy and Billy had their memorable discussion of her
+situation. By the latter part of June, when she could be reasonably
+sure of a succession of propitious days and nights, for she had set
+her heart on balmy weather conditions, Nancy expected to have her
+formal opening,--a dinner which not only initiated her establishment,
+but submitted it to the approval of her own group of intimate friends,
+who were to be her guests on that occasion.
+
+Meantime, the most extensive and discriminating preparations were
+going forward. Billy and Dick were present one afternoon by special
+request when Betty and Nancy were interviewing a contingent of
+waitresses.
+
+"We've got three perfectly charming girls already," Nancy said, "that
+is, girls that look perfectly charming to me, but a man's point of
+view on a woman's looks is so different that I thought it would be a
+good plan to have you boys look over this lot. They are all very
+high-class and competent girls. The Manning Agency doesn't send any
+other kind."
+
+"Trot 'em along," Billy said; "where are they anyway?"
+
+"In the room in front." They were in the smallest of the nest of attic
+rooms that Nancy planned to make her winter quarters. "Michael
+receives them, and shows them in here one by one."
+
+"You like Michael then?" Dick asked. "I always said his talents were
+hidden at our place. He has a soul above the job of handy man on a
+Long Island farm."
+
+"He's certainly a handy man here," Nancy said; "I couldn't live
+without him."
+
+"The lucky dog," Billy said, with a side glance at Dick.
+
+"You see," Betty explained, "the girl comes in, and we ask her
+questions. Then if I don't like her I take my pencil from behind my
+ear, and rap against my palm with it. If Nancy doesn't like her she
+says, 'You're losing a hairpin, Betty.' If we like her we rub our
+hands together."
+
+"It's a good system," Billy said, "but I don't see why Nancy doesn't
+take her pencil from behind her ear, or why you don't say to her--"
+
+"I wouldn't put a pencil behind my ear," Nancy said scathingly.
+
+"And she never loses a hairpin," Betty cut in. "If I approve this
+system of signals I don't see what you have to complain of. Nancy
+couldn't get a pencil behind her ear even if she wanted to. It's only
+a criminal ear like mine that accommodates a pencil."
+
+"Speaking of ears," Dick said, looking at his watch, "let's get on
+with the beauty show. I have to take my mother to see _Boris_
+to-night, and she has an odd notion of being on time."
+
+"Aw right," Betty said. "Here's Michael. Bring in the first one
+immediately, Michael."
+
+"Sure an' I will that, Miss Pope." The old family servitor of the
+Thorndykes pulled a deliberate lid over a twinkling left eye by way of
+acknowledging the presence of his young master. "There's quite a
+display of thim this time."
+
+The first applicant, guided thus by Michael, appeared on the
+threshold and stood for a moment framed in the low doorway. Seeing
+two gentlemen present she carefully arranged her expression to meet
+that contingency. She was a blonde girl with masses of doubtfully
+tinted hair and no chin, but her eyes were very blue and matched a
+chain of turquoise beads about her throat, and she radiated a peculiar
+vitality.
+
+Betty took her pencil from behind her ear.
+
+"You're losing a hair--" Nancy began, but Dick and Billy exchanged
+glances and began rubbing their hands together energetically and
+enthusiastically.
+
+"I'm sorry," Nancy said crisply, "but you're a little too tall for our
+purpose."
+
+"And too blonde," Betty added with a bland dismissing smile. "We're
+looking for a special type of girl."
+
+"I understood you were looking for a waitress," the girl said pertly,
+with her eyes on Billy.
+
+"I was," Billy answered, "but I'm not now. My--my wife won't let me."
+He waved an inclusive hand in the direction of Nancy and Betty.
+
+"If you don't behave," Nancy said, while they waited for Michael to
+bring in the next girl, "you can't stay. If that is the kind of girl
+you men find attractive then my restaurant is doomed from the
+beginning. I wouldn't have that girl in my employ for--"
+
+Before she could begin again, applicant number two stood before
+them,--a comfortable, kind-eyed girl, no longer very young but with
+efficiency written all over her, despite the shyness that beset her.
+
+Nancy rubbed her hands with satisfaction and looked at Betty, who
+beamed back at her. The girl, encouraged by Nancy's kindly smile took
+a step forward, and began to recite her qualifications for the
+position. Dick fumbled with a fountain-pen which he placed elaborately
+behind his ear for an instant, and then as ostentatiously removed.
+
+"I think you're losing a hairpin, Dick," Billy suggested solicitously,
+as Nancy, ignoring their existence entirely, proceeded to make terms
+with the newcomer.
+
+The next girl created a diversion--being palpably an adventuress out
+of a job and impressing none of the quartette as being interesting
+enough to deserve one,--but the two girls who followed her were bright
+and sprightly creatures, disarmingly graceful and ingenuous, of whom
+the entire quartette approved. They were twin sisters, they said,
+Dolly and Molly, and they had always had places together ever since
+they had begun working out.
+
+"Tell me, pretty maiden, _are_ there any more at home _like_--" Billy
+was addressing Molly gravely when Dick slipped a friendly but firm
+hand over his jugular region, and cut off his utterance.
+
+"He's not feeling quite himself," he explained suavely to Dolly,
+"but we'll bring him around soon.--I think you'll find Miss Martin
+an ideal person to work for, and the salary and the hours unusually
+satisfactory."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Molly and Dolly together, in the English manner
+which showed the excellence of their training.
+
+There were several other dubby creatures so much out of the picture
+that they were not even considered, and then Michael brought in what
+he called "a grand girl," and left her standing statuesquely in their
+midst.
+
+"With large lovely arms and a neck like a tower," Dick quoted in his
+throat.
+
+Nancy engaged her without enthusiasm.
+
+"She'll draw," she said briefly. "Personally, I dislike these Alma
+Tadema girls."
+
+"What the men see," Betty said, curling around the better part of two
+straight dining chairs, in the moment of relaxation that followed the
+final disposition of the business of the day, "in a girl like that
+first one is one of the mysteries of existence."
+
+"I know it," Nancy agreed, with New England colloquialism. "You feel
+reasonably allied to them as a sex, and then suddenly they show some
+vulgar preference for a woman like that, and it's all off."
+
+"This from the woman who thinks my chauffeur is an ideal of manly
+beauty," Dick scoffed, "a dimpled man with a little finger ring."
+
+"He can run a car, though," Nancy retorted.
+
+"I'll bet little blue eyes could run a restaurant."
+
+"That was just the trouble,--she would have been running mine in
+twenty-four hours. Oh! I think what you men really like is a bossy
+woman."
+
+"Now, what a woman really likes in a man--" Betty began, "is--is--"
+
+"Quality," Nancy finished for her succinctly.
+
+"I wonder--" Dick mused. "I should have said finish."
+
+"Almost any kind of finish so long as it is smooth enough," Billy
+supplemented. "Look at the way they eat up this artistic and poetic
+veneer."
+
+"Look at the way they mangle their metaphors," Nancy complained to
+Betty.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I know what I really like in a woman," Dick whispered to Nancy, as he
+helped her into her coat just before they started out together, "and
+you know what I like, too. That's one of the subjects that needs no
+discussion between us."
+
+Betty and Billy walking up the avenue ahead of them,--Outside Inn was
+located in one of the cross-streets in the thirties,--were discussing
+their relation to one another.
+
+"I wonder sometimes if Nancy's got it in her really to care for a
+man," Betty argued; "she's as fond as she can be of Dick, but she'd
+sacrifice him heart, soul and body for that restaurant of hers. She's
+a perfect darling, I don't mean that; she's the very essence of
+sweetness and kindness, but she doesn't seem to understand or
+appreciate the possibilities of a devotion like Dick's. Do you think
+she's really capable of loving anybody--of putting any man in the
+world before all her ideas and notions and experiments?"
+
+"Lord, yes," said Billy, accelerating his pace, suggestively in the
+hope of getting Betty home in good time for him to dress to keep his
+engagement with Caroline.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+INAUGURATION
+
+
+Nancy's heart was beating heavily when she woke on the memorable
+morning of the day that was to inaugurate the activities of Outside
+Inn. A confused dream of her Uncle Elijah in tatters on a park bench,
+which was instantly metamorphosed into one of the rustic seats she had
+arranged against the wall along the side of some of the bigger tables
+in the marble worker's court, was ostensibly the cause of the
+disturbance in her cardiac region. She had, it seemed, in the
+interminable tangle of nightmare, given Molly and Dolly and the Alma
+Tadema girl instructions to throw out the unwelcome guest, and she was
+standing by with Michael, who was assuring her that the big blonde was
+"certain a grand bouncer," when she was smitten with a sickening
+dream-panic at her own ingratitude. "He has given me everything he had
+in the world, poor old man," she said to herself, and approached him
+remorsefully; but when she looked at him again she saw that he had the
+face and figure of a young stranger, and that the garments that had
+seemed to her to be streaming and unsightly rags, were merely the
+picturesque habiliments of a young artist, apparently newly translated
+from the Boulevard Montparnasse. At the sight of the stranger a
+heart-sinking terror seemed to take possession of her, and so, quaking
+and quavering in mortal intimidation,--she woke up.
+
+She laughed at herself as she brushed the sleep out of her eyes, and
+drew the gradual long breaths that soothed the physical agitation that
+still beset her.
+
+"I'm scared," she said, "I'm as excited and nervous as a youngster on
+circus day.--Oh! I'm glad the sun shines."
+
+Nancy lived in a little apartment of her own in that hinterland of
+what is now down-town New York, between the Rialto and its more
+conventional prototype, Society,--that is, she lived east of Broadway
+on a cross-street in the forties. The maid who took care of her had
+been in her aunt's employ for years, and had seen Nancy grow from her
+rather spoiled babyhood to a hoydenish childhood, and so on to
+soft-eyed, vibrant maturity. She was the only person who tyrannized
+over Nancy. She brought her a cup of steaming hot water with a pinch
+of soda in it, now.
+
+"You were moaning and groaning in your sleep," she said, in the
+strident accents of her New England birthplace, "so you'll have to
+drink this before I give you a living thing for your breakfast."
+
+"I will, Hitty," Nancy said, "and thank you kindly. Now I know you've
+been making pop-overs, and are afraid they will disagree with me. I'm
+glad--for I need the moral effect of them."
+
+"I dunno whether pop-overs is so moral, or so immoral if it comes to
+that. I notice it's always the folks that ain't had much to do with
+morals one way or the other that's so almighty glib about them."
+
+"There's a good deal in what you say, Hitty. If I had time I would go
+into the matter with you, but this is my busy day." Nancy sat up in
+bed, and began sipping her hot water obediently. She looked very
+childlike in her straight cut, embroidered night-gown, with a long
+chestnut pig-tail over either shoulder. "I feel as if I were going to
+be married, or--or something. I'm so excited."
+
+"I guess you'd be a good sight more excited if you was going to be
+married"--Hitty was a widow of twenty-five years' standing--"and
+according to my way of thinking 'twould be a good deal more suitable,"
+she added darkly. "I don't take much stock in this hotel business. In
+my day there warn't no such newfangled foolishness for a girl to take
+up with instead o' getting married and settled down. When I was your
+age I was working on my second set o' baby clothes."
+
+"Don't scold, Hitty," Nancy coaxed. "I could make perfectly good baby
+clothes if I needed to. Don't you think I'll be of more use in the
+world serving nourishing food to hordes of hungry men and women than
+making baby clothes for one hypothetical baby?"
+
+"I dunno about the hypothetical part," Hitty said, folding back the
+counterpane, inexorably. "What I do know is that a girl that's getting
+to be an old girl--like you--past twenty-five--ought to be bestirring
+herself to look for a life pardner if she don't see any hanging around
+that suits her, instead of opening up a hotel for a passel of perfect
+strangers. If ever I saw a woman spoiling for something of her own to
+fuss over--"
+
+"If ever there was a woman who _had_ something of her own to fuss
+over," Nancy cried ecstatically, "I'm that woman to-day, Hitty. You're
+a professional Puritan, and you don't understand the broader aspects
+of the maternal instinct." She sprang out of bed, and tucked her bare
+pink toes into the fur bordered blue mules that peeped from under the
+bed, and slipped into the wadded blue silk bathrobe that lay on the
+chair beside her. "Is my bath drawn, Hitty?"
+
+"Your bath is drawed," Hitty acknowledged sourly, "and your breakfast
+will be on the table in half an hour by the clock."
+
+"I suppose I must require that corrective New England influence,"
+Nancy said to herself, as she tried the temperature of her bath and
+found it frigid, "just as some people need acid in their diet. If my
+mother were alive, I wonder what she would have said to me this
+morning."
+
+Nancy spent a long day directing, planning, and arranging for the
+great event of the evening, the first dinner served to the public at
+Outside Inn.
+
+From the basement kitchen to the ground-floor serving-room in the
+rear, space cunningly coaxed from the reluctant marble worker, the
+mechanism of Nancy's equipment was as perfect as lavish expenditure
+and scientific management could make it. The kitchen gleamed with
+copper and granite ware; huge pots for soup and vegetables, mammoth
+double boilers of white enamel,--Nancy was firm in her conviction that
+rice and cereal could be cooked in nothing but white enamel,--rows
+upon rows of shelves methodically set with containers and casseroles
+and odd-shaped metal serving-dishes, as well as the ubiquitous blue
+and rose-color chinaware presenting its gay surface from every
+available bit of space.
+
+Presiding over the hooded ranges, two of gas and one coal for toasting
+and broiling, there was to be a huge Franco-American man-cook,
+discovered in one of the Fifth Avenue pastry shops in the course of
+Nancy's indefatigable tours of exploration, who was the son of a
+French _chef_ and a Virginian mother, and could express himself in the
+culinary art of either his father's or his mother's nativity. His
+staff of helpers and dishwashers had been chosen by himself, with what
+Nancy considered most felicitous results, while her own galaxy of
+waitresses, who operated the service kitchen up-stairs, proved
+themselves to a woman almost unbelievably superior and efficient.
+
+The courtyard itself was a brave spectacle in its final aspect of
+background for the detail and paraphernalia of polite dining. The more
+unself-conscious of the statues, the nymphs and nereids and Venuses,
+she managed either to relegate to the storehouse within, or to add a
+few cunningly draped vines to the nonchalance of their effect, while
+the gargoyles and Roman columns and some of the least ambitious of the
+fountain-models she was able to adapt delightfully to her outrageous
+ideal of arrangement. Dick had denuded several smart florist shops to
+furnish her with field flowers enough to develop her decorative
+scheme, which included strangely the stringing of half a dozen huge
+Chinese lanterns that even in the daylight took on a meteoric light
+and glow.
+
+The night was clear and soft, and Fifth Avenue, ingratiatingly swept
+and garnished, stretched its wake of summer allure before the never
+unappreciative eyes of Billy and Caroline, and Betty and Dick
+respectively, who had met at the Waldorf by appointment, and were now
+making their way, thus ceremoniously and in company, to the formal
+opening dinner of Nancy's Inn.
+
+Two nondescript Pagan gentlemen of Titanesque proportions had joined
+the watch of the conventional leonine twins, and the big gate now
+stood hospitably open, over it swinging the new sign in gallant
+crimson and white, that announced to all the world that Outside Inn
+was even at that moment, at its most punctilious service.
+
+Molly and Dolly, in the prescribed blue chambray, their cheeks several
+shades pinker than their embellishment of pink ribbon, and panting
+with ill-suppressed excitement, rushed forward to greet the four and
+ushered them solemnly to their places,--the gala table in the center
+of the court, set with a profusion of fleur de lis, with pink ribbon
+trainers. Thanks to Dick's carefully manipulated advertising campaign
+and personal efforts among his friends and business associates, they
+were not by any means the first arrivals. Half a dozen laughing groups
+were distributed about the round tables in the center space, while
+several tête-à-tête couples were confidentially ensconced in corners
+and at cozy tables for two, craftily sheltered by some of the most
+imposing of the marble figures and columns.
+
+"It seems like a real restaurant," Caroline said wonderingly.
+
+"What did you think it would seem like?" Betty asked argumentatively.
+"Just because Nancy is the best friend you have in the world, and
+you're familiar with her in pig-tails and a dressing-gown doesn't
+argue that she is incapable of managing an undertaking like this as
+well as if she were a perfect stranger."
+
+"I don't suppose it does," Caroline mused, "but someway I'd feel
+easier about a perfect stranger investing her last cent in such a
+venture. I don't see how she can possibly make it pay, and I don't
+feel as if I could ever have a comfortable moment again until I knew
+whether she could or not.--What are you looking so guilty about,
+Billy?"
+
+"I was regretting your uncomfortable moments, Caroline," Billy said,
+"and wishing it were in my power to do away with them, but it isn't. I
+was also musing sadly, but quite irrelevantly, on the tangled web we
+weave when first we practise to deceive."
+
+"Are you deceiving Caroline in some way?" Dick inquired.
+
+"No, he isn't," Caroline answered for him, "though he has full
+permission to if he wants."
+
+"The time may come when he will avail himself of that permission,"
+Betty said; "you ought to be careful how you tempt Fate, Caroline."
+
+"She ought to be," Billy groaned, "but the fact is that I am not one
+of the things she is superstitious about. Pipe the dame at the corner
+table with the lorgnette. Classy, isn't she?"
+
+"Friend of my aunt's," Dick said, acknowledging the lady's salute.
+
+"And the Belasco adventuress in the corner."
+
+"My stenographer," Dick explained, bowing again.
+
+"I've got a bunch of men coming," Billy said; "if they put the place
+on the bum you've got to help me bounce them, Dick."
+
+"Up-stairs in the service kitchen," Betty was explaining to Caroline,
+"they keep all the dishes that don't have to be heated for serving,
+also the silver and daily linen supply. When we seat ourselves at a
+table like this, the waitress to whom it is assigned goes in and gets
+a basket of bread--I think it's a pretty idea to serve the bread in
+baskets, don't you?--and whatever silver is necessary, and a bottle of
+water. When she places those things she asks us what our choice of a
+meat course is,--there is a choice except on chicken night--and gives
+that order in the kitchen when she goes to get our soup."
+
+"Who serves the things,--puts the meat on the plates, and dishes up
+the vegetables?"
+
+"The cook--Nancy won't let me call him the _chef_--because she is
+going to make a specialty of the southern element of his education. He
+has a serving-table by his range and he cuts up the meat and fowl, and
+dishes up the vegetables. In a bigger establishment he would have a
+helper to do that."
+
+"Why can't Michael help him?" Dick asked.
+
+"Michael calls him the Haythan Shinee. He is rather a _glossy_ man,
+you know, and he says when the time comes for him, Michael, to dress
+like a street cleaner and pilot a gravy boat, he'll let us know."
+
+"Respect for his superiors is not one of Michael's most salient
+characteristics," Dick twinkled. "Nancy and I have a scheme for making
+a match between him and Hitty."
+
+"Here's the soup," Betty announced. "Nancy's idea is to have
+everything perfectly simple, and--and--"
+
+"Simply perfect," Billy assisted her.
+
+"Isn't she going to eat with us?" Dick asked.
+
+"She can't. She's busy getting it going just at present. She may
+appear later."
+
+"Somebody's got to direct this pageant, old top," Billy reminded him.
+
+"The soup is perfect," Caroline said seriously. "It is simple--with
+that deceptive simplicity of a Paris morning frock."
+
+"French home cooking is all like that," Dick said. "I like purée of
+forget-me-nots!"
+
+"Molly or Dolly, I can't tell the difference between you," Billy said,
+"extend our compliments to Miss Martin, and tell her that this course
+is a triumph."
+
+"Wait till you see the roast, sir."
+
+"It's the very _best_ sirloin," Dick announced at the first mouthful,
+"and these assorted vegetables all cut down to the same size are as
+pretty as they are good, as one says of virtuous innocence."
+
+"This variety of asparagus is expensive," Caroline said; "she can't do
+things like this at seventy-five cents a head. She'll ruin herself."
+
+"I don't see how she can," Dick said thoughtfully, "with the price of
+foodstuffs soaring sky-high."
+
+"I never for a moment expected it to pay," Betty said, "but think of
+the run she will have for her money, and the experience we'll get out
+of it."
+
+"You're in it for the romance there is in it, Betty. I must confess it
+isn't altogether my idea of a good time," Caroline said.
+
+"I know, you would go in for military training for women, and that
+sort of thing. There's a woman over there asking for more olives, and
+she's eaten a plate full of them already."
+
+"They're as big as hen's eggs anyhow," Caroline groaned, "and almost
+as extravagant. I don't see how Nancy'll go through the first month at
+this rate. There she comes now. Doesn't she look nice in that color of
+green?"
+
+"How do you like my party?" Nancy asked, slipping into the empty chair
+between Dick and Billy; "isn't the food good and nourishing, and
+aren't there a lot of nice-looking people here?"
+
+"Very much, and it is, and there are," Dick answered with affectionate
+eyes on her.
+
+"The salad is alligator pear served in half sections, with French
+dressing," she said dreamily. "I'm too happy to eat, but I'll have
+some with you. Look at them all, don't they look relaxed and soothed
+and refreshed? Every individual has a perfectly balanced ration of the
+most superlatively good quality, slowly beginning to assimilate within
+him."
+
+"I don't see many respectable working girls," Billy said.
+
+"There are though,--from the different shops and offices on the
+avenue. There is a contingent from the Columbia summer school coming
+to-morrow evening. This group coming in now is newspaper people."
+
+"Who's the fellow sitting over in the corner with that Vie de Bohême
+hat? He looks familiar, but I can't seem to place him."
+
+"The man in black with the mustache?" Dick asked. "He's an artist,
+pretty well known. That impressionistic chap--I can't think of his
+name--that had that exhibition at the Palsifer galleries."
+
+"Does he sell?" Caroline asked.
+
+"No, they say he's awfully poor, refuses to paint down to the public
+taste. What the deuce is his name--oh! I know, Collier Pratt--do you
+know him, Nancy? Lived in Paris always till the war. He'll appreciate
+Ritz cooking at Riggs' prices if anybody will."
+
+Nancy looked fixedly at the small side-table where the stranger had
+just placed himself as if he were etched upon the whiteness of the
+wall behind him. He sat erect and brooding,--his dark, rather
+melancholy eyes staring straight ahead, and a slight frown wrinkling
+his really fine forehead. He wore an Inverness cape slung over one
+shoulder.
+
+"Looks like one of Rembrandt's portraits of himself," Caroline
+suggested.
+
+"He looks like a brigand," Betty said. "Nancy's struck dumb with the
+privilege of adding fuel to a flame of genius like that. Wake up and
+eat your peach Melba, Nancy."
+
+Nancy started, and took perfunctorily the spoon that Molly was holding
+out to her, which she forgot to lift to her lips even after it was
+freighted with its first delicious mouthful.
+
+"I dreamed about that man," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CINDERELLA
+
+
+Nancy shut the door of her apartment behind her, and slipped out into
+the dimly lit corridor. From her sitting-room came a burst of
+concerted laughter, the sound of Betty's sweet, high pitched voice
+raised in sudden protest, and then the echo of some sort of a physical
+struggle; and Caroline took the piano and began to improvise.
+
+"They won't miss me," Nancy said to herself, "I must have air." She
+drew a long breath with a hand against her breast, apparently to
+relieve the pressure there. "I can't stay shut up in a _room_," she
+kept repeating as if she were stating the most reasonable of premises,
+and turning, fled down the two flights of stairs that led to the
+outside door of the building.
+
+The breath of the night was refreshingly cool upon her hot cheeks, and
+she smiled into the darkness gratefully. Across the way a row of
+brownstone houses, implacably boarded up for the summer, presented
+dull and dimly defined surfaces that reflected nothing, not even the
+lights of the street, or the shadow of a passing straggler. Nancy
+turned her face toward the avenue. The nostalgia that was her
+inheritance from her father, and through him from a long line of
+ancestors that followed the sea whither it might lead them, was upon
+her this night, although she did not understand it as such. She only
+thought vaguely of a strip of white beach with a whiter moon hung high
+above it, and the long silver line of the tide,--drawing out.
+
+"I wish I had a hat on," she said. There was a night light in the
+chemist's shop at the corner, and the panel of mirror obligingly
+placed for the convenience of the passing crowd, at the left of the
+big window, showed her reflection quite plainly. She was suddenly
+inspired to take the soft taffeta girdle from the waist of her dark
+blue muslin gown, and bind it turban-wise about her head. The effect
+was pleasingly modish and conventional, and she quickened her
+steps--satisfied. There was a tingle in the air that set her blood
+pleasantly in motion, and she established a rhythm of pace that made
+her feel almost as if she were walking to music. Insensibly her mind
+took up its responsibilities again as the blood, stimulated from its
+temporary inactivity, began to course naturally through her veins.
+
+"There is plenty of beer and ginger ale in the ice-box," she
+thought, "and I've done this before, so they won't be unnaturally
+disturbed about me. Billy wanted to take Caroline home early, and
+Dick can go on up-town with Betty, without making her feel that she
+ought to leave him alone with me for a last tête-à-tête. It will hurt
+Dick's feelings, but he understands really. He has a most blessed
+understandingness, Dick has."
+
+She had the avenue almost entirely to herself, a silent gleaming
+thoroughfare with the gracious emptiness that a much lived in street
+sometimes acquires, of a Sunday at the end of an adventurous season.
+It was early July, the beginning of the actual summer season in New
+York. Nancy had never before been in town so late in the year, nor for
+that matter had Caroline or Betty, but Betty's interest in the affairs
+of the Inn was keeping her at Nancy's side, while Caroline had just
+accepted a secretarial position in one of the big Industrial Leagues
+recently organized by women for women, that would keep her in town all
+summer. Billy and Dick, by virtue of their respective occupations,
+were never away from New York for longer than the customary two weeks'
+vacation.
+
+"My soul smoothed itself out, a long cramped scroll,"--her conscience
+placated on the score of her deserted guests, Nancy was quoting
+Browning to herself, as she widened the distance between herself and
+them. "I wonder why I have this irresistible tendency to shake the
+people I love best in the world at intervals. I am such a really
+well-balanced and rational individual, I don't understand it in
+myself. I thought the Inn was going to take all the nonsense out of
+me, but it hasn't, it appears," she sighed; "but then, I think it is
+going to take the nonsense out of a lot of people that are only
+erratic because they have never been properly fed. I guess I'll go and
+have a look at the old place in its Sunday evening calm. Already it
+seems queer not to be there at nine o'clock in the evening, but I
+don't really think there are people enough in New York now on Sundays
+to make it an object."
+
+Nancy's feet turned mechanically toward the arena of her most serious
+activities. Like most of us who run away, she was following by
+instinct the logical periphery of her responsibilities.
+
+The big green latticed gate was closed against all intruders. Nancy
+had the key to its padlock in her hand-bag, but she had no intention
+of using it. The white and crimson sign flapped in the soft breeze
+companionably responsive to the modest announcement, "Marble Workshop,
+Reproductions and Antiques, Garden Furniture," which so inadequately
+invited those whom it might concern to a view of the petrified
+vaudeville within. Through the interstices of the gate the courtyard
+looked littered and unalluring;--the wicker tables without their fine
+white covers; the chairs pushed back in a heterogeneous assemblage;
+the segregated columns of a garden peristyle gaunt against the dark,
+gleamed a more ghostly white than the weather-stained busts and
+figures less recently added to the collection. It seemed to Nancy
+incredible that the place would ever bloom again with lights and
+bouquets and eager patrons, with her group of pretty flower-like
+waitresses moving deftly among them. She stared at the spot with the
+cold eye of the creator whose handiwork is out of the range of his
+vision, and the inspiration of it for the moment, gone.
+
+"I feel like Cinderella and her godmother rolled into one," she
+thought disconsolately. "I waved my wand, and made so many things
+happen, and now that the clock has struck, again here I am outside in
+the cold and dark,"--the wind was taking on a keener edge, and she
+shivered slightly in her muslins--"with nothing but a pumpkin shell to
+show for it. Hitty says that getting what you want is apt to be
+unlikely business, and I'm inclined to think she's right."
+
+It seemed to her suddenly that the thing she had wanted,--a
+picturesque, cleverly executed restaurant where people could be fed
+according to the academic ideals of an untried young woman like
+herself was an unthinkable thing. The power of illusion failed for the
+moment. Just what was it that she had hoped to accomplish with this
+fling at executive altruism? What was she doing with a French cook in
+white uniform, a competent staff of professional dishwashers and
+waitresses and kitchen helpers? How had it come about that she owned
+so many mounds and heaps and pyramids of silver and metal and linen?
+What was this Inn that she had conceived as a project so unimaginably
+fine? Who were these shadow people that came and went there? Who was
+she? Why with all her vitality and all her hungry yearning for life
+and adventure couldn't she even believe in her own substantiality and
+focus? Wasn't life even real enough for a creature such as she to
+grasp it,--if it wasn't--
+
+She saw a figure that was familiar to her turn in from the avenue, a
+tall man in an Inverness with a wide black hat pulled down over his
+eyes. For the moment she could not remember who he was, but by the
+time he had stopped in front of the big gate, giving utterance to a
+well delivered expletive, she knew him perfectly, and stood waiting,
+motionless, for him to turn and speak to her. She was sure that he
+would have no recollection of her. He turned, but it was some seconds
+before he addressed her.
+
+"Doubt thou the stars are fire," he said at last, with a shrug that
+admitted her to the companionship of his discomfiture. "Doubt thou the
+sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt that your
+favorite New York restaurant will be closed on a Sunday night."
+
+"Oh! _is_ it your favorite New York restaurant?" Nancy cried, her
+heart in her throat. "It's mine, you know, my--my favorite."
+
+"So I judged, or you wouldn't be beating against the gate so
+disconsolately." It was too dark to see his face clearly, but Nancy
+realized that he was looking down at her quizzically through the
+darkness.
+
+"Do you really like this restaurant?" she persisted.
+
+"In some ways I like it very much. The food is quite possible as you
+know, very American in character, but very good American, and it has
+the advantage of being served out-of-doors. I am a Frenchman by
+adoption, and I like the outdoor café. In fact, I am never happy
+eating inside."
+
+"The surroundings are picturesque?" Nancy hazarded.
+
+The stranger laughed. "According to the American ideal," he said,
+"they are--but I do admit that they show a rather extraordinary
+imagination. I've often thought that I should like to make the
+acquaintance of the woman,--of course, it's a woman--who conceived the
+notion of this mortuary tea-room."
+
+"Why, of course, is it a woman?"
+
+"A man wouldn't set up housekeeping in--in _Père Lachaise_."
+
+"Why not, if he found a really domestic-looking corner?"
+
+"He _wouldn't_ in the first place, it wouldn't occur to him, that's
+all, and if he did he couldn't get away with it. The only real
+drawback to this hostelry is, as you know, that they don't serve
+spirits of any kind. I'm accustomed to a glass or two of wine with my
+dinner, and my food sticks in my throat when I can't have it, but I've
+found a way around that, now."
+
+"Oh! have you?" said Nancy.
+
+"Don't give me away, but there's a man about the place here whose name
+is Michael, and he possesses that blend of Gallic facility with Celtic
+canniness that makes the Irish so wonderful as a race. I told my
+trouble to Michael,--with the result that I get a teapot full of
+Chianti with my dinner every night, and no questions asked."
+
+"Oh! you do?" gasped Nancy.
+
+"You see Michael is serving the best interests of his employer, who
+wants to keep her patrons, because if I couldn't have it I wouldn't be
+there. He couldn't trouble the lady about it, naturally, because it is
+technically an offense against the law. Come, let's go and find a
+quiet corner where we can continue our conversation comfortably.
+There's a painfully respectable little hotel around the corner here
+that looks like the Café L'avenue when you first go in, but is a place
+where the most bourgeoise of one's aunts might put up."
+
+"I--I don't know that I can go," said Nancy.
+
+"There's no reason why you shouldn't, you know. My name is Collier
+Pratt. I'm an artist. The more bourgeoise of my aunts would introduce
+me if she were here. She's a New Englander like so many of your own
+charming relatives."
+
+"How did you know that?" Nancy asked, as she followed him with a
+docility quite new to her, past the big green gate, and the row of
+nondescript shops between it and the corner of Broadway.
+
+"I was _born_ in Boston," Collier Pratt said a trifle absently. "I
+know a Massachusetts product when I see one. Ah! here we are."
+
+He led her triumphantly to a table in the far corner of the
+practically empty restaurant, waved away the civilities of a swarthy
+and somewhat badly coordinated waiter, and pulled out her chair for
+her himself.
+
+"Now, let me have a look at you," he said; "why, you've nothing on but
+muslin, and you're wearing your belt for a turban."
+
+"A sop to the conventions," Nancy said, blushing burningly. She was
+not quite able yet to get her bearings with this extraordinary man,
+who had assumed charge of her so cavalierly, but she was eager to find
+her poise in the situation. "I ran away, and I thought it would look
+better to have something like a hat on."
+
+"Looks," said Collier Pratt, "looks! That's New England, always the
+looks of a thing, never the feel of it. Mind you I don't mean the
+_look_ of a thing, that's something different again."
+
+"Yes, I know, the conventional slant as opposed to the artistic
+perspective."
+
+"Good! It isn't necessary to have my remarks followed intelligently,
+but it always adds piquancy to the situation when they are. Speaking
+of artistic perspective, you have a very nice coloring. I like a ruddy
+chestnut hair with a skin as delicately white and pink as yours." He
+spoke impersonally with the narrowing eye of the artist. "I can see
+you either in white,--not quite a cream white, but almost,--against a
+pearly kind of Quakerish background, or flaming out in the most crude,
+barbaric assemblage of colors. That's the advantage of your type and
+the environment you connote--you can be the whole show, or the veriest
+little mouse that ever sought the protective coloring of the
+shadows."
+
+"You aren't exactly taking the quickest way of putting me at my ease,"
+Nancy said. "I'm very much embarrassed, you know. I'd stand being
+looked over for a few minutes longer if I could,--but I can't. I'm not
+having one of my most equable evenings."
+
+"I beg your pardon," Collier Pratt said.
+
+For the first time since she had seen his face with the light upon it,
+he smiled, and the smile relieved the rather empiric quality of his
+habitual expression. Nancy noticed the straight line of the heavy
+brows scarcely interrupted by the indication of the beginning of the
+nose, and wondering to herself if it were not possible for a person
+with that eyebrow formation to escape the venality of disposition that
+is popularly supposed to be its adjunct,--decided affirmatively.
+
+"I'm not used to talking to American girls very much. I forget how
+daintily they're accustomed to being handled. I'm extremely anxious to
+put you at your ease," he added quietly. "I appreciate the privilege
+of your company on what promised to be the dullest of dull evenings. I
+should appreciate still more," he bowed, as he handed her a bill of
+fare of the journalistic proportions of the usual hotel menu, "if you
+would make a choice of refreshment, that we may dispense with the
+somewhat pathological presence of our young friend here," he indicated
+the waiter afflicted with the jerking and titubation of a badly strung
+puppet. "I advise Rhine wine and seltzer. I offer you anything from
+green chartreuse to Scotch and soda. Personally I'm going to drink
+Perrier water."
+
+"I'd rather have an ice-cream," Nancy said, "than anything else in the
+world,--coffee ice-cream, and a glass of water."
+
+"I wonder if you would, or if you only think it's--safer. At any rate
+I'm going to put my coat over your shoulders while you eat it. I never
+leave my rooms at this hour of the night without this cape. If I can
+find a place to sit out in I always do, and I'm naturally rather
+cold-blooded."
+
+"I'm not," said Nancy, but she meekly allowed him to drape her in the
+folds of the light cape, and found it grateful to her.
+
+"Bring the lady a big cup of coffee, and mind you have it hot,"
+Collier Pratt ordered peremptorily, as her ice-cream was served by the
+shaking waiter. "Coffee may be the worst thing in the world for you,
+nervously. I don't know,--it isn't for me, I rather thrive on it, but
+at any rate I'm going to save you from the combination of organdie and
+ice-cream on a night like this. What is your name?" he inquired
+abruptly.
+
+"Ann Martin."
+
+"Not at my service?"
+
+"I don't know, yet."
+
+"Well, I don't know,--but I hope and trust so. I like you. You've got
+something they don't have--these American girls,--softness and
+strength, too. I imagine you've never been out of America."
+
+"I--I have."
+
+"With two other girls and a chaperon, doing Europe, and staying at all
+the hotels doped up for tourist consumption."
+
+Nancy was constrained to answer with a smile.
+
+"You don't like America very much," she said presently.
+
+"I like it for itself, but I loathe it--for myself. My way of living
+here is all wrong. I can't get to bed in this confounded city. I can't
+get enough to eat."
+
+"Oh! can't you?" Nancy cried.
+
+"In Paris, or any town where there is a café life one naturally gets
+fed. The technique of living is taken care of much better over there.
+Your _concierge_ serves you a nourishing breakfast as a matter of
+course. When you've done your morning's work you go to your favorite
+café--not with the one object in life--to cram a _Châteaubriand_ down
+your dry and resisting throat because he who labors must live,--but to
+see your friends, to read your daily journals, to write your letters,
+and do it incidentally in the open air while some diplomat of a waiter
+serves you with food that assuages the palate, without insulting your
+mood. That's what I like about the little restaurant in the court
+there. It's out-of-doors, and you may stay there without feeling your
+table is in requisition for the next man. It's a very polite little
+place."
+
+"You didn't expect to get in there to-night."
+
+"I had hopes of it. I've not dined, you see."
+
+"Not dined?" Nancy's eyes widened in dismay.
+
+"There's no use for me to dine unless I can eat my food tranquilly, in
+some accustomed corner. Getting nourished with me is a spiritual, as
+well as a physical matter. It is with all sensitive people. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"I suppose so. I--I hadn't thought of it that way. Couldn't you eat
+something now--an oyster stew, or something like that?"
+
+"Nothing in any way remotely connected with that. An oyster stew is to
+me the most barbarous of concoctions. I loathe hot milk,--an oyster is
+an adjunct to a fish sauce, or a preface to a good dinner."
+
+"You ought to have something," Nancy urged, "even ice-cream is more
+nourishing than mineral water, or coffee with cream in it."
+
+"I like coffee after dinner, not before."
+
+"If you only eat when it's convenient, or the mood takes you," Nancy
+cried out in real distress, "how can you ever be sure that you have
+calories enough? The requirement of an average man at active labor is
+estimated at over three thousand calories. You must have something
+like a balanced ration in order to do your work."
+
+"Must I?" Collier Pratt smiled his rare smile. "Well, at any rate, it
+is good to hear you say so."
+
+She finished her ice-cream, and Collier Pratt drank his mineral water
+slowly, and smoked innumerable cigarettes of Virginia tobacco. The
+conversation which had proceeded so expeditiously to this point seemed
+for no apparent reason, suddenly to become gratuitous. Nancy had never
+before begun on the subject of the balanced ration without being
+respectfully allowed to go through to the end. She had not been
+allowed to feel snubbed, but she was a little bewildered that any
+conversation in which she was participating, could be so gracefully
+stopped before it was ended by her expressed desire.
+
+Collier Pratt took his watch out of his pocket, and looked at it
+hastily.
+
+"By jove," he said, "I had entirely forgotten. I have a child in my
+charge. I must be about looking after her."
+
+"A child?" Nancy cried, astonished.
+
+"Yes, a little girl. She's probably sitting up for me, poor baby. Can
+you get home alone, if I put you on a bus or a street-car?"
+
+"If you'll call a taxi for me--" Nancy said.
+
+She noticed that the check was paid with change instead of a bill. In
+fact, her host seemed not to have a bill of any denomination in his
+pocket, but to be undisturbed by the fact. He parted from her
+casually.
+
+"Good-by, child," he said with his head in the door after he had given
+the chauffeur her street number; "with the permission of _le bon
+Dieu_, we shall see each other again. I feel that He is going to give
+it to us."
+
+"Good-by," Nancy said to his retreating shoulder.
+
+At her own front door was Dick's big Rolls-Royce, and Dick sitting
+inside of it, with his feet comfortably up, feigning sleep.
+
+"You didn't think I'd go home until I saw you safe inside your own
+door, did you?" he demanded.
+
+"Where's Betty?" Nancy asked mechanically.
+
+"I sent Williams home with her. Then he came back here, and left the
+car with me."
+
+"You needn't have waited," Nancy said, "I'm sorry, Dick, I--I had to
+have air. I had to get out. I couldn't stay inside a minute longer."
+
+"You need never explain anything to me."
+
+"Don't you want to know where I've been?"
+
+Dick looked at her carefully before he made his answer. Then he said
+firmly.
+
+"No, dear."
+
+"I might have told you," she said, "if you had wanted to know." She
+felt her knees sagging with fatigue, and drooped against the
+door-frame.
+
+"Come and sit in the car, and talk to me for a minute," he suggested.
+"Do you good, before you climb the stairs."
+
+He opened the car door for her ingratiatingly, but she shook her
+head.
+
+"I've done unconventional things enough for one evening," she said.
+"Unlock the door for me. Hitty'll be waiting up to take care of me."
+
+"What's that queer thing you're wearing?" he asked her, as he held the
+door for her to pass through, "I never remember seeing you wear that
+before."
+
+Nancy looked down wonderingly at the folds of the Inverness still
+swinging from her shoulders. She had been subconsciously aware of the
+grateful warmth in which she was encased ever since she snuggled
+comfortably into the depths of the taxi-cab into which Collier Pratt
+had tucked her.
+
+"No, I never _have_ worn it before," she said, answering Dick's
+question.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SCIENCE
+
+
+The activities of the day at Outside Inn began with luncheon and the
+preparation for it. Nancy longed to serve breakfast there, but as yet
+it had not seemed practicable to do so. Most of the patrons of the
+restaurant conducted the business of the day down-town, but had their
+actual living quarters in New York's remoter fastnesses,--Brooklyn,
+the Bronx or Harlem. Nancy was satisfied that the bulk of her
+patronage should be the commuting and cliff dwelling contingent of
+Manhattanites,--indeed it was the sort of patronage that from the
+beginning she had intended to cater to.
+
+Nancy did most of the marketing herself at first, but Gaspard--the big
+cook--gradually coaxed this privilege away from her.
+
+"You see," he said, "we sit--us together, and talk of eating"--he
+prided himself on his use of English, and never used his native tongue
+to help him out, except in moments of great excitement. "It is
+immediately after breakfast. Yes! I am full of milk-coffee sopped with
+bread, and you of bacon with eggs and marmalade. We say, what shall we
+give to our custom for its dinner and its luncheon? We think sadly--we
+who have but now brushed away the crumbs of breakfast--of those who
+must sit down so soon to the table groaning with viands. Therefore we
+say, 'Market delicately. Have the soup clear, the entrée light and the
+salad green with plenty of vinegar.' Even your calories--they do not
+help us much. They are in quantities so unexpected in the food that
+weighs nothing in the scales. We say you shall go to market and buy
+these things, and you go. I stir and walk about, and grow restless for
+my _déjeuner_, and when you return from market, hungry too, we are not
+the same people who had thought our soup should be clear, and our
+entrée more beautiful than nutritious. If I go to market myself _late_
+I am inspired there to buy what is right, because by that hour I have
+a proper relish and understanding of what all the world should eat."
+
+"I know he is right," Nancy said to Billy afterward in reporting the
+conversation, "I hate to admit it, but even my notion of what other
+people should eat is colored by my own relation to food. I never
+realized before how little use an intellect is in this matter of food
+values. I can actually get up a meal that according to the tables is
+scientifically correct that wouldn't feed anybody if they were
+hungry."
+
+"One banana is equal to a pound and three-quarters of steak," Billy
+misquoted helpfully.
+
+"The trouble is that it _isn't_," Nancy said, "except technically."
+
+"You can't eat it and grow thin."
+
+"You can't eat it and grow _fat_ unless it happens to be the peculiar
+food to which you are idiosyncratic."
+
+"If that's really a word," Billy said, "I'll overlook your trying it
+out on me. If it isn't you'll have to take the consequences." He went
+through the pantomime of one preparing to do physical violence.
+
+"Oh! it's a word. Ask Caroline." Nancy's eyes still held their look of
+being focussed on something in the remote distance. "The trouble with
+all this dietetic problem is that the individual is dependent on
+something more than an adjustment of values. His environment and his
+heredity play an active part in his diet problem. Some people can eat
+highly concentrated food, others have to have bulk, and so on. You
+can't substitute cheese and bananas for steak and do the race a
+service no matter what the cost of steak may soar to. You can't even
+substitute rice for potatoes."
+
+"Not unless your patronage is more Oriental than Celtic."
+
+"Healthy people have to have honest fare of about the type to
+which their environment has accustomed them, but intelligently
+supervised,--that's the conclusion I've come to."
+
+"You may be right," Billy said, "my general notion has always been
+that everybody ate wrong, and that everybody who would stand for it
+ought to be started all over again. I wouldn't stand for it, so I've
+never looked into the matter."
+
+"People don't eat wrong, that's the really startling discovery I've
+made recently. I mean healthy people don't."
+
+"I don't believe it," said Billy; "the way people eat is one of the
+most outrageous of the human scandals. I read the newspapers."
+
+"The newspapers don't know," Nancy said; "the individual usually has
+an instinctive working knowledge of the diet that is good for him, and
+his digestional experiences have taught him how to regulate it to some
+extent."
+
+"How do you account for the clerk that orders coffee and sinkers at
+Child's every day?"
+
+"That's exactly it," Nancy said. "He knows that he needs bulk and
+stimulation. He's handicapped by his poverty, but he gets the nearest
+substitute for the diet that suits him that he can get. If he could
+afford it he would have a square meal that would nourish him as well
+as warm and fill him."
+
+"I don't see but what this interesting theory lets you out altogether.
+Why Outside Inn, with its foxy table d'hôte, if what's one man's meat
+is another man's poison, and natural selection is the order of the
+day?"
+
+"Outside Inn is all the more necessary to the welfare of a nation
+that's being starved out by the high cost of living. All I need to do
+is to have a little more variety, to have all the nutritive
+requirements in each meal, and such generous servings that every
+patron can make out a meal satisfying to himself."
+
+"Everybody knows that all fat people eat all the sweets that they can
+get, and all thin people take tea without sugar with lemon in it."
+
+"These people aren't healthy. That's where the intelligent supervision
+comes in."
+
+"What do you intend to do about them?"
+
+"Watch over them a little more carefully. Regulate their servings
+craftily. Be sure of my tables. I have lots of schemes. I'll tell you
+about them sometime."
+
+"_Sometime_,--for this relief much thanks," murmured Billy; "just now
+I've had as much of these matters as I can stand. I don't see how you
+are going to run this thing on a profit, though."
+
+"I'm not," Nancy said, "I'm losing money every minute. That fifteen
+thousand dollars is almost gone now, of course. Billy, do you think it
+would be perfectly awful if I didn't try to make money at all?"
+
+"I think it would be a good deal wiser. I'll raise all the money you
+want on your expectations."
+
+"All right then. I'm not going to worry."
+
+Billy looked down into the courtyard from the room up-stairs in which
+they had been talking. Already the preparations for lunch were under
+way. The girls were moving deftly about, laying cloths and arranging
+flower vases and silver.
+
+"Can I get right down there and sit down at one of those tables and
+have my lunch," Billy inquired, "or do I have to go out of the back
+door and come in the front like a regular customer?"
+
+"Whichever you prefer. There's Caroline coming in at the gate now."
+
+"Well, then, I know which I prefer," Billy said, swimming realistically
+toward the stairs.
+
+"You are getting fat, Billy," Caroline informed him critically after
+the amenities were over, and the meal appropriately begun. "You ought
+to watch your diet a little more carefully."
+
+"No," Billy said firmly, "I don't need to watch my diet, I'm perfectly
+healthy, and therefore my natural cravings will point the way to my
+most judicious nourishment. Nancy has explained all to me."
+
+"That's a very interesting theory of Nancy's," Caroline said, "but I
+don't altogether agree with it."
+
+"I do," said Billy, then he added hastily, "but I agree with you, too,
+Caroline. You are to all other women what moonlight is to sunlight, or
+I mean--what sunlight is to moonlight. In other words--you are the
+goods."
+
+"Don't be silly, Billy."
+
+"There's only one thing in all this wide universe that you can't say
+to me, Caroline, and 'don't be silly, Billy,' is that thing,--express
+this same thing in _vers libre_ if you must say it! Look at the
+handsome soup you're getting. What is the name of that soup, Molly?"
+
+He smiled ingratiatingly at the little waitress, who always beamed at
+any one of Nancy's particular friends that came into the restaurant,
+and made a point of serving them if she could possibly arrange it.
+
+"Cream of spinach," she said, "it's a special to-day."
+
+"Beautiful soup so rich and green," Billy began in a soulful baritone,
+"waiting in a hot tureen. Where's mine, Molly?"
+
+"Dolly's bringing your first course, sir."
+
+Billy gazed in perplexity at the half of a delicious grapefruit set
+before him by the duplicate of the pretty girl who stood smiling
+deprecatingly behind Caroline's chair.
+
+"Where's my soup, Dolly?" Billy asked with a thundering sternness of
+manner.
+
+"I'm sorry, sir," Dolly began glibly, "but the soup has given out.
+Will you be good enough to allow the substitution of--"
+
+"That's a formula," Billy said. "The soup can't be out. We're the
+first people in the dining-room. Go tell Miss Nancy that I will be
+served with some of that green soup at once, or know the reason why."
+
+The two waitresses exchanged glances, and went off together
+suppressing giggles, to return almost immediately, their risibility
+still causing them great physical inconvenience.
+
+"Intelligent supervision, she says." Dolly exploded into the miniature
+patch of muslin and ribbon that served her as an apron.
+
+"She says that's the reason why," Molly contributed,--following her
+sister's example.
+
+"Nancy doesn't serve soup to a fat man if she can possibly avoid it.
+That's part of her theory," Caroline explained. "There's no use making
+a fuss about it, because you won't get it."
+
+Billy sat looking at his grapefruit for some seconds in silence. Then
+he began on it slowly.
+
+"Well, I'll be damned," he said.
+
+Nancy was learning a great many things very rapidly. The practical
+application of her theories of feeding mankind to her actual
+experiments with the shifting population of New York, revolutionized
+her attitude toward the problem almost daily. She had started in with
+a great many ideas and ideals of service, with preconceived notions of
+balanced rations, and exact distribution of fuel stuffs to the human
+unit. She had come to realize very shortly, that the human unit was a
+quantity as incalculable in its relation to its digestive problems as
+its psychological ones. She had believed vaguely that in reference to
+food values the race made its great exception to its rule of working
+out toward normality; but she changed that opinion very quickly as she
+watched her fellow men selecting their diet with as sure an instinct
+for their nutritive requirements as if she had coached them personally
+for years.
+
+From the assumption that she lived in a world gone dietetically mad,
+and hence in the process of destroying itself, she had gradually come
+to see that in this phase of his struggle for existence, as well as in
+every other, the instinct of man operated automatically in the
+direction of his salvation. This new attitude in tie matter relieved
+her of much of her responsibility, but left her not less anxious to do
+what she could for her kind in the matter of calories. She was, as she
+had shown in her treatment of Billy, not entirely blinded by her
+growing predilection in favor of the doctrine of natural selection.
+
+Every day she had Gaspard make, in addition to his regular table
+d'hôte menu, dozens of nutritive custards, quarts of stimulating
+broths and jellies and other dishes containing the maximum of
+easily digested and highly concentrated nutriment, and these she
+managed to have Molly or Dolly or even Hildeguard--the Alma Tadema
+girl--introduce into the luncheon or dinner service in the case of
+those patrons who seemed to need peculiarly careful nourishing. Let a
+white-faced girl sink into a seat within the range of Nancy's
+vision,--she always ensconced herself in the doorway screened with
+vines at the beginning of a meal,--and she gave orders at once for
+the crafty substitution of invalid broth for soup, of rich nut
+bread for the ordinary rolls and crackers, of custards or specially
+made ice-cream for the dessert of the day. No overfed, pasty-faced
+man ever escaped from Outside Inn until an attempt at least had been
+made to introduce a portion of stewed prunes into his diet; and
+all such were fed the minimum of bread and other starchy foods, and
+the maximum of salad and green vegetables. Nancy had gluten bread made
+in quantities for the stouter element of her patronage, and in
+nine cases out of ten she was able to get it served and eaten
+without protest. Some of her regular patrons began to change weight
+gradually, a heavy man or two became less heavy, and a wraithlike
+girl now and then took on a new bloom and substantiality. These were
+the triumphs for which Nancy lived. Her only regret was that she
+was not able to give to each her personal time and attention, and
+establish herself on a footing with her patrons where she might learn
+from their own lips the secrets of their metabolism.
+
+She was not known as the proprietor of the place. In fact, the
+management of the restaurant was kept a careful secret from those who
+frequented it and with the habitual indifference of New Yorkers to the
+power behind the throne, so long as its affairs were manipulated in
+good and regular order, they soon ceased to feel any apparent
+curiosity about it. Betty, who sometimes rebelled at remaining so
+scrupulously incognita, defiantly took the limelight at intervals and
+moved among the assembled guests with an authoritative and possessive
+air, adjusting and rearranging small details, and acknowledging the
+presence of _habitués_, but since her attentions were popularly
+supposed to be those of a superior head waitress, she soon tired of
+the gesture of offering them.
+
+Nancy's intention had been to allow the restaurant to speak for
+itself, and then at the climactic moment to allow her connection with
+it to be discovered, and to speak for it with all the force and
+earnestness of which she was capable. She had meant to stand sponsor
+for the practical working theory on which her experiment was based,
+and she had already partially formulated interviews with herself in
+which she modestly acknowledged the success of that experiment, but
+the untoward direction in which it was developing made such a
+revelation inexpedient.
+
+There was one regular patron to whom she was peculiarly anxious to
+remain incognita. Collier Pratt made it his almost invariable habit to
+come sauntering toward the table in the corner, under the life-sized
+effigy of the _Vênus de Medici_, at seven o'clock in the evening, and
+that table was scrupulously reserved for him. To it were sent the
+choicest of all the viands that Outside Inn could command. Michael was
+tacitly sped on his way with his teapot full of claret. Gaspard did
+amazing things with the breasts of ducks and segments of orange, with
+squab chicken stuffed with new corn, with _filets de sole a la
+Marguery_. Nancy craftily spurred him on to his most ambitious
+achievements under pretense of wishing her own appetite stimulated,
+and the big cook, who adored her, produced triumph after triumph of
+his art for her delectation, whereupon the biggest part of it was
+cunningly smuggled out to the artist. From behind her screen of vines
+Nancy watched the fine features of her quondam friend light with the
+rapture of the _gourmet_ as be sampled Gaspard's sauce _verte_ or
+Hollandaise or lifted the glass cover from the mushrooms _sous cloche_
+and inhaled their delicate aroma.
+
+"I wonder if he finds our food very American in character, now," she
+said to herself, with a blush at the memory of the real southern
+cornbread and candied sweet potatoes that were offered him in the
+initial weeks of his patronage. Gaspard still made these delicacies
+for luncheon, but they had been almost entirely banished from the
+dinner menu. Afternoon tea at the Inn was famous for the wonderful
+waffles produced with Parisian precision from a traditional Virginian
+recipe, but Collier Pratt never appeared at either of these meals to
+criticize them for being American.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AN ELEEMOSYNARY INSTITUTION
+
+
+One night during the latter part of July Betty had a birthday, and
+according to immemorial custom Caroline and Nancy and Dick and Billy
+helped her to celebrate it at one of the old-fashioned down-town
+hotels where they had ordered practically the same dinner for her
+anniversaries ever since they had been grown up enough to celebrate
+them unchaperoned. Caroline's brother, Preston, had made a sixth
+member of the party for the first two or three years, but he had been
+located in London since then, in charge of the English office of his
+firm, to which he had been suddenly appointed a month after he and
+Betty, who had been sweethearts, had had a spectacular quarrel.
+
+Nancy stayed by the celebration until about half past nine, and
+then Dick put her into a taxi-cab, and she fled back to her
+responsibilities as mistress of Outside Inn, agreeing to meet the
+others later for the rounding out of the evening. As she drew up
+before the big gate the courtyard seemed practically deserted. The
+waitresses were busy clearing away the few cluttered tables left
+by the last late guests, and in one sheltered corner a man and a girl
+were frankly holding hands across the table, while they whispered
+earnestly of some impending parting. The big canopy of striped awning
+cloth had been drawn over the tables, as the rather heavy air of
+the evening bad been punctured occasionally by a swift scattering
+of rain. Nancy was half-way across the court before she realized
+that Collier Pratt was still occupying his accustomed seat under the
+shadow of the big Venus. She had not seen him face to face or
+communicated with him since the day she had looked him up in the
+telephone book and sent his cape to him by special messenger. She
+stopped involuntarily as she reached his side, and he looked up and
+smiled as he recognized her.
+
+"You're late again, Miss Ann Martin," he said, rising and pulling out
+a chair for her opposite his own. "I think perhaps I can pull the
+wires and procure you some sustenance if you will say the word."
+
+"I've no word to say," Nancy said, "but how do you do? I've just
+dined elsewhere. I only stopped in here for a moment to get
+something--something I left here at lunch."
+
+"In that case I'll offer you a drop of Michael's tea in my water
+glass." He poured a tablespoonful or so of claret from the teapot into
+the glass of ice-water before him, and added several lumps of sugar to
+the concoction, which he stirred gravely for some time before he
+offered it to her. "I never touch water myself. This is _eau rougie_
+as the French children drink it. It's really better for you than
+ice-cream and a glass of water."
+
+"And less American," Nancy murmured with her eyes down.
+
+"And less American," he acquiesced blandly.
+
+Nancy sipped her drink, and Collier Pratt stirred the dregs in his
+coffee cup--Nancy had overheard some of her patrons remarking on the
+curious habits of a man who consumed a pot of tea and a pot of coffee
+at one and the same meal--and they regarded each other for some time
+in silence. Michael and Hildeguard, Molly and Dolly and two others of
+the staff of girls were grouped in the doorway exactly in Nancy's
+range of vision, and whispering to one another excitedly concerning
+the phenomenon that met their eyes.
+
+"The little girl?" Nancy said, trying to ignore the composite scrutiny
+to which she was being subjected, by turning determinedly to her
+companion, "the little girl that you spoke of--is she well?"
+
+"She's as well as a motherless baby could be, subjected to the
+irregularities of a life like mine. Still she seems to thrive on it."
+
+"Is she yours?" Nancy asked.
+
+"Yes, she's mine," Collier Pratt said, gravely dismissing the subject,
+and leaving Nancy half ashamed of her boldness in putting the
+question, half possessed of a madness to know the answer at any cost.
+
+"I've discovered something very interesting," Collier Pratt said,
+after an interval in which Nancy felt that he was perfectly cognizant
+of her struggle with her curiosity; "in fact, it's one of the most
+interesting discoveries that I have made in the course of a not
+unadventurous life. Do you come to this restaurant often?"
+
+"Quite often," Nancy equivocated, "earlier in the day. For luncheon
+and for tea."
+
+"I come here almost every night of my life," Collier Pratt declared,
+"and I intend to continue to come so long as _le bon Dieu_ spares me
+my health and my epicurean taste. You know that I spoke of the food
+here before. The character of it has changed entirely. It's
+unmistakably French now, not to say Parisian. Outside of Paris or
+Vienna I have never tasted such soups, such sauce, such delicate and
+suggestive flavors. My entire existence has been revolutionized by the
+experience. I am no longer the lonely and unhappy man you discovered
+at this gate a short month ago. I can not cavil at an America that
+furnishes me with such food as I get in this place.
+
+    "Man may live without friends, and may live without books.
+    But civilized man can not live without cooks,"
+
+Nancy quoted sententiously.
+
+"Exactly. The whole point is that the cooking here is civilized. Oh!
+you ought to come here to dinner, my friend. I don't know what the
+luncheons and teas are like--"
+
+"They're very good," Nancy said.
+
+"But not like the dinners, I'll wager. The dinners are the very last
+word! I don't know why this place isn't famous. Of course, I do my
+best to keep it a secret from the artistic rabble I know. It would be
+overrun with them in a week, and its character utterly ruined."
+
+"I wonder if it would."
+
+"Oh! I'm sure of it."
+
+"What is your discovery?" Nancy asked.
+
+Collier Pratt leaned dramatically closer to her, and Nancy instinctively
+bent forward across the tiny table until her face was very near to his.
+
+"Do you know anything about the price of foodstuffs?" he demanded.
+
+"A little," Nancy admitted.
+
+"You know then that the price of every commodity has soared
+unthinkably high, that the mere problem of providing the ordinary
+commonplace meal at the ordinary commonplace restaurant has become
+almost unsolvable to the proprietors? Most of the eating places in New
+York are run at a loss, while the management is marking time and
+praying for a change in conditions. Well, here we have a restaurant
+opening at the most crucial period in the history of such enterprises,
+offering its patrons the delicacies of the season most exquisitely
+cooked, at what is practically the minimum price for a respectable
+meal."
+
+"That's true, isn't it?"
+
+"More than that, there are people who come here, who order one thing
+and get another, and the thing they get is always a much more
+elaborate and extravagant dish than the one they asked for. I've seen
+that happen again and again."
+
+"Have you?" Nancy asked faintly, shrinking a little beneath the
+intentness of his look. "How--how do you account for it?"
+
+"There's only one way to account for it."
+
+"Do you think that there is an--an unlimited amount of capital behind
+it?"
+
+"I think that goes without saying," he said; "there must be an
+unlimited amount of capital behind it, or it wouldn't continue to
+flourish like a green bay tree; but that's not in the nature of a
+discovery. Anybody with any power of observation at all would have
+come to that conclusion long since."
+
+"Then, what is it you have found out?" Nancy asked, quaking.
+
+"My discovery is--" Collier Pratt paused for the whole effect of his
+revelation to penetrate to her consciousness, "that this whole outfit
+is run _philanthropically_."
+
+"Philanthropically?"
+
+"Don't you see? There can't be any other explanation of it. It's an
+eleemosynary institution. That's what it is."
+
+Nancy met his expectant eyes with a trifle of wildness in her own, but
+he continued to hold her gaze triumphantly.
+
+"Don't you see," he repeated, "doesn't everything point to that as the
+only possible explanation? It's some rich woman's plaything. That
+accounts for the food, the setting,--everything in fact that has
+puzzled us. Amateur,--that's the word; effective, delightful but
+inexperienced. It sticks out all over the place."
+
+"The food isn't amateur," Nancy said, a little resentfully.
+
+"Nothing is amateur but the spirit behind it, through which we profit.
+Don't you see?"
+
+"I'm beginning to see," Nancy admitted, "perhaps you are right. I
+guess the place is run philanthropically. I--I hadn't quite realized
+it before."
+
+"What did you think?"
+
+"I knew that the--one who was running it wasn't quite sure where she
+was coming out, but I didn't think of it is an eleemosynary
+institution."
+
+"Of course, it is."
+
+"It's an unscrupulous sort of charity, then," Nancy mused, "if it's
+masquerading as self-respecting and self-supporting. I--I've never
+approved of things like that."
+
+"Why quarrel with a scheme so beneficent?"
+
+"Don't you care?" Nancy asked with a catch in her voice that was very
+like an appeal.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Why should I?" he smiled.
+
+"Then I don't care, either," she decided with an emphasis that was
+entirely lost on the man on the other side of the table.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CAVE-MAN STUFF
+
+
+"Cave-man stuff," Billy said to Dick, pointing a thumb over his
+shoulder toward the interior of the Broadway moving-picture palace at
+the exit of which they had just met accidentally. "It always goes big,
+doesn't it?"
+
+"It does," Dick agreed thoughtfully, "in the movies anyhow."
+
+"Caroline says that the modern woman has her response to that kind of
+thing refined all out of her." Billy intended his tone to be entirely
+jocular, but there was a note of anxiety in it that was not lost on
+his friend.
+
+Dick paused under the shelter of a lurid poster--displaying a fierce
+gentleman in crude blue, showing all his teeth, and in the act of
+strangling an early Victorian ingenue with a dimple,--and lit a
+cigarette with his first match.
+
+"Caroline may have," he said, puffing to keep his light against the
+breeze, "but I doubt it."
+
+"Rough stuff doesn't seem to appeal to her," Billy said, quite
+humorously this time.
+
+"She's healthy," Dick mused, "rides horseback, plays tennis and all
+that. Wouldn't she have liked the guy that swung himself on the roof
+between the two poles?" He indicated again the direction of the
+theater from which they had just emerged.
+
+"She would have liked him," Billy said gloomily, "but the show
+would have started her arguing about this whole moving-picture
+proposition,--its crudity, and its tremendous sacrifice of artistic
+values, and so on and so on."
+
+"Sure, she's a highbrow. Highbrows always cerebrate about the movies
+in one way or another. Nancy doesn't get it at just that angle, of
+course. She hasn't got Caroline's intellectual appetite. She's not
+interested in the movies because she hasn't got a moving-picture house
+of her own. The world is not Nancy's oyster--it's her lump of putty."
+
+"I don't know which is the worst," Billy said. "Caroline won't listen
+to anything you say to her,--but then neither will Nancy."
+
+"Women never listen to anything," Dick said profoundly, "unless
+they're doing it on purpose, or they happen to be interested. I
+imagine Caroline is a little less tractable, but Nancy is capable of
+doing the most damage. She works with concrete materials. Caroline's
+kit is crammed with nothing but ideas."
+
+"Nothing _but_--" Billy groaned.
+
+"As for this cave-man business--theoretically, they ought to react to
+it,--both of them. They're both normal, well-balanced young ladies."
+
+"They're both runnin' pretty hard to keep in the same place, just at
+present."
+
+"Nancy isn't doing that--not by a long shot," Dick said.
+
+"She's not keeping in the same place certainly," Billy agreed.
+"Caroline is all eaten up by this economic independence idea."
+
+"It's a good idea," Dick admitted; "economic conditions are
+changing. No reason at all that a woman shouldn't prove herself
+willing to cope with them, as long as she gets things in the order
+of their importance. Earning her living isn't better than the
+Mother-Home-and-Heaven job. It's a way out, if she gets left, or
+gets stung."
+
+"I'm only thankful Caroline can't hear you." Billy raised pious eyes
+to heaven but he continued more seriously after a second, "It's all
+right to theorize, but practically speaking both our girls are getting
+beyond our control."
+
+"I'm not engaged to Nancy," Dick said a trifle stiffly.
+
+"Well, you ought to be," Billy said.
+
+Dick stiffened. He was not used to speaking of his relations with
+Nancy to any one--even to Billy, who was the closest friend he
+had. They walked up Broadway in silence for a while, toward the
+cross-street which housed the university club which was their common
+objective.
+
+"I know I ought to be," Dick said, just as Billy was formulating an
+apology for his presumption, "or I ought to marry her out of hand.
+This watchful waiting's entirely the wrong idea."
+
+"Why do we do it then?" Billy inquired pathetically.
+
+"I wanted Nancy to sow her economic wild oats. I guess you felt the
+same way about Caroline."
+
+"Well, they've sowed 'em, haven't they?"
+
+"Not by a long shot. That's the trouble,--they don't get any forrider,
+from our point of view. I thought it would be the best policy to stand
+by and let Nancy work it out. I thought her restaurant would either
+fail spectacularly in a month, or succeed brilliantly and she'd make
+over the executive end of it to somebody else. I never thought of her
+buckling down like this, and wearing herself out at it."
+
+"There's a pretty keen edge on Caroline this summer."
+
+"I'm afraid Nancy's in pretty deep," Dick said. "The money end of it
+worries me as much as anything."
+
+"I wouldn't let that worry me."
+
+"She won't take any of mine, you know."
+
+"I know she won't. See here, Dick, I wouldn't worry about Nancy's
+finances. She'll come out all right about money."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"I know so. We've got lots of things in the world to worry about,
+things that are scheduled to go wrong unless we're mighty delicate in
+the way we handle 'em. Let's worry about _them_, and leave Nancy's
+financial problems to take care of themselves."
+
+"Which means," Dick said, "that you are sure that she's all right. I'm
+not in her confidence in this matter--"
+
+"Well, I am," Billy said, "I'm her legal adviser, and with all due
+respect to your taste in girls, it's a very difficult position to
+occupy. What with the things she won't listen to and the things she
+won't learn, and the things she actually knows more about than I
+do--"
+
+The indulgent smile of the true lover lit Dick's face, as if Billy had
+waxed profoundly eulogistic. Unconsciously, Billy's own tenderness
+took fire at the flame.
+
+"Why don't we run away with 'em?" he said, breathing heavily.
+
+Dick stopped in a convenient doorway to light his third cigarette, end
+on.
+
+"It's the answer to you and Caroline," he said.
+
+"Why not to you and Nancy?"
+
+"It may be," Dick said, "I dunno. I've reached an _impasse_. Still
+there is a great deal in your proposition."
+
+They turned in at the portico that extended out over the big oak doors
+of their club. An attendant in white turned the knob for them, with
+the grin of enthusiastic welcome that was the usual tribute to these
+two good-looking, well set up young men from those who served them.
+
+"I'll think it over," Dick added, as he gave up his hat and stick,
+"and let you know what decision I come to."
+
+In another five minutes they were deep in a game of Kelly-pool from
+which Dick emerged triumphantly richer by the sum of a dollar and
+ninety cents, and Billy the poorer by the loss of a quarter.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a town in Connecticut, within a reasonable motoring distance
+from New York that has been called the Gretna Green of America. Here
+well-informed young couples are able to expedite the business of
+matrimony with a phenomenal neatness and despatch. Licenses can be
+procured by special dispensation, and the nuptial knot tied as
+solemnly and solidly as if a premeditated train of bridesmaids and
+flower girls and loving relatives had been rehearsed for days in
+advance.
+
+Dick and his Rolls-Royce had assisted at a hymeneal celebration or
+two, where a successful rush had been made for the temporary altars of
+this beneficent town with the most felicitous results, and he knew the
+procedure. When he and Billy organized an afternoon excursion into
+Connecticut, they tacitly avoided all mention of the consummation they
+hoped to bring about, but they both understood the nature and
+significance of the expedition. Dick,--who was used to the easy
+accomplishment of his designs and purposes, for most obstacles gave
+way before his magnetic onslaught,--had only sketchily outlined his
+scheme of proceedings, but he trusted to the magic of that inspiration
+that seldom or never failed him. He was the sort of young man that the
+last century novelists always referred to as "fortune's favorite," and
+his luck so rarely betrayed him that he had almost come to believe it
+to be invincible.
+
+His general idea was to get Nancy and Caroline to drive into the
+country, through the cool rush of the freer purer air of the suburbs,
+give them lunch at some smart road-house, soothingly restful and dim,
+where the temperature was artificially lowered, and they could powder
+their noses at will; and from thence go on until they were within the
+radius of the charmed circle where modern miracles were performed
+while the expectant bridegroom waited.
+
+"Nancy, my dear, we are going to be married,"--that he had formulated,
+"we're going to be done with all this nonsense of waiting and doubting
+the evidence of our own senses and our own hearts. We're going to put
+an end to the folly of trying to do without each other,--your folly of
+trying to feed all itinerant New York; my folly of standing by and
+letting you do it, or any other fool thing that your fancy happens to
+dictate. You're mine and I'm yours, and I'm going to take you--take
+you to-day and prove it to you." This was to be timed to be delivered
+at just about the moment when they drew up in front of the office of
+the justice of the peace, who was Dick's friend of old. "Hold up your
+head, my dear, and put your hat on straight; we're going into that
+building to be made man and wife, and we're not coming out of it until
+the deed has been done." In some such fashion, he meant to carry it
+through. Many a time in the years gone by he had steered Nancy through
+some high-handed escapade that she would only have consented to on the
+spur of the moment. She was one of these women who responded
+automatically to the voice of a master. He had failed in mastery this
+last year or so. That was the secret of his failure with her, but the
+days of that failure were numbered now. He was going to succeed.
+
+On the back seat of the big car he expected Billy and Caroline to be
+going through much the same sort of scene.
+
+"We've come to a show-down now, Caroline,--either I sit in this
+game, or get out." He could imagine Billy bringing Caroline bluntly
+to terms with comparatively little effort. That was what she
+needed--Caroline--a strong hand. Billy's problem was simple.
+Caroline had already signified her preference for him. She wore his
+ring. Billy had only to pick her up, kicking and screaming if need
+be, and bear her to the altar. She would marry him if he insisted.
+That was clear to the most superficial of observers,--but Nancy was
+different.
+
+The day was hot, and grew steadily hotter. By the time Nancy and
+Caroline were actually in the car, after an almost superhuman effort
+to assemble them and their various accessories of veils and wraps, and
+to dispose of the assortment of errands and messages that both girls
+seemed to be committed to despatch before they could pass the
+boundaries of Greater New York, the two men were very nearly
+exhausted. It was only when the chauffeur let the car out to a speed
+greatly in excess of the limitations on some clear stretch of road,
+that the breath of the country brought them any relief whatsoever.
+
+Dick looked over his shoulder at the two in the back seat, and noted
+Caroline's pallor, and the fact that she was allowing a listless hand
+to linger in Billy's; but when he turned back to Nancy he discovered
+no such encouraging symptoms. She was sitting lightly relaxed at his
+side, but there was nothing even negatively responsive in her
+attitude. Her color was high; her breath coming evenly from between
+her slightly parted lips. She looked like a child oblivious to
+everything but some innocent daydream.
+
+"You look as if you were dreaming of candy and kisses, Nancy,--are
+you?" he asked presently.
+
+"No, I'm just glad to be free. It's been a long time since I've played
+hooky."
+
+"I know it." The "dear" constrained him, and he did not add it:
+"You've been working most unholy hard. I--I hate to have you."
+
+"But I was never so happy in my life."
+
+"That's good." His voice hoarsened with the effort to keep it steady
+and casual. "Is everything going all right?"
+
+"Fine."
+
+"Is--is the money end of it all right?"
+
+"Yes, that is, I am not worrying about money."
+
+"You're not making money?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are not losing any?"
+
+"I am--a little. That was to be expected, don't you think so?"
+
+"How much are you losing?"
+
+"I don't know exactly."
+
+"You ought to know. Are you keeping your own books?"
+
+"Betty helps me."
+
+"Are you losing a hundred a month?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Five hundred?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"A thousand?"
+
+"I don't really know."
+
+"A thousand?" he insisted.
+
+"Yes," Nancy answered recklessly, "the way I run it."
+
+"It doesn't make any difference, of course;" Dick said, "you've got
+all my money behind you."
+
+"I haven't anybody's money behind me except my own."
+
+"You had fifteen thousand dollars. Do you mean to say that you have
+any of that left to draw on?"
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"Do you mind telling me how you are managing?"
+
+"Billy borrowed some money for me."
+
+"On what security?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Why didn't he come to me?"
+
+"I told him not to."
+
+"Nancy, do you realize that you're the most exasperating woman that
+ever walked the face of this earth?" the unhappy lover asked.
+
+Nancy managed to convey the fact that Dick's asseveration both
+surprised and pained her, without resorting to the use of words.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't spoil this lovely party," she said to him a few
+seconds later. "I'm extremely tired, and I should like to get my mind
+off my business instead of going over these tiresome details with
+anybody."
+
+"You look very innocent and kind and loving," Dick said desperately,
+"but at heart you're a little fraud, Nancy."
+
+She interrupted him to point out two children laden with wild flowers,
+trudging along the roadside.
+
+"See how adorably dirty and happy they are," she cried. "That little
+fellow has his shoestrings untied, and keeps tripping on them, he's so
+tired, but he's so crazy about the posies that he doesn't care. I
+wonder if he's taking them home to his mother."
+
+"You're devoted to children, Nancy, aren't you?" Dick's voice
+softened.
+
+"Yes, I am, and some day I'm going to adopt a whole orphan asylum,"--her
+voice altered in a way that Dick did not in the least understand. "I
+could if I wanted to," she laughed. "Maybe I will want to some day. So
+many of my ideas are being changed and modified by experience."
+
+The road-house of his choice, when they reached it, proved to have
+deteriorated sadly since his last visit. The cool interior that he
+remembered had been inopportunely opened to the hottest blast of the
+day's heat, and hermetically sealed again, or at least so it
+seemed to Dick; and the furniture was all red and thickly, almost
+suffocatingly, upholstered. Nancy had no comment on the torrid air of
+the dining-room,--she rarely complained about anything. Even the
+presence of a fly in her bouillon jelly scarcely disturbed her
+equanimity, but Dick knew that she was secretly sustained by the
+conviction that such an accident was impossible under her system
+of supervision at Outside Inn, and resented her tranquillity
+accordingly.
+
+Caroline, behaving not so well, seemed to him a much more human and
+sympathetic figure, though her nose took on a high shine unknown to
+Nancy's demurer and more discreetly served features; but Billy
+evidently preferred Nancy's deportment, which was on the surface calm
+and reassuring.
+
+"Nancy's a sport," he pointed out to Caroline enthusiastically, "no
+fly in the ointment gets her goat. She enjoys herself even when she's
+perfectly miserable."
+
+"She doesn't feel the heat the way I do," Caroline snapped.
+
+"I feel the heat," Nancy said, "but I--"
+
+"She's got a system," Dick cut in savagely: "she stands it just as
+long as she can, and then she takes it out of me in some diabolical
+fashion."
+
+Nancy's gray-blue eyes took on the far-away look that those who loved
+her had learned to associate with her most baffling moments.
+
+"Just by being especially nice to Dick," she said thoughtfully, "I can
+make him more furious with me than in any other way."
+
+Nancy and Caroline finished their sloppy ices at the table together
+while Dick and Billy sought the solace of a pipe in the garage
+outside.
+
+"I don't understand coming into Connecticut to-day," Nancy said as
+soon as they were alone; "it seems like such a stupid excursion for
+Dick to make. He's usually pretty good at picking out places to go. In
+fact, he has a kind of genius for it."
+
+"He slipped up this time," Caroline said, "I'm so hot."
+
+"So am I," said Nancy, slumping limply into the depths of her red
+velour chair. "I want to get back to New York. Oh! what was it you
+told me the other day that you had been saving up to tell me?"
+
+Caroline brightened.
+
+"Oh, yes! Why, it was something Collier Pratt said about you. You know
+Betty has scraped up quite an acquaintance with him. She goes and sits
+down at his table sometimes."
+
+"She's going to be stopped doing _that_," Nancy said.
+
+"Well, you remember the night when you went home early with a
+headache, and passed by his table going out?"
+
+"Yes, but I didn't know he saw me."
+
+"He sees everything, Betty says."
+
+"He didn't suspect me?"
+
+"He didn't know you came out of the interior. He said to Betty, 'It's
+curious that Miss Martin never stays here to dine in the evening,
+though she so often drops in.' Betty is pretty quick, you know. She
+said, 'I think Miss Martin is a friend of the proprietor.'"
+
+"So I am," said Nancy, "the best friend she's got. Go on, dear."
+
+"Then he said slowly and thoughtfully, 'It's a crime for a woman like
+that not to be the mother of children. If ever I saw a maternal type,
+Miss Ann Martin is the apotheosis of it. Why some man hasn't made her
+understand that long ago I can not see.'"
+
+Nancy's cheeks burned crimson and then white again.
+
+"How dare Betty?" she said.
+
+"Wait till you hear. You know Betty doesn't care what she says. Her
+reply to that was peculiarly Bettyish. She sighed and cast down her
+eyes,--the little imp! 'The course of true love never does run
+smooth,' she said; 'perhaps Ann has discovered the truth of that old
+saying in some new connection.' She didn't mean to be a cat, she was
+only trying to create a romantic interest in your affairs, doing as
+she would be done by. The effect was more than she bargained for
+though. Collier Pratt's eyes quite lit up. 'I can imagine no greater
+crime than frustrating the instincts of a woman like that,' he said.
+Imagine that--the instincts--whereupon Betty, of course, flounced off
+and left him."
+
+"She would," Nancy said. Then a storm of real anger surged through
+her. "I'll turn her out of my place to-morrow. I'll never look at her
+or speak to her again."
+
+"I think it would be more to the point," Caroline said, "to turn out
+Collier Pratt. That was certainly an extraordinary way for him to
+speak of you to a girl who is a stranger to him."
+
+"Caroline, you're almost as bad as Betty is. You're both of you
+hopelessly--helplessly--provincially American. I don't think that was
+extraordinary or impertinent even," Nancy said. "I--I understand how
+that man means things."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The car drove up in front of the office of the justice of the peace in
+the town beyond that in which they had had their unauspicious luncheon
+party.
+
+"Are we stopping here for any particular reason?" Caroline said.
+
+Nancy had not spoken in more than a monosyllable since they had
+resumed their places in the car again.
+
+"Not now," Dick said wearily. "I thought I'd point out the sights of
+the town. This place is called the Gretna Green of America, you know.
+A great many runaway couples come out here to be married. The man
+inside that office, the one with whiskers and no collar, is the one
+that marries them."
+
+"Does he?" Billy asked a trifle uncertainly.
+
+Nancy turned to Dick with a real appeal in her voice. It was the first
+time during the day that she had addressed him with anything like her
+natural tenderness and sweetness.
+
+"Oh! Dick, can't we start on?" she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+SCIENCE APPLIED
+
+
+Gaspard was ill--very ill. He lay in the little anteroom at the top of
+the stairs and groaned thunderously. He had a pain in his back and a
+roaring in his head, and an extreme disorder in the region of his
+solar plexus.
+
+"Sure an' he's no more nor less than a human earthquake," Michael
+reported after an examination.
+
+Nancy applied ice caps and hot-water bags to the afflicted areas
+without avail. The stricken man had struggled from his bed in the
+Twentieth Street lodging-house that he had chosen for his habitation,
+and staggered through the heavy morning heat to his post in the
+basement kitchen of Nancy's Inn, there to collapse ignominiously
+between his cooking ranges. With Molly and Dolly and Hildeguard at his
+feet and herself and Michael and a dishwasher at his head they had
+managed to get him up the two short flights of stairs. It developed
+that it would be necessary to remove him in an ambulance later in the
+day, but for the time being he lay like a contorted Colossus on the
+fragile-looking cot that constituted his improvised bed of pain: "Like
+the great grandfather," to quote Michael again, "of all of them
+Zeus'es and gargoyles, and other cavortin' gentlemen in the yard
+down-stairs."
+
+With the luncheon menu before her, Nancy decided that the hour had
+come for her to prove herself. She had assumed the practical
+management of the business of the Inn only to have the responsibility
+and much of the authority of her position taken from her by the very
+efficiency of her staff. She was far too good a business woman not to
+realize that this condition was distinctly to her advantage, and to
+encourage it accordingly, but there was still so much of the child in
+her that she secretly resented every usurpation of privilege.
+
+With Gaspard ill she was able to manipulate the affairs of the kitchen
+exactly as she chose, and even in the moment of applying the "hot at
+the base of the brain and the cold at the forehead" that the doctor
+had prescribed as the most effective method for relieving the pressure
+of blood in the tortured temples of the suffering man, she had been
+conscious of that thrill of triumph that most human beings feel when
+the involuntary removal of the man higher up invests them with power.
+
+Michael did the marketing, and the list went through as Gaspard had
+planned it, with some slight adaptations to the exigency, such as the
+substitution of twenty-five cans of tomato soup for the fresh
+vegetables with which Gaspard had planned to make his tomato bisque,
+and brandied peaches in glass jars instead of peach soufflé.
+
+"If I allow myself a little handicap in the matter of details," she
+said, "I know I can put everything else through as well as Gaspard;"
+whereupon she enveloped herself in a huge linen apron, tucked her hair
+into one of the chef's white caps, and attacked the problem of
+preparing luncheon for from sixty-five to two hundred people, who were
+scheduled to appear at uncertain intervals between the hours of twelve
+and two-thirty. Later she must be ready to serve tea and ices to a
+problematical number of patrons, but she tried not to think beyond the
+immediate task.
+
+She could make a very good tomato bisque by adding one cup of milk and
+a dash of cream to one half-pint can of MacDonald's tomato soup,
+enough to serve three people adequately, and she proceeded to multiply
+that recipe by twenty-five. She didn't think of getting large cans
+till Michael in the process of opening the half-pint tins made the
+belated suggestion, which she greeted with some hauteur.
+
+"I'm not the person to mind a little extra work, Michael, when I am
+sure of my results. Precision--that's the secret of the difference
+between American and French cooking."
+
+"An' sure and I fail to see the difference between the preciseness of
+a quart can and four half-pint ones, but I suppose it's my ignorance
+now."
+
+"Your supposition is correct, Michael," she said airily, but out of
+the corner of her eye she saw him smiling to himself over the growing
+heap of half-pint tins, and reddened with mortification at her naiveté
+in the matter.
+
+She looked at the vat of terra-cotta purée with considerable dismay
+when she had stirred in the last measure of cream. Twenty-five pints
+of tomato bisque is a rather formidable quantity of a liquid the chief
+virtue of which is its sparing and judicious introduction into the
+individual diet scheme. Nancy hardly felt that she wanted to be alone
+with it.
+
+"They'll soon lick it all up, and be polishing their plates like so
+many Tom-cats," Michael said, indicating their potential patronage by
+waving his hand toward the courtyard. "Here comes Miss Betty, now.
+She'll be after lending a hand in the cooking."
+
+"Keep her away, Michael," Nancy cried; "go out and head her off. Make
+her go up-stairs and sit with Gaspard,--anything, but don't let her
+come in here. If she does I won't answer for the consequences.
+I'll--I'll--I don't know what I'll do to her."
+
+"Throw her in the soup kettle, most likely," Michael chuckled. "Faith,
+an' I never saw a woman yet that wasn't ready to scratch the eyes out
+of the next one that got into her kitchen."
+
+"She isn't safe," Nancy said darkly. "I need every bit of brain and
+self-control I have to put this luncheon through. You keep Miss
+Betty's mind on something else--anything but me and the way I am doing
+the cooking."
+
+"'Tis done," said Michael; "sure an' I'll protect her from you, if I
+have to abduct her myself!"
+
+"I wish he would," Nancy said to herself viciously, "before she gets
+another chance at Collier Pratt.--Creamed chicken and mushrooms. It's
+a lucky thing that Gaspard diced the chicken last night, and fixed
+that macédoine of vegetables for a garnish.--She's a dangerous woman;
+she might wreck one's whole life with her unfeeling, histrionic
+nonsense.--I wonder if thirteen quarts of cream sauce is going to be
+enough."
+
+It turned out to be quite enough after the crises in which the butter
+basis got too brown, and the flour after melting into it smoothly
+seemed unreasonably inclined to lump again as Nancy stirred the cold
+milk into it, but the result after all was perfectly adequate, except
+for the uncanny brown tinge that the whole mixture had taken on. Nancy
+was unable to restrain herself from taking a sample of it to Gaspard's
+bedside.
+
+"_Mais_--but I can not eat it now," he cried, misunderstanding the
+purpose of her visit, "nor again--nor ever again. _Jamais!_"
+
+"I don't want you to eat it, Gaspard, I want you to look at it, and
+tell me what makes it that color. It turned tan, you see. I don't want
+to poison any one."
+
+"I am too miserable," Gaspard said. "The sauce--you have made into
+Béchamel with the browning butter, _voilà tout_. It is better so,--it
+would not hurt any one in the world but me--and me it would kill."
+
+"Poor thing," sighed Nancy, as she took her place by the kitchen
+dresser again, trying to remember where she had last seen brown eyes
+that reflected the look of stricken endurance that glazed Gaspard's
+velvet orbs, recalled with a start that Dick had gazed at her in
+much the same helpless fashion on their drive home from their
+recent motor trip in Connecticut. She had been too absorbed in her
+own distresses to consider anybody's state of mind but her own, on
+that occasion, but now Dick's expression came back to her vividly,
+and she nearly ruined a big bowl of French dressing, at the crucial
+moment of putting in the vinegar, trying to imagine which one of
+the events of that inauspicious day might conceivably have caused it.
+
+After the actual serving of the meal began, however, she had very
+little time for reflection or reminiscence. The distribution of
+food to the waitresses as they called for it required the full
+concentration of her powers. Molly and Dolly coached her, and with
+their assistance she was soon able to fill the bewilderingly rapid
+orders from the line of girls stretching from the door to the open
+space in front of her serving-table, which never seemed to diminish
+however adequately its demands were met.
+
+Mechanically she took soup and meat dishes from the hooded shelves at
+the top of the range where they were kept warming, and ladled out the
+brick-colored bisque, the creamed chicken and garnishing of the
+individual orders. The chicken looked delicious with its accompaniment
+of vari-colored vegetables,--Nancy had done away with the side dish
+long since--and each serving was assembled with special reference to
+its decorative qualities. The girls went up-stairs to put the salad on
+the plates, where the desserts were already dished in the quaint blue
+bowls in which stewed fruits and the more fluid sweets were always
+served.
+
+In her mind's eye Nancy could see the picture. At noon the court was
+almost entirely in the shade, and instead of the awning top, which
+shut out the air, there were gay striped umbrellas at the one or two
+tables that were imperfectly protected from the sun. She had recently
+invested in some table-cloths with bright blue woven borders. Flowers
+were arranged in low bowls and baskets on respective tables. Nancy
+instinctively grouped tired young business men in blue serge and soft
+collars at the tables decorated with the baskets of blue flowers; and
+pale young women in lingerie blouses before the bowls of roses. She
+could see them,--those big-eyed girls with delicate blue veins
+accentuating the pallor of their white faces--sinking gratefully into
+the wicker seats and benches, and sniffing rapturously at the faint
+far-away fragrance of the woodland blossoms.
+
+"I hope they will steal a great many of them," she thought, for her
+patrons were given to despoiling her flower vases in a way that
+scandalized the good Hildeguard, who was a just but ungenerous soul in
+spite of her ample proportions and popular qualities. Molly and Dolly
+were rather given to encouraging the vandals, knowing that they had
+Nancy's tacit approval.
+
+Automatically dipping the huge metal ladle--one filling of which was
+enough for a service--into the big soup kettle, she stood for a moment
+gazing into its magenta depths oblivious to everything but the
+rhapsodic consideration of her realized dream. Now for the first time
+she was contributing directly her own strength and energy to the
+public which she served. She had prepared with her own hands the meal
+which her grateful patrons were consuming. The little girls with the
+tired faces, the jaded men, the smart, weary business women--buyers
+and secretaries and modistes,--who were occupied in the neighborhood
+were all being literally nourished by her. She had actually
+manufactured the product that was to sustain them through the weary
+day of heat and effort.
+
+"How do they like the lunch, Molly?" she asked, as she deftly
+deposited the forty-fifth serving of chicken with Béchamel sauce on
+the exact center of the plate before her. "Are they pleased with the
+soup? Are they saying complimentary things about the chicken?"
+
+"Some of them is, Miss Nancy. Some of them is complaining that they
+can't get any other kind of soup. Them that usually gets invalid broth
+don't understand our running out of it."
+
+"I forgot about the specials," Nancy cried.
+
+"That red-haired girl that we feed on custards and nut bread and that
+special cocoa Gaspard makes for her, she acted real bad. They get
+expecting certain things, and then they want them."
+
+"I'm sorry," Nancy said; "I'll make all those things to-morrow."
+
+"The old feller that always has the stewed prunes is terrible pleased
+though. I give him two helps of the peaches, and he wanted another. He
+was pleased to get white bread too. He complains something dreadful
+about his bran biscuit every day."
+
+"I meant to send to the woman's exchange for different kinds of health
+bread, but I forgot it," Nancy moaned. "Do they like the peaches at
+all?"
+
+"Most of them likes them too well. There was one old lady that got one
+whiff of them, and pushed back her chair and left. I guess she had
+took the pledge, and the brandy went against her principles."
+
+"I never thought of that. I only thought that brandied peaches would
+be a treat to so many people who didn't have them habitually served at
+home."
+
+The picture in Nancy's mind changed in color a trifle. She could see
+sour-faced spinsters at single tables pushing back their chairs,
+overturning the rose bowls in their hurry to shake the dust of her
+restaurant from their feet.
+
+"Don't accept any money from people who don't like their luncheon,"
+she admonished Molly, who was next in line with several orders to be
+filled at once. "Tell them that the proprietor of Outside Inn prefers
+not to be paid unless the meal is entirely satisfactory."
+
+"I'm afraid there wouldn't never be any satisfactory meals if I told
+them that, Miss Nancy."
+
+"I don't want any one ever to pay for anything he doesn't like," Nancy
+insisted. "Slip the money back in their coat pockets if you can't
+manage it any other way."
+
+"There's lots of complaints about the soup," Dolly said; "so many
+people don't like tomato in the heat. Gaspard, he always had a choice
+even if it wasn't down on the menu. I might deduct, say fifteen cents
+now, and slip it back to them with their change."
+
+"Please do," Nancy implored. "Tell Molly and Hildeguard."
+
+"Hilda would drop dead, but Molly'd like the fun of it."
+
+It was hot in the kitchen. The soup kettle bad been emptied of more
+than half its contents, but the liquid that was left bubbled thickly
+over the gas flame that had been newly lit to reheat it. The pungent,
+acrid odor of hot tomatoes affronted her nostrils. She had a vision
+now of the pale tired faces of the little stenographers turning in
+disgust from the contemplation of the flamboyant and sticky purée on
+their plates, annoyed by the color scheme in combination with the soft
+wild-rose pink of the table bouquets, if not actually sickened by the
+fluid itself. For the first time since his abrupt seizure that morning
+she began to hope in her heart that Gaspard's illness might be a
+matter of days instead of weeks. She served Hildeguard and one of the
+other waitresses with more soup, and then began to boil some eggs to
+eke out the chicken, which, owing to her unprecedented generosity in
+the matter of portions, seemed to be diminishing with alarming
+rapidity.
+
+From the kitchen closet beyond came the clatter of dishwashing, the
+interminable splashing of water, and stacking of plates, punctuated by
+the occasional clang of smashing glass or pottery. She had discharged
+two dishwashers in less than two weeks' time, with the natural feeling
+that any change in that department must be for the better, but the
+present incumbent was even more incompetent than his predecessors.
+Even Nancy's impregnable nerves began to feel the strain of the
+continual clamorous assault on them.
+
+Betty appeared in the doorway that led directly from the restaurant
+stairs.
+
+"I'm sorry to intrude," she said. "Don't blame Michael, I'm breaking
+my parole to get in here. He locked me in and made me swear I'd keep
+out of the kitchen before he'd let me out at all, but I had to tell
+you this. The tomato soup has curdled and you ought not to serve it
+any more."
+
+"Well, I thought it looked rather funny," Nancy moaned.
+
+"It won't do anybody any harm, you know. It just looks bad, and a lot
+of people are kicking about it. Did Molly tell you about the old
+fellow that got tipsy on the peaches?"
+
+"No, she didn't. I sent Michael out for some ripe peaches and other
+fruit to serve instead."
+
+"That's a good idea. How's the food holding out? There are lots of
+people you know up-stairs," she rattled on, for Nancy, who was getting
+more and more distraught with each disquieting detail, made no
+pretense of answering her. "Dolly has probably kept you informed.
+Dick's aunt is here, and that terribly highbrow cousin of Caroline's;
+and that good-looking young surgeon that suddenly got so famous last
+winter, and admired you so much. Dr. Sunderland--isn't that his name?
+I never saw Collier Pratt here for lunch before. There's a little girl
+with him, too."
+
+"Collier Pratt?" Nancy cried, "Oh, Betty, he isn't here. He couldn't
+be. Don't frighten me with any such nonsense. He never comes here in
+the day-time."
+
+"He is though," Betty said, "and a queer-looking little child with
+him, a dark-eyed little thing dressed in black satin."
+
+"It seems a good deal to me as if you were making that up," Nancy
+cried in exasperation; "it's so much the kind of thing you do make
+up."
+
+"I know it," Betty said, unexpectedly reasonable, "but as it happens
+I'm not. Collier Pratt really is up-stairs with a poor little orphan
+in tow. Ask any one of the girls."
+
+At this moment Dolly, her ribbons awry and her china-blue eyes widened
+with excitement, appeared with a dramatic confirmation of Betty's
+astonishing announcement.
+
+"There's a little girl took sick from the peaches, and moved up-stairs
+in the room next to Gaspard's," she cried breathlessly. "The doctor
+that was sitting at the next table, had her moved right up there. He
+wants to see the lady that runs the restaurant, and he wants a lot of
+hot water in a pitcher, and some baking soda."
+
+"You see," Betty said, "go on up, I'll take your place here. Dolly,
+get the things the doctor asked for."
+
+Nancy stripped off her cap and her apron and resigned her spoons and
+ladles to Betty without a word. She was still incredulous of what she
+would find at the top of the three flights of creaking age-worn stairs
+that separated her from the nest of rooms that were the storm quarters
+of her hostelry, now converted by a sudden malevolence on the part of
+fate into a temporary hospital. As she took the last flight she could
+hear Gaspard's stertorous breathing coming at the regular intervals of
+distressful slumber, and through that an ominous murmur of grave and
+low-voiced conference, such as one hears in the chambers of the dead.
+The convulsive application of a powder puff to the tip of her burning
+nose--her whole face was aflame with exertion and excitement--was
+merely a part of her whole subconscious effort to get herself in hand
+for the exigency. Her mind, itself, refused any preparation for the
+scene that awaited her.
+
+On one of the cushioned benches against the wall in the most
+decorative of the dining-rooms of the up-stairs suite, a little girl
+was lying stark against the brilliant blue of the upholstery. She was
+a child of some seven or eight, lightly built and delicate of features
+and dressed all in black. Her eyes were closed, but the long lashes
+emphasizing the shadows in which they were set, prepared you for the
+revelation of them. Nancy understood that they were Collier Pratt's
+eyes, and that they would open presently, and look wonderingly up at
+her. She recognized the presence of Dr. Sunderland, of Michael and
+several of the waitresses, and a flighty woman in blue taffeta--an
+ubiquitous patron,--but she made her way past them at once, and sank
+on her knees before the prostrate child.
+
+"It's nothing very serious, Miss Martin," the young surgeon reassured
+her, "delicate children of this type are likely to have these
+seizures. It's not exactly a fainting fit. It belongs rather to the
+family of hysteria."
+
+"Wasn't it the peaches?" Nancy asked fearfully. "They--they had a
+little brandy in them."
+
+"They may have been a contributing cause," Dr. Sunderland acknowledged,
+"but the child's condition is primarily responsible. Let her alone
+until she rouses,--then give her hot water with a pinch of soda in it
+at fifteen-minute intervals. Keep her feet hot and her head cold and
+don't try to move her until after dark, when it's cooler."
+
+"All right," Nancy said, "I'll take care of her."
+
+"Here comes her poor father, now," the lady in taffeta announced with
+the dramatic commiseration of the self-invited auditor. "He thought an
+iced towel on her head might make her feel better. Is the dear little
+thing an orphan--I mean a half orphan?"
+
+The assembled company seeming disinclined to respond, she repeated her
+inquiry to Collier Pratt himself, as with the susceptive grace that
+characterized all his movements, he swung the compress he was carrying
+sharply to and fro to preserve its temperature in transit. "Is the
+poor little thing a half orphan?"
+
+"The poor little thing is nine-tenths orphan, madam," said Collier
+Pratt, "that is--the only creature to whom she can turn for protection
+is the apology for a parent that you see before you. Would you mind
+stepping aside and giving me a little more room to work in?"
+
+"Not at all." Irony was wasted on the indomitable sympathizer in blue.
+"Hasn't she really anybody but you to take care of her?"
+
+Collier Pratt arranged the towel precisely in position over the little
+girl's forehead, smoothing with careful fingers the cloud of dusky
+hair that fell about her face.
+
+"She has not," he answered with some savagery.
+
+"Hasn't she any women friends or relatives that would be willing to
+take charge of her?"
+
+"No, madam."
+
+"Then some woman that has no child of her own to care for ought to
+adopt her, and relieve you of the responsibility. It's a shame and
+disgrace the way these New York women with no natural ties of their
+own go around crying for something to do, when there are sweet little
+children like this suffering for a mother's care. I'd adopt her myself
+if I was able to. I certainly would."
+
+"I'm perfectly willing to give over the technical part of her bringing
+up to some one of the women whom you so feelingly describe," Collier
+Pratt said. "The trouble is to find the woman--the right woman. The
+vicarious mother is not the most prevalent of our modern types, I
+regret to say."
+
+The little girl on the couch stirred softly, and the hand that Nancy
+was holding, a pathetic, thin, unkempt little hand, grew warm in hers.
+The lids of the big eyes fluttered and lifted. Nancy looked into their
+clouded depths for an instant. Then she turned to Collier Pratt
+decisively.
+
+"I'll take care of your little girl for you, if you will let me," she
+said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SHEILA
+
+
+"I had _mal de mer_ when I was on the steamer," the child said, in her
+pretty, painstaking English--she spoke French habitually. "I do not
+like to have it on the land. The gentleman in there," she pointed to
+the room beyond where Gaspard was again distressfully sleeping the
+sleep of the spent after a period of the most profound physical
+agitation, "he does not like to have it, too,--I mean either."
+
+Nancy had propped the little girl up on improvised pillows made of
+coats and wraps swathed in towels and covered her with some strips of
+canton flannel designed to use as "hushers" under the table
+covers. As soon as the intense discomfort and nausea that had
+followed the first period of faintness had passed, Nancy had
+slipped off the shabby satin dress, made like the long-sleeved
+kitchen apron of New England extraction, and attired the child in a
+craftily simulated night-gown of table linen. Collier Pratt had
+worked with her, deftly supplementing all her efforts for his little
+girl's comfort until she had fallen into the exhausted sleep from
+which she was only now rousing and beginning to chatter. Her father
+had left her, still sleeping soundly, in Nancy's care, and gone
+off to keep an appointment with a prospective picture buyer. He had
+made no comment on Nancy's sudden impulsive offer to take the child
+in charge, and neither she nor he had referred to the matter again.
+
+"Are you comfortable now, Sheila?" Nancy asked. She had expected the
+child to have a French name, Suzanne or Japonette or something equally
+picturesque, but she realized as soon as she heard it that Sheila was
+much more suitable. The cloudy blue-black hair, and steel-blue eyes,
+the slight elongation of the space between the upper lip and nose, the
+dazzling satin whiteness of the skin were all Irish in their
+suggestion. Was the child's mother--that other natural protector of
+the child, who had died or deserted her--Nancy tried not to wonder too
+much which it was that she had done,--an Irish girl, or was Collier
+Pratt himself of that romantic origin?
+
+"_Oui_, Mademoiselle, I mean, yes, thank you. I do not think I will
+say to you Miss Martin. We only say their names like that to the
+people with whom we are not _intime_. We are _intime_ now, aren't we,
+now that I have been so very sick _chez vous_? In Paris the
+_concierge_ had a daughter that I called Mademoiselle Cherie, and we
+were _very intime_. I think I would like to call you Miss Dear in
+English after her."
+
+"I should like that very much," Nancy said.
+
+"I am glad the sick gentleman is called Gaspard. So many _messieurs_--I
+mean gentlemen in Paris are called Gaspard, and hardly any in the
+United States of America. American things are very different from
+things in Paris, don't you think so, Miss Dear?"
+
+"I'm afraid they are," Nancy acquiesced gravely.
+
+"I'm afraid they are too," the child said, "but afraid is what I try
+not to be of them. My father says America is full of beasts and
+devils, but he does not mind because he can paint them."
+
+"Do you live in a studio?" Nancy asked after a struggle to prevent
+herself from asking the question. She felt that she had no right to
+any of the facts about Collier Pratt's existence that he did not
+choose to volunteer for himself.
+
+"Yes, Miss Dear, but not like Paris. There we had a door that opened
+into a garden, and the birds sang there, and I was allowed to go and
+play. Here we have only a fire-escape, and the _concierge_ is only a
+janitor and will not allow us to keep milk bottles on it. I do not
+like a janitor. _Concierges_ have so much more _politesse_. Now, no
+one takes care of me when father goes out, or brings me soup or
+_gâteaux_ when he forgets."
+
+"Does he forget?" Nancy cried, horrified.
+
+"Sometimes. He forgets himself, too, very often except dinner. He
+remembers that because he likes to come to this Outside Inn
+restaurant, where the cooking is so good. He brought me here to-day
+because it was my birthday. I think the cooking is very good except
+that I was so sick of eating it, but father swore to-day that it was
+not."
+
+"Swore?"
+
+"He said damn. That is not very bad swearing. I think _nom de Dieu_ is
+worse, don't you, Miss Dear?"
+
+"I'm going to take you up in my arms," said Nancy with sudden passion.
+"I want to feel how thin you are, and I want to feel how you--feel."
+
+"Why, your eyes are wetting," the little girl exclaimed as she nestled
+contentedly against Nancy's breast, where Nancy had gathered her,
+converted table-cloth and all.
+
+"It's your not having enough to eat," Nancy cried. "Oh! baby child,
+honey. How could they? It's your calling me Miss Dear, too," she said.
+"I--I can't stand the combination."
+
+The child patted her cheek consolingly.
+
+"Don't cry," she said; "my father cries because I get so hungry, when
+he forgets, but he does forget again as soon."
+
+"Would you like to come and live with me, Sheila?" Nancy asked.
+
+"I think so, Miss Dear."
+
+"Then you shall," Nancy said devoutly.
+
+Collier Pratt found his child in Nancy's arms when he again mounted
+the stairs to the third floor of Outside Inn. The place was curiously
+cool to one who had been walking the sun-baked streets, and he gave an
+appreciative glance at the dim interior and the tableau of woman and
+child. Nancy's burnished head bent gravely over the shadowy dark one
+resting against her bosom.
+
+"All right again, is she?" he inquired with the slow rare smile that
+Nancy had not seen before that day.
+
+"Yes," Nancy said, "she's better. She's under-nourished, that's what
+the trouble is."
+
+"I suspected that," Collier Pratt said ruefully. "I'm not specially
+talented as a parent. I feed her passionately for days, and then I
+stop feeding her almost entirely. Artists in my circumstances eat
+sketchily at best. The only reason that I am fed with any regularity
+is that I have the habit of coming to this restaurant of yours. By the
+way, is it yours? I found you in charge to-day to my amazement."
+
+"I am in charge to-day," Nancy acknowledged; "in fact I have taken
+over the management of it for--for a friend."
+
+"The mysterious philanthropist."
+
+"Ye-es."
+
+"Then I will refrain from any comment on the lunch to-day."
+
+"Oh! that--that was a mistake," Nancy cried, "an experiment. Gaspard
+the _chef_--was ill."
+
+"He was very ill, father, dear," Sheila added gravely, "like crossing
+the Channel, much sicker than I was. I was only sick like crossing the
+ocean, you know."
+
+"These fine distinctions," Collier Pratt said, "she's much given to
+them." His eyes narrowed as they rested again on the picture Nancy
+made--the cool curve of her bent neck, the rise and fall of the
+breast in which the breathing had quickened perceptibly since his
+coming,--the child swathed in the long folds of white linen outlined
+against the Madonna blue of the dress that she was wearing. Nancy
+blushed under the intentness of his gaze, understanding, thanks to
+Caroline's report of his conversation with Betty, something of
+what was in his mind about her.
+
+"Gaspard is going to be taken away in an ambulance," the child said,
+"to the hospital."
+
+"Then who is going to cook my dinner?" Collier Pratt asked.
+
+"Good lord, I don't know," Nancy cried, roused to her responsibilities.
+
+She looked at the watch on her wrist, a platinum bracelet affair with
+an octagonal face that Dick had persuaded her to accept for a
+Christmas present by giving one exactly like it to Betty and Caroline.
+It was twenty-five minutes of five. Dinner was served every night
+promptly at half past six, and there was absolutely no preparation
+made for it, not so much as a loaf of bread ordered. Instead of doing
+the usual marketing in the morning she had sent Michael out for the
+things that she needed in the preparation of luncheon, and planned to
+make up a list of things that she needed for dinner just as soon as
+her midday duties in the kitchen had set her free. She thought that
+she would be more like Gaspard, "inspired to buy what is right" if she
+waited until the success of her luncheon had been assured. The ensuing
+events had driven the affairs of her cuisine entirely out of her mind.
+She was constrained by her native tendency to concentrate on the
+business in hand to the exclusion of all other matters, big and
+little. She had dismissed Betty during the excitement that followed
+Sheila's illness, and Betty had seemed unnaturally willing to leave
+the hectic scene and go about her business. Michael had made several
+ineffectual attempts to speak to her, but she had waved him away
+impatiently. She knew that neither he nor any one else on the
+restaurant staff would believe that she hadn't made some adequate and
+mysterious provision for the serving of the night meal. She had never
+failed before in the smallest detail of executive policy. She set the
+child back upon the cushion, and arranged her perfunctorily in
+position there.
+
+"I don't know _what_ you are going to have for dinner," she said,
+"much less who's going to cook it for you."
+
+"Perhaps I had better arrange to have it elsewhere, since this seems
+to be literally the cook's day out."
+
+"There'll be dinner," said Nancy uncertainly.
+
+Dick came up the stairs three at a time, and in his wake she heard the
+murmur of women's voices--Caroline's and Betty's.
+
+"I heard you were in difficulties," Dick said, "so I made Sister Betty
+and Caroline give up their perfectly good trip into the country, in
+order to come around and mix in."
+
+"I didn't know Betty was going driving with you," Nancy said. "She
+didn't say so. Oh! Dick, there isn't any dinner. I forgot all about
+it. This is Mr. Collier Pratt and his little daughter,--Mr. Richard
+Thorndyke. She's coming to live with me soon, I hope, and let Hitty
+take care of her."
+
+The two men shook hands.
+
+"Hold on a minute," Dick said, "that paragraph is replete with
+interest, but I want to get it assimilated. Sure, Betty was going
+driving with me. I told her to ask you if she thought it would be any
+use, but she allowed it wouldn't. I am delighted to meet Mr. Pratt,
+and pleased to know that his daughter is coming to live with you, but
+isn't that rather sudden? Also, what's this about there not being any
+dinner?"
+
+"There isn't," Nancy was beginning, when she realized that Caroline
+and Betty, who had followed closely on Dick's footsteps, were looking
+at her with faces pale with consternation and alarm. She could see the
+anticipatory collapse of Outside Inn writ large on Caroline's
+expressive countenance. Caroline was the type of girl who believed
+that in the very nature of things the undertakings of her most
+intimate friends were doomed to failure. "There isn't any dinner yet,"
+Nancy corrected herself, "but you go up to my place, Dick, and get
+Hitty. Tell her she's got to cook dinner for this restaurant to-night.
+She can cook three courses of anything she likes, and have _carte
+blanche_ in the kitchen. You have more influence with her than
+anybody, so, no matter what she says, make her do it. Then when she
+decides what she wants to cook, drive her around until she collects
+her ingredients. She won't let anybody do the marketing for her."
+
+"All right," Dick said, "I'll do my best."
+
+"You'll have to do more than that," Betty laughed as he started off,
+"but you're perfectly capable of it. How do you do, Mr. Pratt? This is
+Miss Eustace, pale with apprehension about the way things are going,
+but still recognizable and answering to her name." Betty always
+enjoyed introducing Caroline with an audacious flourish, since
+Caroline always suffered so much in the process.
+
+"And this is little Miss Sheila Pratt," Nancy supplemented.
+
+"_Enchanté_," the little girl said, "I mean, I am very pleased to meet
+you. I was very sick, but I am better now, and I am going to live with
+Miss Dear."
+
+"It seems to be settled," her father said, shrugging.
+
+"Would you mind it so very much?" Nancy asked.
+
+"I wouldn't mind it at all," Collier Pratt said. "I think it would be
+a delightful arrangement,--if I'm to take you seriously."
+
+"Nancy is always to be taken seriously," Betty put in. "What she
+really wants of the child is to use her for dietetic experiment, I'm
+sure."
+
+"That's what she's used to, poor child," Collier Pratt said ruefully.
+
+The removal of Gaspard created a diversion. Nancy took Sheila in to
+bid him good-by, and the great creature was so touched by the farewell
+kiss that she imprinted on his forehead, and the revelation of the
+fact that a fellow being had been suffering kindred throes in the
+chamber just beyond his own that he was of two minds about letting
+himself be moved at all from her proximity. A group of waitresses
+collected on the second landing, and Nancy and her friends stood
+together at the head of the stairs while the white-coated intern from
+the hospital rolled his great bulk upon a fragile-looking stretcher,
+and with the assistance of all the male talent in the establishment,
+managed to head him down the stairs, and so on across the court and
+into the waiting ambulance.
+
+Nancy's eyes filled with inexplicable tears, and she caught Collier
+Pratt regarding them with some amusement.
+
+"He's such a dear," she said somewhat irrelevantly. "I really didn't
+care whether he was sick or not this morning,--but you get so fond of
+people that are around all the time."
+
+"I don't," said Collier Pratt,--he spoke very lightly, but there was
+something in his tone that made Nancy want to turn and look at him
+intently. She seemed to see for the first time a shade of defiant
+cruelty in his face,--"I don't," he reiterated.
+
+"I do," Nancy repeated stubbornly, but as she met his slow smile, the
+slight impression of unpleasantness vanished.
+
+"We artists are selfish people," he said. "I'm going to run away now,
+and leave my daughter to cultivate your charming friends. Will you
+come and eat your dinner at my little table to-night, and talk,
+discuss this matter of her visit to you?"
+
+"I will if there is any dinner," Nancy said, putting out a throbbing
+hand to him.
+
+There was a dinner. It was Hitty's conception of an emergency
+meal--the kind of thing that her mother before her had prepared on
+wash-day when an unexpected relative alighted from the noon train, and
+surprised her into inadvertent hospitality. It began with steamed
+clams and melted butter sauce. Hitty knew a fish market where the
+clams were imported direct from Cape Cod by the nephew of a man who
+used to go to school with her husband's brother, and he warranted
+every clam she bought of him. They were served in soup plates and the
+drawn butter in demi-tasses, but Hitty would have it no other way. The
+_pièce de résistance_ was ham and eggs, great fragrant crispy slices
+of ham browned faintly gold across their pinky surface, and
+eggs--Hitty knew where to get country eggs, too--so white, so
+golden-yolked, so tempting that it was difficult to associate them
+with the prosaic process of frying, but fried they were. With them
+were served boiled potatoes in their jackets,--no wash-day cook ever
+removed the peeling from an emergency potato,--and afterward a course
+of Hitty's famous huckleberry dumplings, the lightest, most ephemeral
+balls of dumplings that were ever dipped into the blue-black deeps of
+hot huckleberry--not blueberry, but country huckleberry--sauce.
+
+"Where's the coffee?" Nancy asked Dolly miserably, when the
+humiliating meal was drawing to its close.
+
+"She won't make coffee," Dolly whispered; "she says it will keep
+everybody awake, and they're much better off without it, but Miss
+Betty, she's watching her chance, and she's making it."
+
+Collier Pratt had received each course in silence, but had eaten
+heartily of the food that was set before him.
+
+"I suppose he was hungry enough to eat anything," Nancy thought; "the
+lunch was humiliating enough, but this surpasses anything I dreamed
+of."
+
+She had given up trying to estimate the calories that each man was
+likely to average in partaking of Hitty's menu. She noticed that a
+great many of her patrons had taken second helpings, and that threw
+her out in her calculation of quantities, while the relative
+digestibility of the protein and the fats in pork depend so much upon
+its preparation that she could not approximate the virtue of Hitty's
+bill of fare without consultation with Hitty.
+
+"That was a very excellent dinner," Collier Pratt broke through her
+painful reverie to make his pronouncement. "Astonishing, but very
+satisfactory. It reminds me of days on my grandfather's farm when I
+was a youngster."
+
+"I should think it might," Nancy said, for the first time in her
+relation with her new friend becoming ironical on her own account.
+Then she added seriously, "It's Hitty, you know, that will have all
+the real care of Sheila. I'm pretty busy down here, and I--" she
+hesitated, half expecting him to threaten to remove his child at once
+from the prospective guardianship of a creature who reverted so
+readily to the barbarism of ham and eggs.
+
+"Well, if it's Hitty that is to have the care of Sheila," Collier
+Pratt said, and Nancy was not longer puzzled as to which element of
+her parentage Sheila owed her Irish complexion, "why, more power to
+her!"
+
+Nancy dreamed that night that she was married to Dick, and that Hitty
+made and served them _pâté de foies gras_ dumplings, while Collier
+Pratt in freckles and overalls sat in a high chair, and had his dinner
+with the family. Later it was discovered that Betty had poisoned his
+bread and milk, and he died in Nancy's arms in dreadful agony,
+swearing in a beautiful Irish brogue that in all his life he had never
+looked at another woman,--which even in her dream seemed to Nancy a
+somewhat irreconcilable statement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE PORTRAIT
+
+
+To Nancy's surprise Hitty welcomed the little girl warmly, when she
+was introduced into the family circle. She liked to be busy all day,
+and her duties in taking care of Nancy were not onerous enough to keep
+her full energy employed. She liked children and family life, and she
+seemed to have the feeling that if Nancy continued to assemble the
+various parts that go to make up a family, she would end by adding to
+it the essential masculine element, though it was Dick and not Collier
+Pratt that she visualized at the head of the table cutting up Sheila's
+meat for her. Collier Pratt was to her a necessary but insignificant
+detail in Nancy's scheme of things, a poor artist who had "frittered
+away so much time in furrin parts" that he was incapable of supporting
+his only child--"poor little motherless lamb!"--in anything like a
+befitting and adequate manner. Whenever he came to see Sheila she
+treated him with the condescension of a poor relation, and served his
+tea in the second best china with the kitchen silver and linen, unless
+Nancy caught her at it in time to demand the best.
+
+Nancy had expected that Collier Pratt would try to make some business
+arrangement with her when she took Sheila in charge,--that he would
+insist on paying her at least a nominal sum a week for the child's
+board. She had lain awake nights planning the conversations with him
+in which she would overcome his delicate but natural scruples in the
+matter and persuade him to her own way of thinking. She had even fixed
+on the smallest sum--two dollars and a half a week--at which she
+thought she might induce him to compromise, if all her eloquence
+failed. She knew that he considered her the hard working, paid manager
+of Outside Inn, and took it for granted that she had no other source
+of income. She was a little disconcerted that he made no effort,
+beyond thanking her sincerely and simply for her kindness, to put the
+matter on a more concrete basis, but when he told her presently that
+he was going to do a portrait of her, she scourged herself for her New
+England perspective on an affair that he handled with so much
+delicacy.
+
+Her friends were, on the whole, pleased with her experiment in
+vicarious motherhood. Dick instinctively resented the fact that Nancy
+had taken Collier Pratt's daughter into her home and heart, but the
+child herself was a delight to him, and he spent hours romping with
+her and telling her stories, loading her with toys and sweetmeats, and
+taking her off for enchanting holiday excursions "over the Palisades
+and far away." Billy was hardly less diverted with her, and Betty
+regarded her advent as a provision on the part of Providence against
+things becoming too commonplace. Caroline, as was her wont, took the
+child very seriously, and tried to interest Nancy in all the latest
+educational theories for her development, including posture dancing,
+and potato raising.
+
+Nancy herself had loved the child from the moment the big lustrous
+gray eyes opened, on the day of her sudden illness at Outside Inn, and
+looked confidingly up into hers. For the first time in her life her
+maternal ardor--the instinct which made her yearn to nourish and
+minister to a race--had concentrated on a single human being. Sheila,
+hungry for mothering, had turned to her with the simplicity of the
+people among whom she had been brought up, taking her sympathetic
+response as a matter of course; and the two were soon on the closest,
+most affectionate terms.
+
+Sheila and Outside Inn divided Nancy's time to the practical exclusion
+of all other interests. She had, without realizing her processes,
+taken into her life artificial responsibilities in almost exact
+proportion to the normal ones of any woman who makes the choice of
+marriage rather than that of a career. She was doing housekeeping on a
+large scale,--she had a child to care for, and she felt that she had
+entirely disproved any lingering feeling in the mind of any one
+associated with her that she ought to marry,--at least that she ought
+to marry Dick.
+
+No woman ought to marry for the sake of marrying, but she was growing
+to understand now that the experiences of love and marriage might be
+necessary to the true development of a woman like herself; that there
+might even be some tragedy in missing them. She was twenty-five,
+practically alone in the world, and the growing passion of her life
+was for a child that she had borrowed, and might be constrained to
+relinquish at any moment.
+
+She was tired. The unaccustomed confinement of the long hours at the
+Inn, the strain of enduring the thick, almost unalleviated heat of an
+exceptionally humid New York summer, and the tension engendered by her
+various executive responsibilities, all told on her physically, and
+her physical condition in its turn reacted on her mind, till she was
+conscious of a nostalgia,--a yearning and a hunger for something that
+she could not understand or name, but that was none the less
+irresistible. She fell into strange moods of brooding and lassitude;
+but there were two connections in which her spirit and ambition never
+failed her. She never failed of interest in the distribution of food
+values to her unconscious patrons, and incidentally to Collier Pratt,
+or in directing the activities and diversions of Sheila.
+
+She bathed and dressed the child with her own hands every morning,
+combed out the cloudy black hair, fine spun and wavy, that framed the
+delicate face, and accentuated the dazzling white and pink of her
+coloring. She had bought her a complete new wardrobe--she was spending
+money freely now on every one but herself--venturing on one dress at a
+time in fear and trepidation lest Collier Pratt should suddenly call
+her to account for her interference with his rights as a parent, but
+he seemed entirely oblivious of the fact that Sheila had changed her
+shabby studio black for the most cobwebby of muslins and linens,
+frocks that by virtue of their exquisite fineness cost Nancy
+considerably more than her own.
+
+"I say to my father, 'See the pretty new gown that Miss Dear bought
+for me,' and my father says to me, 'Comb your hair straight back from
+your brow, and don't let your arms dangle from your shoulders.'"
+Sheila complained, "He sees so hard the little things that nobody
+sees--and big things like a dress or a hat he does not notice."
+
+"Men are like that," Nancy said. "Last night when I put on my new
+rose-colored gown for the first time, your friend Monsieur Dick told
+me he had always liked that dress best of all."
+
+"_Comme il est drôle_, Monsieur Dick," Sheila said; "he asked me to
+grow up and marry him some day. He said I should sit on a cushion and
+sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream--like
+the poetry."
+
+"And what did you say?" Nancy asked.
+
+"I said that I thought I should like to marry him if I ever got to be
+big enough,--but I was afraid I should not be bigger for a long time.
+Miss Betty said she would marry him if I was _trop petite_."
+
+"What did Dick say to that?" Nancy could not forbear asking.
+
+"He said she was very kind, and maybe the time might come when he
+would think seriously of her offer."
+
+There was a feeling in Nancy's breast as if her heart had suddenly got
+up and sat down again. Betty bore no remotest resemblance to the pale
+kind girl, practically devoid of feminine allure, that Nancy had
+visualized as the mate for Dick, and frequently exhorted him to go in
+search of.
+
+"Miss Betty was only making a joke," she told Sheila sharply.
+
+"We were all making jokes, Miss Dear," Sheila explained.
+
+"I have never loved any one in the world quite so much as I love you,
+Sheila," Nancy cried in sudden passion as the little girl turned her
+face up to be kissed, as she always did when the conversation puzzled
+her.
+
+"I like being loved," Sheila said, sighing happily. "My father loves
+me,--when he is not painting or eating. He is very good to me, I
+think."
+
+"Your father is a very wise man, Sheila," Nancy said, "he understands
+beautiful things that other people don't know anything about. He looks
+at a flower and knows all about it, and--and what it needs to make it
+flourish. He looks at people that way, too."
+
+"But he doesn't always have time to get the flower what it wants,"
+Sheila said; "my jessamine died in Paris because he forgot to water
+them."
+
+"Your father needs taking care of himself, Sheila. We must plan ways
+of trying to make him more comfortable. Don't you think of something
+that he needs that we could get for him?"
+
+"More socks--he would like," Sheila said unexpectedly. "When his socks
+get holes in them he will not wear them. He stops whatever he is doing
+to mend them, and the mends hurt him. He mends my stockings, too,
+sometimes, but I like better the holes especially when he mends them
+on my feet."
+
+Sheila could have presented no more appealing picture of her father to
+Nancy's vivid imagination. Collier Pratt with the incongruous sewing
+equipment of the unaccustomed male, using, more than likely, black
+darning cotton on a white sock--Nancy's mental pictures were always
+full of the most realistic detail--bent tediously over a child's
+stocking, while the precious sunlight was streaming unheeded upon the
+waiting canvas. She darned very badly herself, but the desire was not
+less strong in her to take from him all these preposterous and
+unbefitting tasks, and execute them with her own hands. She stared at
+the child fixedly.
+
+"You buy him some socks out of your allowance," she said at last. Then
+she added an anxious and inadequate "Oh, dear!"
+
+"Aren't you happy?" Sheila asked in unconscious imitation of Dick,
+with whom she had been spending most of her time for days, while Nancy
+superintended the additions and improvements she was making in the
+up-stairs quarters of her Inn, preparatory to moving in for the
+winter.
+
+"Yes, I'm happy," Nancy said, "but I'm sort of--stirred, too. I wish
+you were my own little girl, Sheila. I think I'll take you with me to
+the Inn to-day. You might melt and trickle away if I left you alone
+here with Hitty."
+
+"_Quelle joie!_ I mean, how nice that will be! Then I can talk about
+Paris to Gaspard, and he will give me some baba, with a _soupçon of
+maraschine_ in the sauce, if you will tell him that I may, Miss Dear."
+
+"I'll think about it." It was Nancy's dearest privilege to be asked
+and grant permission for such indulgences. "Put on that floppy white
+hat with the yellow ribbon, and take your white coat."
+
+"When I had only one dress to wear I suppose I got just as dirty,"
+Sheila reflected, "only it didn't show on black satin. Now I can tell
+just how dirty I am by looking. I make lots of washing, Miss Dear."
+
+"Yes, thank heaven," Nancy said, unaccountably tearful of a sudden.
+
+The first part of the day at the Inn went much like other days.
+Gaspard, eager to retrieve the record of the week when Hitty and a
+Viennese pastry cook had divided the honors of preparing the daily
+menus between them--for Nancy had never again attempted the
+feat--never let a day go by without making a new _plat de jour_ or
+inventing a sauce; was in the throes of composing a new casserole, and
+it was a pleasure to watch him deftly sifting and sorting his
+ingredients, his artist's eyes aglow with the inward fire of
+inspiration. Nancy called all the waitresses together and offered
+them certain prizes and rewards for all the buttermilk, and prunes
+and other health dishes that they were able to distribute among
+ailing patrons,--with the result they were over assiduous at the
+luncheon hour, and a red-headed young man with gold teeth made a
+disturbance that it took both Hilda and Michael, who appeared
+suddenly in his overalls from the upper regions where he was
+constructing window-boxes, to quell. But these incidents were not
+sufficiently significant to make the day in any way a memorable
+one to Nancy. It took a telephone message from Collier Pratt,
+requesting, nay demanding, her presence in his studio for the first
+sitting on her portrait, to make the day stand out upon her calendar.
+
+"Sheila is with me. Shall I bring her?" Nancy asked.
+
+"No," Collier Pratt said uncompromisingly, "I am not a parent at this
+hour. She would disturb me."
+
+"What shall I wear?"
+
+"What have you got on?"
+
+"That blue crêpe, made surplice,--the one you liked the other night."
+
+"That's just what I want--Madonna blue. Can you get down here in
+fifteen minutes?"
+
+"Yes, I'll send Michael up-town with Sheila."
+
+The bare, ramshackle studio on Washington Square shocked her,--it was
+so comfortless, so dingy; but the canvases on the walls, set up
+against the wainscoting, stacked on every available chair, gave her a
+new and almost appalling impression of his personality, and the
+peculiar poignant power of him. She could not appraise them, or get
+any real sense of their quality apart from the astounding revelation
+of the man behind the work.
+
+"They're wonderful!" she gasped, but "You're wonderful" were the words
+she stifled on her lips.
+
+He painted till the light failed him.
+
+"It's this diffused glow,--this gentle, faded afternoon light that I
+want," he said. "I want you to emerge from your background as if you
+had bloomed out of it that very moment. Oh! I've got you at your hour,
+you know! The prescient maternal--that's what I want. The conscious
+moment when a woman becomes aware that she is potentially a mother.
+Sheila's done that for you. She's brought it out in you. It was ready,
+it was waiting there before, but now it's come. It's wonderful!"
+
+"Yes," Nancy said, "it's--it's come."
+
+"It hasn't been done, you know. It's a modern conception, of course;
+but they all do the thing realized, or incipient. I want to do it
+_implicit_--that's what I want. I might have searched the whole world
+over and not found it."
+
+"Well, here I am," said Nancy faintly.
+
+"Yes, here you are," Collier Pratt responded out of the fervor of his
+artist's absorption.
+
+"It's rather a personal matter to me," Nancy ventured some seconds
+later.
+
+Collier Pratt turned from the canvas he was contemplating, and looked
+at her, still posed as he had placed her, upright, yet relaxed in the
+scooped chair that held her without constraining her.
+
+"Like a flower in a vase," he said; "to me you're a wonderful
+creature."
+
+"I'm glad you like me," Nancy said, quivering a little. "This is a
+rather uncommon experience to me, you know, being looked at so
+impersonally. Now please don't say that I'm being American."
+
+"But, good God! I don't look at you impersonally."
+
+"Don't you?" Nancy meant her voice to be light, and she was appalled
+to hear the quaver in it.
+
+"You know I don't." He glanced toward a dun-colored curtain evidently
+concealing shelves and dishes. "Let's have some tea."
+
+"I can't stay for tea." Nancy felt her lips begin to quiver
+childishly, but she could not control their trembling. "Oh! I had
+better go," she said.
+
+Collier Pratt took one step toward her. Then he turned toward the
+canvas. Nancy read his mind like a flash.
+
+"You're afraid you'll disturb the--what you want to paint," she said
+accusingly.
+
+"I am." He smiled his sweet slow smile, then he took her stiff
+interlaced hands and raised them, still locked together, to his lips
+where he kissed them gently, one after the other. "Will you forgive
+me?" he asked, and pushed her gently outside of his studio door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BILLY AND CAROLINE
+
+
+It was one night in middle October when Billy and Caroline met by
+accident on Thirty-fourth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
+Caroline stood looking into a drug-store window where an automatic
+mannikin was shaving himself with a patent safety razor.
+
+"There's a wax feller going to bed in an automatic folding settee, a
+little farther down the street," Billy offered gravely at her elbow;
+"and on Forty-second Street there is a real live duck pond advertising
+the advantages of electric heaters in the home."
+
+"H'lo," said Caroline, who was colloquial only in moments of real
+pleasure or excitement. "I've just written to you. I asked you to come
+and see me to-morrow evening," she added more seriously, "to talk
+about something that's weighing on my mind."
+
+"I'm going out with a blonde to-morrow, night," Billy said speciously,
+"but what's the matter with to-night? I'm free until six-fifty A. M.
+and I could spare an hour or two between then and breakfast time."
+
+"I can't to-night," Caroline said, "I promised Nancy to dine at the
+Inn."
+
+"That wasn't your line at all," Billy groaned. "Who's the blonde?--that
+was your cue. If it's only Nancy you're dining with--that can be
+fixed."
+
+"I regard an engagement with Nancy as just as sacred as--"
+
+"So do I," Billy cut in. "She is the blonde. Well, let to-morrow night
+be as it may; let's you and I call up the Nancy girl now and tell her
+that we're going batting together; she won't care."
+
+"I don't like doing that," Caroline said; "it's a nice night for a
+bat, though."
+
+"I walked down Murray Hill and saw the sun set in a nice pinky gold
+setting," Billy said artfully. Caroline liked to have him get an
+artistic perspective on New York. "Let's walk down the avenue to the
+Café des Artistes and have Emincé Bernard, and a long wide high, tall
+drink of--ginger ale," he finished lamely.
+
+"We'd have to telephone Nancy," Caroline hesitated.
+
+Billy took her by the arm and guided her into the interior of the
+drug-store to the side aisle where the telephones were, and stepped
+into the first empty booth that offered. Caroline stopped him firmly
+as he was about to shut himself inside.
+
+"I'd rather hear what you say," she said.
+
+Billy slipped his nickel in the slot and took up the receiver.
+
+"Madison Square 3403 doesn't answer," Central informed him crisply
+after an interval.
+
+"Oh! Nancy, dear," Billy replied softly into her astonished ear.
+"Caroline and I are going off by ourselves to-night, you don't care,
+do you?"
+
+"Ringing thr-r-ree-four-o-thr-r-ee, Madison Square."
+
+"That's nice of you," Billy responded heartily. "I thought you'd say
+that."
+
+"Madison Square thr-r-ree-four-o-t-h-r-r-ree doesn't answer. Hang up
+your receiver and I'll call you if I get the party."
+
+"Of course I will. You're always so tactful in the way you put things,
+always so generous and kind and thoughtful. I can't tell you how much
+I appreciate it."
+
+"What did Nancy say?" Caroline asked, as they turned away from the
+booth.
+
+"You heard my end of the conversation," Billy said blandly. "You can
+deduce hers from it."
+
+"There was something about your end of the conversation that sounded
+queer to me somehow. It was odd that Central should have returned your
+nickel to you after you had talked so long."
+
+"Yes, wasn't it?" Billy asked innocently. "Well, I suppose mistakes
+will happen in the best regulated telephone companies."
+
+"I like you," Billy said contentedly, as the lights of the avenue
+strung themselves out before them. "I like walking down this royal
+thoroughfare with you. You're a kind of a neutral girl, but I like
+you."
+
+"You're a kind of ridiculous boy."
+
+"Don't you like me a little bit?"
+
+"Yes, a little."
+
+"What did you get engaged to me for if you only like me a little?"
+
+"Ought not to be engaged to you. That's one of the things I want to
+talk to you about."
+
+"Well, you are engaged to me, and that's one of the things I don't
+care to discuss--even with you."
+
+"Oh! Billy," Caroline sighed, "why can't we be just good friends and
+see a good deal of each other without this perpetual argument about
+getting married?"
+
+"I don't know why we can't, but we can't," Billy said firmly. "What
+was the other thing you wanted to talk to me about?"
+
+"Nancy's affairs. The reckless--the criminal way she is running that
+restaurant, and the unthinkable expenditure of money involved. I can't
+sleep at night thinking of it."
+
+"And I thought this was going to be a pleasant evening," Billy cried
+to the stars.
+
+"I wish you'd be serious about this," Caroline said. "Nancy's the best
+friend I have in the world, and she doesn't seem to be quite right in
+her mind, Billy. Of course, I approve of a good part of her scheme. I
+believe that she can be of incalculable value as a pioneer in an
+enterprise of this sort. Her restaurant is based on a strictly
+scientific theory, and every person who patronizes it gets a balanced
+ration, if he has the good sense to eat it as it's served."
+
+"And not leave any protein on his plate," Billy murmured.
+
+"I don't even mind the slight extra expenditure and the deficit that
+is bound to follow her theory of stuffing all her subnormal patrons
+with additional nourishment. That is charity. I believe in devoting a
+certain amount of one's income to charity, but what I mind about the
+whole proceeding is the crazy way that Nancy is running it. She's not
+even trying to break even. She orders all the delicacies of the
+season--no matter what they are. She's paid an incredible amount for
+the new set of carved chairs she has bought for up-stairs. You'd think
+she had an unlimited fortune behind her, instead of being in a
+position where the sheriff may walk in upon her any day."
+
+"Handy men to have around the house,--sheriffs. I knew a deputy
+sheriff once that helped the lady of the house do a baby wash while he
+was standing around in charge of the place. All the servants had
+deserted, and--"
+
+"You pretend to be Nancy's friend, and you're the only thing remotely
+approaching a lawyer that she has, and yet you can shake with joy at
+the thought of her going into bankruptcy."
+
+"That isn't what I'm shaking with joy about."
+
+"Nancy must have spent at least twice the amount of her original
+investment."
+
+"Just about," Billy agreed cheerfully.
+
+Caroline turned large reproachful eyes on him.
+
+"Billy, how can you?"
+
+"Listen to me, Caroline, honey love, it will be all right. Nancy isn't
+so crazy as she seems. She is running wild a little, I admit, but
+there's no danger of the sheriff or any other disaster. She knows what
+she's doing, and she's playing safe, though I admit it's an
+extraordinary game."
+
+"She's unhappy," Caroline said. "You don't suppose she's going to
+marry Dick to get out of the scrape, and that she's suffering because
+she's had to make that compromise."
+
+"No, I don't," said Billy.
+
+"I can't imagine anything more dreadful than to give up your
+career--your independence because you were beaten before you could
+demonstrate it."
+
+"Let's go right in here," Billy said, guiding her by the arm through
+the door of the grill of the Café des Artistes which she was ignoring
+in her absorption.
+
+It was early but the place was already crowded with the assortment of
+upper cut Bohemians, Frenchmen, and other discriminating diners to
+whom the café owed its vogue. Billy and Caroline found a snowy table
+by the window, a table so small that it scarcely seemed to separate
+them.
+
+"If it's Dick that Nancy's depending on," Caroline shook out her
+mammoth napkin vigorously, "then I think the whole situation is
+dreadful."
+
+"I don't see why," Billy argued; "have him to fall back on--that's
+what men are for."
+
+"Your opinion of women, Billy Boynton, just about tallies with the
+most conservative estimate of the Middle Ages."
+
+"Charmed, I'm sure," he grinned, then his evil genius prompting, he
+continued. "Isn't that just about what you have me for--to fall back
+on? You're fond of me. You know I'll be there if the bottom drops out.
+You're sure of me, and you're holding me in reserve against the time
+when you feel like concentrating your attention on me."
+
+"Is that what you think?"
+
+"Sure, it's the way it is. If I haven't got any kick coming I don't
+see why you should have any. You're worth it to me. That's the
+point."
+
+Caroline opened her lips to speak, and then thought better of it. The
+dangerous glint in her pellucid hazel eyes was lost on Billy. He was
+watching the clear cool curve of her cheek, the smooth brown hair
+brushed up from the temple, and tucked away under the smart folds of a
+premature velvet turban.
+
+"I like those mouse-colored clothes of yours," he said contentedly.
+
+"I think the only reason a woman should marry a man is that
+she--she--"
+
+"Likes him?" Billy suggested.
+
+"No, that she can be of more use in the world married than single. She
+can't be that unless she's going to marry a man who is entirely in
+sympathy with her point of view."
+
+"That I know to be unsound," Billy said. "Caroline, my love, this is a
+bat. Can't we let these matters of the mind rest for a little? See,
+I've ordered _Petite Marmite_, and afterward an artichoke, and all the
+nice fattening things that Nancy won't let me eat."
+
+"I wish you'd tell me about Nancy," Caroline said. "It makes a lot of
+difference. You haven't any idea how much difference it makes."
+
+"See the nice little brown pots with the soup in them," Billy implored
+her. "Cheese, too, all grated up so fine and white. Sprinkle it in
+like little snow-flakes."
+
+But in spite of all Billy's efforts the evening went wrong after that.
+Caroline was wrapped in a mantle of sorrowful meditation the opacity
+of which she was not willing to let Billy penetrate for a moment.
+After they had dined they took a taxi-cab up-town and danced for an
+hour on the smooth floor of one of the quieter hotels. Billy's dancing
+being of that light, sure, rhythmic quality that should have installed
+him irrevocably in the regard of any girl who had ever danced with a
+man who performed less admirably. Caroline liked to dance and fell in
+step with an unexpected docility, but even in his arms, dipping,
+pivoting, swaying to the curious syncopation of modern dance time, she
+was as remote and cool as a snow maiden.
+
+At the table on the edge of the dancing platform where they sat
+between dances, Billy pledged her in nineteen-four _Chablis Mouton_.
+
+"This is what you look like," he said, holding up his glass to the
+light, "or perhaps I ought to say what you act like,--clear, cold
+stuff,--lovely, but not very sweet."
+
+"If it's Dick,"--Caroline refused to be diverted--"Nancy is merely
+taking the easiest way out. Just getting married because she hasn't
+the courage to go through any other way. She and Dick have hardly a
+taste in common--they don't even read the same books."
+
+"What difference does that make?"
+
+"If you don't know I can't tell you. When you see somebody else in
+danger of following the same course of action that you, yourself, are
+pursuing," she added cryptically, "it puts a new face on your own
+affairs."
+
+"Oh! let's get out of here," Billy said, signaling for his check.
+
+Caroline lived, for the summer while her family were away, in an
+elaborate Madison Avenue boarding-house. The one big room into
+which the entrance gave, dim and palatial in effect--at least in
+the light of the single gas-jet turned economically low--seemed
+scarcely to present a departure from its prototype, the great
+living hall of the private residence for which the house was
+originally designed. It was only on the second floor that the
+character of the establishment became unmistakable. Billy took
+Caroline's latchkey from her,--she usually opened the door for
+herself--and let her quietly into the dim interior. Then he
+stepped inside himself, and closed the door gently after him.
+Being a man he entirely failed to note the drift of psychological
+straws that indicated the sudden sharp turn of the wind, and the
+presage of storm in the air. He was thinking only of the illusive,
+desirable, maddening quality of the girl that walked beside him,
+filled with inexplicable forebodings for a friend, whom he knew to
+be invulnerable to misfortune. Certain phrases of Dick's were ringing
+in his ears to the exclusion of all more immediate conversational
+fragments.
+
+"Cave-man stuff--that's the answer to you and Caroline.... This
+watchful waiting's entirely the wrong idea...."
+
+Billy made a great lunge toward the figure of his fiancée, and caught
+her in his arms.
+
+"I've never really kissed you before," he cried, "now I shan't let you
+go."
+
+She struggled in his arms, but he mastered her. He covered her cool
+brow with kisses, her hands, the lovely curve of her neck where the
+smooth hair turned upward, and at last--her lips.
+
+"You're mine, my girl," he exulted, "and nothing, nothing, nothing
+shall ever take you away from me now."
+
+There was a click in the latch of the door through which they had just
+entered. Another belated boarder was making his way into the domicile
+which he had chosen as a substitute for the sacred privacy of home.
+Caroline tore herself out of Billy's arms just in time to exchange
+greetings with the incoming guest with some pretense of composure. He
+was a fat man with an umbrella which clattered against the balusters
+as he ascended the carved staircase.
+
+"Caught with the goods," Billy tried to say through lips stiffened in
+an effort at control.
+
+Caroline turned on him, her face blazing with anger, the transfiguring
+white rage of the woman whose spiritual fastnesses have been invaded
+through the approach of the flesh.
+
+"There is no way of my ever forgiving you," she said. "No way of my
+ever tolerating you, or anything you stand for again. You are
+utterly--utterly--utterly detestable in my eyes."
+
+"Is--is that so?" Billy stammered, dizzied by the suddenness of the
+onslaught.
+
+"I--I've got some decent hold on my pride and self-respect--even if
+Nancy hasn't, and I'm not going to be subjugated like a cave woman by
+mere brute force either."
+
+"Aren't you?" said Billy weakly, his mind in a whirl still from the
+lightning-like overthrow of all his theories of action.
+
+"I'm not going to do what Nancy is going to do, just out of sheer
+temperamental weakness, and--and tendency to follow the line of least
+resistance."
+
+Billy had no idea of the significance of her last phrase, and let it
+go unheeded. Caroline turned and walked away from him, her head high.
+
+"But, good lord, Nancy isn't going to do it," he called after her
+retreating figure, but all the answer he got was the silken swish of
+her petticoat as she took the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MORE CAVE-MAN STUFF
+
+
+When Nancy left Collier Pratt's studio on the day of her first sitting
+for the portrait he was to do of her, she never expected to enter it
+again. She was in a panic of hurt pride and anger at his handling of
+the situation that had developed there, and in a passion of
+self-disgust that she had been responsible for it.
+
+It was a simple fact of her experience that the men she knew valued
+her favors, and exerted themselves to win them. She had always had
+plenty of suitors, or at least admirers who lacked only a few smiles
+of encouragement to make suitors of them, and she was accustomed to
+the consideration of the desirable woman, whose privilege it is to
+guide the conversation into personal channels, or gently deflect it
+therefrom. An encounter in which she could not find her poise was as
+new as it was bewildering to her.
+
+From the moment that she had begun to realize Collier Pratt's
+admiration for her she had scarcely given a thought to any other man.
+With the insight of the artist he had seen straight into the heart of
+Nancy's secret--the secret that she scarcely knew herself until he
+translated it for her, the most obvious secret that a prescient
+universe ever throbbed with,--that a woman is not fulfilled until she
+is a mate and a mother. The nebulous urge of her spirit had been
+formulated. In Nancy's world there was no abstract sentimentality--if
+this man indulged himself in emotional regret for her frustrated
+womanhood--she called it that to herself--it must in some way concern
+him. She had never in her life been troubled by a condition that she
+was not eager to ameliorate, and she could not conceive of an
+emotional interest in an individual disassociated from a certain
+responsibility for that individual's welfare. She took Collier Pratt's
+growing tenderness for her for granted, and dreamed exultant dreams of
+their romantic association.
+
+The scene in the studio had shocked her only because he put his art
+first. He had taken a lover's step toward her, and then glancing at
+the crudely splotched canvas from which his ideal of her was presently
+to emerge, he had thought better of it, soothing her with caresses as
+if she were a child, and like a child dismissing her. She felt that
+she never wanted to see again the man who could so confuse and
+humiliate her. But this mood did not last. As the days went on, and
+she feverishly recapitulated the circumstances of the episode, she
+began to feel that it was she who had failed to respond to the
+beautiful opportunity of that hour. She had inspired the soul of an
+artist with a great concept of womanhood, and had, in effect, demanded
+an immediate personal tribute from him. He had been wise to deflect
+the emotion that had sprung up within them both. After the picture was
+done--. She became eager to show him that she understood and wanted to
+help him conserve the impression of her from which his inspiration had
+come, and when he asked her to go to the studio again the following
+week she rejoiced that she had another chance to prove to him how
+simply she could behave in the matter.
+
+She looked in the mirror gravely every night after she had done her
+hair in the prescribed pig-tails to try to determine whether or not
+the look he had discovered in her face was still there,--the look of
+implicit maternity that she had been fortunate enough to reflect and
+symbolize for him,--but she was unable to come to any decision about
+it. Her face looked to her much as it had always looked--except that
+her brow and temples seemed to have become more transparent and the
+blue veins there seemed to be outlined with an even bluer brush than
+usual.
+
+She was busier than she had ever been in her life. The volume of her
+business was swelling. With the return of the native to the city of
+his adoption--there is no native New Yorker in the strict sense of the
+word--Outside Inn was besieged by clamorous patrons. Gaspard, with the
+adaptability of his race, had evolved what was practically a perfect
+system of presenting the balanced ration to an unconscious populace,
+and the populace was responding warmly to his treatment. It had taken
+him a little time to gauge the situation exactly, to adapt the supply
+to the idiosyncrasies of the composite demand, but once he had
+mastered his problem he dealt with it inspiredly. His southern
+inheritance made it possible for him to apprehend if he could not
+actually comprehend the taste of a people who did not want the flavor
+of nutmeg in their cauliflower, and who preferred cocoanut in their
+custard pie, and he realized that their education required all the
+diplomacy and skill at his command.
+
+Nancy found him unexpectedly intelligent about the use of her tables.
+He grasped the essential fact that the values of food changed in the
+process of cooking, and that it was necessary to Nancy's peace of mind
+to calculate the amount of water absorbed in preparing certain
+vegetables, and that the amount of butter and cream introduced in
+their preparation was an important factor in her analysis. He also
+nodded his head with evident appreciation when she discoursed to him
+of the optimum amount of protein as opposed to the actual requirements
+in calories of the average man, but she never quite knew whether the
+matter interested him, or his native politeness constrained him to
+listen to her smilingly as long as she might choose to claim his
+attention. But the fact remained that there was no such cooking in any
+restaurant in New York of high or low degree, as that which Gaspard
+provided, and as time went on, and he realized that expense was not a
+factor in Nancy's conception of a successfully conducted restaurant,
+the reputation of Outside Inn increased by leaps and bounds.
+
+To Nancy's friends--with the exception, of course, of Billy, who was
+in her confidence--the whole business became more and more puzzling.
+Caroline, her susceptibility to vicarious distress being augmented by
+the sensitiveness of her own emotional state, yearned and prayed over
+her alternately. Betty, avid of excitement, spent her days in the
+pleasurable anticipation of a dramatic bankruptcy. It was on Dick,
+however, that the actual strain came. He saw Nancy growing paler and
+more ethereal each day, on her feet from morning till night
+manipulating the affairs of an enterprise that seemed to be assuming
+more preposterous proportions every hour of its existence. He made
+surreptitious estimates of expenditures and suffered accordingly,
+approximating the economic unsoundness of the Inn by a very close
+figure, and still Nancy kept him at arm's length and flouted all his
+suggestions for easing, what seemed to him now, her desperate
+situation.
+
+He managed to pick her up in his car one day with Sheila, and
+persuaded her to a couple of hours in the open. She was on her way
+home from the Inn, and had meant to spend that time resting and
+dressing before she went back to consult with Gaspard concerning the
+night meal. She had no complaint to make now of the usurpation of her
+authority or the lack of actual executive service that was required of
+her. With the increase in the amount of business that the Inn was
+carrying she found that every particle of her energy was necessary to
+get through the work of the day.
+
+"I'm worried about you," Dick said, as they took the long ribbon of
+road that unfurled in the direction of Yonkers, and Nancy removed her
+hat to let the breeze cool her distracted brow. His man Williams, was
+driving.
+
+"Well, don't tell me so," she answered a trifle ungraciously.
+
+"Miss Dear is cross to-day," Sheila explained. "The milk did not come
+for Gaspard to make the poor people's custard, _crême renversé_, he
+makes--deliciously good, and we give it to the clerking girls."
+
+"The buttermilk cultures were bad," Nancy said. "And I wasn't able to
+get any of the preparations of it, that I can trust. There are one or
+two people that ought to have it every day and their complexions show
+it if they don't."
+
+"I suppose so," Dick said, with a grimace.
+
+"These people who have worked in New York all summer have run pretty
+close to their margin of energy. You've no idea what a difference a
+few calories make to them, or how closely I have to watch them, and
+when I have to substitute an article of diet for the thing they've
+been used to, it's awfully hard to get them to take it."
+
+"I should think it might be," Dick said. "It's true about people who
+have worked in New York all summer, though. I have--and you have."
+
+"Oh! I'm all right," Nancy said.
+
+"So am I," Sheila said, "and so is Monsieur Dick, _n'est-ce pas_?"
+
+"_Vraiment, Mademoiselle."_
+
+"Father isn't very right, though. Even when Miss Dear has all the
+beautiful things in the most beautiful colors in the world cooked for
+him and sent to him, he won't eat them unless she comes and sits
+beside him and begs him."
+
+"He's very fond of _sauce verte_," Nancy said hastily, "and _apricot
+mousse_ and _cèpes et pimentos_, things that Gaspard can't make for
+the regular menu,--bright colored things that Sheila loves to look
+at."
+
+"He likes _petit pois avec laitue_ too and _haricot coupé_, and
+_artichaut mousselaine_. Sometimes when he does not want them Miss
+Dear eats them."
+
+"I'm glad they are diverted to some good use," Dick said.
+
+"I've been looking into the living conditions of my waitresses." Nancy
+changed the subject hastily. "Did you realize, Dick, that the
+waitresses have about the unfairest deal of any of the day laborers?
+They're not organized, you know. Their hours are interminable, the
+work intolerably hard, and the compensation entirely inadequate.
+Moreover, they don't last out for any length of time. I'm trying out a
+new scheme of very short shifts. Also, I'm having a certain sum of
+money paid over to them every month from my bank. If they don't know
+where it comes from it can't do them any harm. That is, I am not
+establishing a precedent for wages that they won't be able to earn
+elsewhere. I consider it immoral to do that."
+
+"You are paying them an additional sum of money out of your own
+pocket? You told me you paid them the maximum wage, anyhow, and they
+get lots of tips."
+
+"Oh! but that's not nearly enough."
+
+"Nancy," Dick said dramatically, "where do you get the money?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," Nancy said, "it comes along. The restaurant makes
+some."
+
+"Very little."
+
+"I could make it pay any time that I wanted to."
+
+"Sometimes I wonder if you are in full possession of your senses."
+
+"Caroline is affected that way, too. I feel that she is likely to get
+an alienist in at any time. She is so earnest in anything she
+undertakes. She and Billy have had a scrap, did you know it?"
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"Billy wants to marry her, and he has shocked her delicate feelings by
+suggesting it to her."
+
+"I imagine you have a good deal to do with her feelings on the
+subject," Dick said gloomily. "I suppose at heart you don't believe in
+marriage, or think you don't and you've communicated the poison to
+Caroline."
+
+"I've done nothing of the kind," Nancy insisted warmly. "I do believe
+in marriage with all my heart. I think the greatest service any woman
+can render her kind in this mix-up age is to marry one man and make
+that marriage work by taking proper scientific care of him and his
+children."
+
+"This is news to me," Dick said. "I thought that _you_ thought that
+the greatest service a woman could do was to run Outside Inn, and
+stuff all the derelicts with calories."
+
+"That's a service, too."
+
+"Sure."
+
+They were out beyond the stately decay of the up-town drive, with its
+crumbling mansions and the disheveled lawns surrounding them, beyond
+the view of the most picturesque river in the world, though,
+comparatively speaking, the least regarded, covering the prosaic
+stretch of dusty road between Van Courtland Park and the town of
+Yonkers.
+
+"I like the _Bois_ better," Sheila said, "but I like Central Park
+better than the _Champs Elyseés_. In Paris the children are not so gay
+as the grown-up people. Here it is the grown-up people who are without
+smiles on the streets."
+
+"Why is that, Dick?" Nancy asked.
+
+"That's always true of the maturer races, the gaiety of the French is
+appreciative enthusiasm,--if I may invent a phrase. The children
+haven't developed it."
+
+"I would like to have my hand held, Monsieur Dick," Sheila announced.
+"I always feel homesick when I think about Paris. I was so contente
+and so _malheureuse_ there."
+
+"Why were you unhappy, sweetest?" Nancy asked.
+
+"My father says I am never to speak of those things, and so I
+don't--even to Miss Dear, my _bien aimée_."
+
+Dick lifted Sheila into his lap, he took the hand that still clung to
+Nancy's in his warm palm, and held them both there caressingly.
+
+"My _bien aimée_," he said softly.
+
+Beyond the town a more gracious and magnificent country revealed
+itself; lovely homes set high on sweeping terraces, private parks and
+gardens and luxuriant estates, all in a blaze of October radiance with
+the glorious pigments of the season.
+
+"Isn't it time to go back?" Nancy asked.
+
+"Not yet," Dick said. "I want to show you something. There's an old
+place here I want you to see. That colonial house set way back in the
+trees there."
+
+"Williams is driving in," Nancy said as they approached it.
+
+"He's been here before."
+
+"Are we going to get out?" Sheila asked.
+
+Dick was already opening the door of the tonneau and assisting Nancy
+out of the car.
+
+"I'm going to leave Sheila with Williams, and take you over the house,
+Nancy. She'll be more interested in the grounds than she would in the
+interior. I want you to see the inside."
+
+He took a key out of his pocket, and unlocked the stately door.
+Everything about the place was gigantic, stately,--the huge columns
+that supported the roof of the porch, the big elms that flanked it,
+and the great entrance hall, as they stepped into its majestic
+enclosure.
+
+"It's a biggish sort of place, isn't it?" Nancy said.
+
+"But it's rather lovely, don't you think so?" Dick asked anxiously.
+"These old places are getting increasingly hard to find,--real old
+homes, dignified and beautiful, within a reasonable distance from
+town."
+
+"It is lovely," Nancy said, "it could be made perfectly wonderful to
+live in. I can see this big hall--furnished in mahogany or even carved
+oak that was old enough. Thank heaven, we're no longer slaves to a
+_period_ in our decorating; we can use anything that's beautiful and
+suitable and not intrinsically incongruous with a clear conscience."
+
+"Come up-stairs."
+
+Nancy lingered on the landing of the fine old staircase, white
+banistered with a mahogany hand-rail, that turned only once before it
+led into the region up-stairs.
+
+"I'd rather see the kitchen," she said.
+
+"The kitchen isn't the thing that I'm proudest of. Its plumbing is
+early English, or Scottish, I'm afraid. I think this arrangement up
+here is delightful. See these front suites, one on either side of the
+hall. Bedroom, dressing-room, sitting-room. Which do you like best? I
+thought perhaps I might take the one that overlooks the orchard."
+
+Nancy stopped still on her way from window to window.
+
+"Dick Thorndyke, whose house _is_ this?" she demanded.
+
+"Mine."
+
+"Yours--have you bought it?"
+
+"Yes, I put the deed in my safe deposit vault yesterday. Come in
+here. Isn't this a cunning little guest chamber nested in the
+trees? Be becoming to Betty's style of beauty, wouldn't it?" He
+held the door open for her ingratiatingly, and she passed under
+his arm perfunctorily.
+
+"What on earth did you buy a house like this for?"
+
+"I thought you might like it."
+
+"I--what have I to do with it?"
+
+Dick turned the rusty key in the lock deliberately, and put it in his
+pocket, thus closing them into the little musty room which had no
+other exit. A branch of flaming maple leaves tapped lightly on the
+window.
+
+"You've a whole lot to do with it, Nancy," he said. "It's yours, and
+I'm yours, and I want to know how much longer you're going to hedge."
+
+"I'm not hedging," Nancy blazed. "Take that key out of your pocket.
+This is moving-picture stuff."
+
+"I know it is. I can't get you to talk to me any other way, so I
+thought I'd try main force for a change."
+
+"Well, it is a change," she agreed. "Shall I begin to scream now, or
+do you intend to give me some other provocation?"
+
+"Don't be coarse, darling." There is a certain disadvantage in having
+known the woman who is the object of your tenderest emotions all your
+life, and to be on terms of the most familiar badinage with her. Dick
+was feeling this disadvantage acutely at the moment. He took a step
+toward her, and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Nancy, don't you
+love me?" he said, "don't you really?"
+
+"No," Nancy said deliberately, "I don't, and you know very well I
+don't. Unlock that door, and let's be sensible."
+
+"Don't you know, dear, or care that you're hurting me?"
+
+"No, I don't," Nancy said. "You say so, and I hear you, but I don't
+really believe it. If I did--"
+
+"If you did--what?"
+
+"Then I'd be sorrier."
+
+"You aren't sorry at all, as it stands."
+
+"I find it's awfully hard to be sorry for you, Dick, in any
+connection. There's really nothing pathetic about you, no matter how
+tragic you think you are being. You're rich and lucky and healthy. You
+have everything you want--"
+
+"Not everything."
+
+"And you live the way you want to, and eat the food you want to--"
+
+"The ruling passion."
+
+"And make the jokes you want to." Nancy literally stuck up a saucy
+nose at him. "There is really nothing that I could contribute to your
+happiness. I mean nothing important. You are not a poor man whom I
+could help to work his way up to the top, or a genius that needs
+fostering, or a--"
+
+"Dyspeptic that needs putting on a special diet,--but for all that I
+do need a mother's love, Nancy."
+
+"I don't believe you do," Nancy said, a trifle absently. "Unlock the
+door, Dick. I don't think Sheila put on that sweater when I told her
+to, and I'm afraid she'll get cold."
+
+"Kiss me, Nancy."
+
+"Will you unlock the door if I do?"
+
+"Yes'um."
+
+Nancy put up cool fragrant lips to meet a brother's kiss, and for the
+moment was threatened with a second salute that was very much less
+fraternal, but the danger passed. Dick unlocked the door and let her
+pass him without protest.
+
+"If you had been any other girl," he mused, as they went down the
+stairs together companionably, "you wouldn't have got away with
+that."
+
+"With what?" Nancy asked innocently.
+
+"If you don't know," Dick said, "I won't tell you. If you'd been any
+other girl I should have thrown that key out of the window when you
+began to sass me."
+
+"And then?" Nancy inquired politely.
+
+"And then," Dick replied finally and firmly.
+
+"Are there any other girls?" Nancy asked, faintly curious, as they
+stood on the deep steps of the porch waiting for Sheila and Williams
+who were emerging from the middle entrance.
+
+Dick met her glance a little solemnly, and hesitated for a perceptible
+instant.
+
+"Are there, Dick?" she insisted.
+
+"Yes, dear," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE HAPPIEST DAY
+
+
+It was thoroughly characteristic of Nancy to turn her back on the most
+significant facts of her experience, and occupy herself exclusively
+with its by-products. She refused to consider herself as an heiress
+entitled to spend money lavishly for her own uses, but she squandered
+it on her pet enterprise. She dismissed the idea that Dick, whom she
+neglected to discourage as decisively as her growing interest in
+another man would seem to warrant, had bought a country estate for the
+sole purpose of ensconcing her there as mistress. She dreamed of
+Collier Pratt and his ideal of her, and presented herself punctually
+at his studio as a model for that ideal, while ignoring absolutely the
+fact that he was nearly a hundred dollars in debt to her for meals
+served at Outside Inn. She had sufficient logic and common sense to
+apply to these matters, and sufficient imagination to handle them
+sympathetically, had she chosen to consider them at all, but she did
+not choose. She was deep in the adventure of her existence as
+differentiated from its practical working out.
+
+The day Collier Pratt finished his portrait of her she was not alone
+in the studio with him. Sheila, in a fluffy white dress with a floppy
+black satin hat framing her poignant little face, was omnipresent at
+the interview which succeeded the actual two hours of absorption when
+he put in the last telling strokes.
+
+"It's done," he said, as he set aside pigments and brushes, and
+divested himself of his painting apron. "I don't want to look at it
+now. I've got it, but I can't stand the strain of contemplating it
+till my brain cools a trifle. Let's go out and celebrate."
+
+"Where shall we go?" Nancy said. This was the moment she had dreamed
+of for weeks, the hour of fruition when the work was done, and they
+could face each other, man and woman again with no strip of canvas
+between them.
+
+"The place I always go when I've finished a picture is a little café
+under the shadow of _Notre Dame_, where I get cakes and beer and an
+excellent perspective on all my favorite gargoyles."
+
+"And the little birds flutter in the sun, and eat my crumbs and the
+great music swells out while you ask the _garçon_ for another _bock_.
+Do you remember, father dear, the day that _she_ found us there?"
+
+"I remember only that you made yourself ill eating _Madelaines_ and
+had to be taken home _en voiture_," Collier Pratt said quickly. "We
+will go and have some coffee at the Café des Artistes, and discuss
+ships and shoes and sealing wax--anything but the art of painting."
+
+"And cabbages and kings," Sheila contributed ecstatically. "I used to
+think when I was a very little girl and couldn't read English very
+well that it was really Heaven where Alice went, and it made me sad to
+think she was dead and I didn't understand it, but now Miss Dear has
+explained to me."
+
+"Miss Dear has made a good many things clear to us both," Collier
+Pratt said, but he said no more that might be even remotely construed
+as referring to the issue between them, and Nancy finished out her day
+with dragging limbs and an aching empty heart that a word of
+tenderness would have filled to running over.
+
+But after her work for the day was done, and she was back in her own
+apartment with Sheila tucked snugly in bed, and Hitty out for the
+night with a sick friend, there came the touch on her bell that she
+knew was Collier Pratt's; and she opened the door to find him standing
+on her threshold.
+
+"I knew you'd come," she said, as women always say to the man they
+have that hour given up looking for.
+
+"I wasn't sure I would," Collier Pratt said, "but I did, you see."
+
+"Why weren't you sure?" She stood beside him in her little rectangular
+hall while he divested himself of his cape, and placed his hat, stick
+and gloves in orderly sequence on the oak settee beside it. She liked
+to watch the precision with which he always arranged these things.
+
+"Why should I be sure?" He turned and faced her. "Miss Dear," he said
+to himself softly, "Miss Dear," and she saw that in his eyes which
+made the moment simpler for her to bear.
+
+She led the way into her drawing-room.
+
+"Light the candles," he said, "this firelight is too good to drown in
+a flood of electric light!"
+
+"Is that better?" she asked.
+
+They were standing before the fireplace; the embers had burned to a
+gentle glowing radiance. Of the four candles she had lighted, the wick
+of only one had taken fire and was burning. Nancy's breath caught in
+her throat, and she could not steady it. Collier Pratt took a step
+forward and held out his arms.
+
+"No, this is better," he said.
+
+"I thought there was some place in the world where I could
+be--comfortable," Nancy said, when she finally lifted her head from
+the shoulder of the shabby, immaculate black suit, "but I wasn't quite
+sure."
+
+"Are you sure now, you little wonder woman?" He held her at the length
+of his arm for a moment and gazed curiously into her face. Then he
+drew her slowly toward him again. She met his kiss bravely, so bravely
+that he understood the quality of her courage.
+
+"I didn't realize that this would be the first time," he said.
+
+"There couldn't have been any other time," Nancy breathed, "you know
+that."
+
+"I didn't know," Collier Pratt said thoughtfully. "Oh! you little
+American girls, with your strange, straight-laced little bodies and
+your fearless souls!"
+
+"Betty told you something," Nancy cried, scarcely hearing him, "but it
+wasn't true. There never has been anybody else." She put her head down
+on his shoulder again. "It is comfortable here," she said, "where I
+belong."
+
+She felt the sudden passion sweep through him,--the high avid wave of
+tenderness and desire,--and she exulted as all purely innocent women
+exult when that madness surges first through the veins of the man they
+love. He put his hands on her shoulders and pressed her into the
+armchair by the fire, and there she took his head on her breast and
+understood for all time what it means for a woman to be called the
+mother of men.
+
+"You wonder woman," he murmured again.
+
+She brushed the dark hair back from his forehead and kissed his eyes.
+"You dear," she said, "you boy, you little boy."
+
+Suddenly through the darkness came the sound of a shrill cry, and the
+thud of a fall in some room down the corridor.
+
+"It's Sheila," Nancy said, "she has those little nightmares and falls
+out of bed."
+
+"I know she does," Collier Pratt said, "but she picks herself up
+again."
+
+"Not always," Nancy said; "don't you want to come in and help me put
+her back?"
+
+"I do not," Collier Pratt said with unnecessary emphasis.
+
+Nancy was of two minds about picking the child up in her little white
+night-gown and bringing her out to her father, flushed and lovely with
+sleep as she was. It was Collier Pratt's baby she had in her arms; her
+charge, the child she loved, and the child of the man she loved, a
+part of the miracle that was slowly revealing itself to her; but a
+sudden sharp instinct warned her that her impulse was ill-timed.
+
+"I had forgotten the child was here," Collier Pratt said when she
+returned to him.
+
+"I hadn't," Nancy said happily.
+
+"I suppose she has to be somewhere, poor little wretch," he said.
+"She's an extraordinarily picturesque baby, isn't she?"
+
+Nancy crept nearer to him. He stood leaning against the mantel and
+frowning slightly, but he made no move toward her again.
+
+"She doesn't have nightmares often now," Nancy said with stiffening
+lips. "She used to have them almost every night, but by watching her
+diet carefully we have practically eliminated them."
+
+"The Hitty person doesn't like me," Collier Pratt said. "_Pas du
+tout_. She treats me as if I were a book agent."
+
+"She loves Sheila, she--she'd do anything for her."
+
+"The women who do not find me attractive are likely to find me quite
+conspicuously otherwise, I am afraid." He had been carefully avoiding
+Nancy's eyes, but her little cry at this drew his gaze. She was
+standing before him, slowly blanching as if he had struck her,
+absolutely still except for the trembling of her lips.
+
+"What am I," he said, "to hold out against all the forces of the
+Universe? Do you love me, Nancy, do you love me?"
+
+"You know," she whispered, once more in the shelter of the shabby
+shoulder.
+
+"This is madness," he swore as he kissed her; "we're both out of our
+senses, Nancy; don't you know it?"
+
+"The picture is done, anyhow," she said. "I don't know how I can ever
+bear to look it in the face, but I shall have to."
+
+"It's the best work I've ever done," he said.
+
+"I don't look like it now, do I?"
+
+He held her off to see.
+
+"No, by jove, you don't. It's gone, now--just that thing I painted."
+
+"How do I look now?"
+
+"Much more commonplace from the point of view from which I painted
+you. Much more beautiful though,--much more beautiful."
+
+"I'm glad."
+
+"I might paint you again,--like this. No, I swear I won't. I got the
+thing itself down on canvas. I'll never try to paint you again."
+
+"Is--that flattering?"
+
+"Supremely."
+
+"When am I going to have my picture?" she asked after another
+interlude. "Do you want me to send for it?"
+
+"I can't give you the picture," he said. "I intended to if I had done
+merely a portrait, but I can't part with this. It has got to make my
+fame and fortune."
+
+"I thought I was to have it," Nancy said. "I--I--" then she felt she
+was being ungenerous, unworthy, "but I couldn't take it, of course,
+it's too valuable."
+
+"Please God."
+
+"It would be wonderful, wouldn't it, if my picture did make you
+famous!"
+
+"I think it will."
+
+"I'm nothing but a grubby little working girl, and you're a great
+artist,--and you love me."
+
+"You're not a grubby little working girl to me," he said, "you're a
+glorious creature--a wonder woman. I ought to go down on my knees to
+you for what you've given me in that picture."
+
+"In the picture?" Nancy said. "I love you. I love you. That wasn't in
+the picture--I kept it out."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I won't marry him until he is ready for me," she said to herself at
+one time during the night. She lay perfectly quiet till morning, her
+hands folded upon her breast, and her little girl pig-tails pulled
+down on either side of the coverlet, wide-eyed and tranquil. She could
+not bear to sleep and forget for a moment the beautiful thing that had
+happened to her between dawn and dawn. "I'll take care of him and
+Sheila, and nourish him, and help him to sell my picture. It isn't
+every woman who would understand his kind of loving, but I understand
+it."
+
+At eight o'clock Hitty came in to her, and roused her from the light
+drowse into which she had fallen at last.
+
+"You was crying in your sleep again," she said, "your cheeks is all
+wet. I heard you the minute I put my key into the latch. You're as bad
+as Sheila, only I expect she suffers from something laying hard on her
+stummick. It's always something on your mind that starts you in."
+
+"There's nothing on my mind, Hitty," Nancy said, sitting up in bed,
+"nothing but happiness, I mean. In some ways, Hitty dear, this is the
+happiest day that I've ever waked up to."
+
+"Well, then, there's other ways that it isn't," Hitty said, opening
+the door to stalk out majestically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+BETTY
+
+
+"There's a lady waiting to see you, sir," Dick's man servant informed
+him on his arrival at his apartment one evening when he had been
+dining at his club, and was putting in a leisurely appearance at his
+own place after his coffee and cigar.
+
+"A lady?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she has been here since nine. She says it's not important,
+but she insisted on waiting."
+
+"The deuce she did."
+
+Dick's quarters were not, strictly speaking, of the bachelor variety.
+That is, he had a suite in one of the older apartment houses in the
+fifties, a building that domiciled more families and middle-aged
+married couples than sprightly young single gentlemen. Dick had fallen
+heir to the establishment of an elderly uncle, who had furnished the
+place some time in the nineties and when he grew too decrepit to keep
+his foothold in New York had retired to the country, leaving Dick in
+possession. Even if Dick had been a conspicuously rakish young
+gentleman, which he was not, the traditional dignity of his
+surroundings would have certainly protected him from incongruous
+indiscretion in their vicinity.
+
+Betty rose composedly from the pompous red velour couch that ran along
+the wall under a portrait of a gentleman that looked like a Philip of
+Spain, but was really Dick's maternal great grandfather.
+
+"Why, Betty," Dick said, "this isn't _convenable_ unless you have a
+chaperon somewhere concealed. We don't do things like this."
+
+"I do," Betty said. "I wanted to see you, so I came. In these
+emancipated days ladies call upon their men friends if they like. It's
+archaic to prattle of chaperons."
+
+"Still we were all brought up in the fear of them."
+
+"Mine were brought up in the fear of me. I like this place, Dicky. Why
+don't you give us more parties in it? You haven't had a crowd here for
+months."
+
+"Everybody's so busy," Dick said, "we don't seem to get together any
+more. I'm willing to play host any time that the rest want to come."
+
+"You mean Nancy is so busy with her old Outside Inn."
+
+"You are busy there, too."
+
+"I'm not so busy that I wouldn't come here when I was asked, Dicky."
+
+"Or even when you weren't?" Dick's smile took the edge off his
+obviously inhospitable suggestion.
+
+"Or even when I wasn't," Betty said impudently. "Won't you sit down,
+Mr. Thorndyke?"
+
+"Can't I call you a cab, Miss Pope?"
+
+"I don't wish to go away."
+
+"Betty, be reasonable," Dick said, "it's after ten o'clock. It is not
+usual for me to receive young ladies alone here, and it looks badly. I
+don't care for myself, of course, but for you it looks badly."
+
+"If it's only for me--I don't care how it looks. Come and sit down
+beside me, and talk to me, Dicky, and I'll tell you really why I
+came."
+
+Dick folded his arms and looked down at her. Betty's piquant little
+face, olive tinted, and pure oval in contour, was turned up to him
+confidently; under the close seal turban the soft brown hair framed
+the childish face, while the big dark eyes danced with mischief. She
+patted the couch by her side invitingly.
+
+"I'll go away in fifteen minutes, Dicky dear. It certainly wouldn't
+look well if you put me out immediately, after all your establishment
+knowing that I waited here an hour for you."
+
+Dick took out his watch.
+
+"Fifteen minutes, then," he said. "What's your trouble, Betty?"
+
+"Well, it's a long sad story," she temporized. "Perhaps I had better
+not begin on it now that our time is so short. You wouldn't like to
+hold my hand, would you, Dicky?"
+
+"I'm not going to, at any rate."
+
+"I thought you'd say that," she sighed. "Have you seen Nancy lately?"
+
+"Yesterday."
+
+"She's looking better, don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Preston Eustace is back."
+
+"Is that so? I didn't know he was here yet. I knew he was coming."
+
+"He's to be here six months, or so."
+
+"Have you seen him?"
+
+"No, Caroline told me." Her voice was carefully steadied but Dick
+noticed for the first time the shadows etched under the big brown
+eyes, and the flush of excitement splotched high on her cheek-bones.
+She had been engaged to Preston Eustace for three months succeeding
+her twentieth birthday.
+
+"On second thoughts I think I will hold your hand, Betty," he said,
+covering that childlike member with his own rather brawny one. "You
+are not a very big little girl, are you, Betty?"
+
+"My mother used to tell me that I was a very destructive child."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if you were that yet."
+
+"Don't let's talk about me. Let's talk about you, Dicky."
+
+"About me?"
+
+"Yes, please. I think you're a very interesting subject."
+
+Having arrived at some conclusion concerning this unprecedented attack
+upon his privacy, Dick was disposed to be kind to his unexpected
+visitor. The fact that Preston Eustace was in town and Betty had not
+seen him shed an entirely new light on her recklessness. Like every
+other incident in Betty's history her love-affair had been very
+conspicuously featured.
+
+"The interesting things about me just at present are--" he was just
+about to say "six shirts of imported gingham" but he bethought himself
+that she would be certain to demand to see them, so he finished lamely
+with--"my game of golf, and my new dogs."
+
+"What kind of dogs?"
+
+"Belgian police dogs."
+
+"Where do you keep them?"
+
+"I haven't taken them over yet."
+
+"I heard that you had bought a place up in Westchester, but I asked
+Nancy, and she said she didn't know. I don't think Nancy appreciates
+you, Dick."
+
+"That so often happens."
+
+"I mean that seriously."
+
+"It's a serious matter--being appreciated. The only person who I ever
+thought really appreciated me was Billy's old aunt. Every time she saw
+me she used to say to me, 'You're such a clean-looking young man I
+can't take my eyes off you.'"
+
+"You _are_ clean-looking, and awfully good-looking too."
+
+"Do you mind if I smoke, Betty?" Dick carefully disengaged his hand
+from her clinging fingers, and a look of something like intelligence
+passed between them, before Betty turned her ingenuous child's stare
+on him again.
+
+"Not if you'll give me a cigarette, too."
+
+Dick fumbled through his pockets.
+
+"It's awfully stupid, but I haven't any about me," he said, fingering
+what he knew that she knew to be the well filled case he always
+carried in his inner pocket. He did not approve of women smoking.
+
+But "Poor Dicky!" was all she said.
+
+"Your fifteen minutes are up, Betty," he said presently, taking out
+his watch.
+
+"Well, I suppose I'll have to go then."
+
+Dick rose politely.
+
+"You really don't care whether I go or stay, do you?" she sighed.
+
+"I would rather have you go, Betty," he said gravely.
+
+Betty's eyes filled with sudden tears, that Dick to his surprise
+realized were genuine.
+
+"I wanted you to want me to stay," she said incoherently.
+
+"I suppose you're just a miserable little thing that doesn't want to
+be alone," he concluded. "Come, I'll take you home."
+
+The telephone bell on the table beside him rang sharply.
+
+"I'm just going out," he said to Billy, on the wire. "Betty is here
+with a fit of the blues. I'm going to take her home. Ride up with us,
+will you?"
+
+"He'll meet us down-stairs in ten minutes," he said. "I'll order a
+taxi."
+
+"I don't want to see Billy," Betty said rebelliously. She rose
+suddenly, pulling on her gloves, and took a step forward as if about
+to brush by him petulantly, but as she did so she staggered, put her
+hand to her eyes, and fell forward against his breast.
+
+Dick picked up the limp little body, and made his way to the couch
+where he deposited it gently among the stiff red pillows there. Then
+he began to chafe her hands, to push back the tumbled hair from which
+the fur hat had been displaced, and finally fallen off, and to call
+out her name remorsefully.
+
+"Betty, dear, dearest," he cried, "I didn't know, I didn't dream,--I
+thought you were just trying it on. I'm so sorry, dear, I am so
+sorry."
+
+She moaned softly, and he bent over her again more closely. Then he
+gathered her up in his arms.
+
+"Betty, dear, Betty," he said again.
+
+She opened her eyes. Her two soft arms stole up around his neck, and
+she lifted her lips.
+
+"You little devil," Dick cried, almost at the same instant that he
+kissed her.
+
+"She deserves to be spanked," he told Billy grimly at the door. "She
+got in my apartment when I was out, and insisted on staying there till
+I came in, to make me a visit."
+
+"He doesn't understand me," Betty complained, as she cuddled
+confidingly in the corner of the taxi-cab, "when I'm serious he
+doesn't realize or appreciate it, and he doesn't understand the nature
+of my practical jokes."
+
+"I don't like--practical jokes," Dick said. "Have you seen Preston
+Eustace, Billy?"
+
+"I haven't seen Caroline," Billy said, as if that disposed of all the
+interrogatory remarks that might be addressed to him in the present or
+the future.
+
+"It's a nice-looking river," Betty said, looking out at the softly
+gleaming surface of the Hudson, as their cab took the drive. "It looks
+strange to-night, though, laden with all kinds of queer little boats.
+I wonder how it would feel to be drifting down it, or up it, on a
+barque or a barkentine--I don't know what a barkentine is--all dead
+like Elaine or Ophelia,--with your hands neatly folded across your
+breast?"
+
+"For heaven sake's, Betty," Billy cried, "I don't like your style of
+conversation. I'm in a state of gloom myself, to-night."
+
+"I didn't say I was in a state of gloom," Betty said. They rode the
+rest of the way in silence, but when Dick got out of the cab to open
+her door for her, she whispered to him, "I'm awfully ashamed, Dick,"
+before she fled up-stairs through the darkened hallway of her own
+home.
+
+"Queer little thing,--Betty," Billy said as Dick stepped back to the
+cab again, "you never know where you have her. Full of the deuce as
+she can stick. Unscrupulous little rascal, too, but made of good
+stuff."
+
+"Don't you think so?" Billy inquired presently as Dick did not
+answer.
+
+"Think what?"
+
+"That Betty's a queer sort of girl."
+
+Dick took his pipe out of his pocket and began stuffing it full of
+tobacco. When this was satisfactorily accomplished, he struck a match
+on his boot heel, and lit the mixture, drawing at it critically
+meanwhile.
+
+"Damn' queer," he admitted, between puffs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CLOUDS OF GLORY
+
+
+Nancy, trailing clouds of glory, took up the management of her Inn
+with renewed vigor. She had found her touchstone. The flower of love,
+which she had scarcely understood to be indigenous to the soil of her
+own practical little garden, had suddenly lifted up its head there in
+fragrant, radiant bloom. She was so happy that she was impatient of
+all the inadequate, inefficient manipulation of affairs in the whole
+world. She felt strong and wise to put everything right in a neglected
+universe.
+
+She loved. She was satisfied to live in that love for the present,
+with no imagination of the future except as her lover should construct
+it for her; and in him she had absolute faith. The things that he had
+said or left unsaid had no significance to her. Before she had dreamed
+of a personal relation with him he had singled her out as a creature
+made for the consummation and fulfilment of the greatest passion of
+all. The merest suspicion that there had been a man in the world who
+could have frustrated this beautiful potentiality in her had moved him
+profoundly. There was nothing in her experience to help her to
+differentiate between the sensibility of the artistic temperament and
+the manifestations of the more reliable emotions. The presence in the
+human breast of a fire that gave out light and not heat was a
+condition undreamed of in her philosophy. To doubt Collier Pratt's
+love for her in the face of his tacit pursuit of her, and the
+acceptance of the obligation she had chosen to put him under, would
+have seemed to her the rankest kind of heresy.
+
+She had been brought up on terms of comradely equality with boys and
+men, and she understood the rules of all the pretty games of fluffing
+and light flirtation that young men and women play with each other,
+but serious love-making--that was a thing apart. In the world of honor
+and fair dealing a man took a woman's kiss of surrender for one reason
+and one reason only----that she was his woman, and he so held her in
+his heart.
+
+Now that she was in this sort committed to her love for Collier Pratt,
+her one ambition was to put her life in order for him,--to pick up the
+raveling threads of her achievement and prove to him and to herself
+that she was the kind of woman who accomplishes that which she
+attempts. In the light of his indefatigable patience in all matters
+that pertained to his art--his clean-cut workmanship--his skill in
+handling his material--she blushed for the amateur spirit that
+animated all her undertakings, and for the first time recognized it
+for what it was.
+
+"Gaspard," she said one morning soon after her miracle had been
+achieved, "where do you think the greatest leak is? We spend a great
+deal too much money in running this place. As you know, that is not
+the most important matter to me. Getting my customers properly
+nourished with invitingly prepared food is the essential thing, but if
+there was a way to adjust the economical end of it, I should feel a
+great deal more comfortable in my mind."
+
+"But certainly, mademoiselle, I should like myself to try the pretty
+little economies. The Frenchman he likes to spend his money when it is
+there, but it hurts him in the heart to waste this money without
+cause."
+
+"Am I wasting money without cause, Gaspard, in your opinion?"
+
+"What else?"
+
+"How can I stop it?"
+
+"By calculation of the tall cost of living, and by buying what is good
+instead of what is expensive."
+
+"What do you mean, Gaspard?"
+
+Gaspard contemplated her for a moment.
+
+"We have had this week--squab chicken," he said, "racks of little
+unseasonable lambs, sweetbreads, guinea fowl and _filet du boeuf_. We
+have with them mushrooms, fresh string bean, cooked endive, and new,
+not very good peas grown in glass. We have the salted nuts, the
+radish, the olive, the celery, the _bon bon_, all extra without pay.
+Then you make in addition to this the health foods, and your bills are
+sky high up. Is it not?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is, Gaspard. I had no idea I was as reckless as all
+that."
+
+"But yes, and more of it."
+
+"What would you do if you were running this restaurant, Gaspard?"
+
+"I would give _ragoût_, and rabbits--so cheap and so good too--stewed
+in red wine, and the good pot roast with vegetables all in the
+delicious sauce, and carrots with parsley and the peas out of the can,
+cooked with onion and lettuce, and macédoine of all the other things
+left over. Lentils and flageolet I should buy dried up, and soak them
+out.--All those things which you have said were needless.--In my way
+they would be so excellent."
+
+"You make my mouth water, Gaspard. I don't know whether it's a Gallic
+eloquence, or whether that food really would work. They might like it
+for a change anyhow."
+
+"I have many personal patrons now," Gaspard said with some pride; "all
+day they send me messages, and very good tips. I think what I would
+serve them they would eat.--But there is one thing--" he paused and
+hesitated dejectedly, "that, what you say, takes the heart out of the
+beautiful cooking."
+
+"What thing is that, Gaspard?"
+
+"Those calories."
+
+"Why, Gaspard, surely you're used to working with tables now. It must
+be almost second nature to you. My whole end and aim has been to serve
+a balanced ration."
+
+"I know, but the ration when he is right, he balances himself. These
+tables they are like the steps in dancing--to learn and to forget. I
+figure all day all night to get those calories, and then I find I have
+eight--and eight are so little--lesser than I would have had without
+the figuring, and if our customer he has taken himself one piece of
+sweetmeat outside, he has more than made it up."
+
+"I always have worried about what they eat between meals," Nancy
+said,--"but that, of course, we can't regulate."
+
+"Could I perhaps go to it, as you say, and cook like the _bourgeoisie_
+for a week or two of trials?"
+
+"Yes, I think you could, Gaspard," Nancy said thoughtfully. "Go to it,
+as we say, and I won't interfere in any way. Maybe they'd like it.
+Perhaps our food is getting to be too much like hotel food, anyway."
+
+She knew in her heart that the gradually increasing scale of luxury on
+which she had been running her cuisine had been largely due to her
+desire to provide Collier Pratt with all the delicacies he loved,
+without making the fact too conspicuous. The specially prepared dishes
+sent out to his table had become a matter of so much comment among the
+members of the staff, and the target of so much piquant satire from
+Betty that she had become sensitive on the subject, especially since
+Betty had access to the books, and knew in actual dollars and cents
+how much this favoritism was costing her. Now that matters had been
+settled between herself and her lover, she felt vaguely ashamed of
+this elaboration of method. It was so simple a thing to love a man and
+give him all you had, with the eyes of the world upon you, if
+necessary. She felt that she handled the matter rather unworthily.
+
+She had also a consultation with Molly and Dolly about the economic
+problem, and discovered that they agreed with Gaspard about the
+unnecessary extravagance of her management.
+
+"Them health foods," Dolly said,--she was not the more grammatical of
+the twins, "the ones that gets them regular gets so tired of them, or
+else they gets where they don't need them any more. There's one girl
+that crumbs up her health muffins and puts them on the window-sill
+every day when I ain't looking, so's not to hurt my feelings."
+
+"That accounts for all those chittering sparrows," Nancy said.
+
+"And some of those buttermilk men threatens not to come any more if I
+don't stop serving it to them."
+
+"What do you say to them, Dolly, when they object to it?"
+
+"Well, sometimes I say one thing, and sometimes another. Sometimes I
+say it's orders to serve it; and sometimes I say will they please to
+let it stand by their plate not to get me in trouble with the
+management; and sometimes I coax them to take it."
+
+"By an appeal to their better nature," Nancy said. "I'm glad Dick
+can't hear all this,--he'd think it was funny."
+
+"We don't have so much trouble with the broths," Molly said, "but so
+many people would rather have the cream soups Gaspard makes, that we
+waste a good deal."
+
+"It sours on us," Dolly elucidated.
+
+"What do you think would be the best way out of that?"
+
+"I think to charge for the invalid things," Dolly said; "people would
+think more of them if they was specials, and had to be paid good money
+for. Health bread, if you didn't call it that, would go good, if it
+cost five cents extra."
+
+"What would you call it?" Nancy asked.
+
+"California fruit nut bread, or something like that, and call the
+custards crême renversé, and the ice-cream, French ice-cream."
+
+"Oh, dear!" Nancy said, "that isn't the way I want to do things at
+all."
+
+"We can slip the ones that needs them a few things from time to time,
+can't we, Molly?" Dolly said.
+
+"We'll do it," Nancy said. "I hate the way that the most uninspired
+ways of doing things turn out to be the best policy after all. I don't
+believe in stereotyped philanthropy, but I did think I had found a way
+around this problem of feeding up people who needed it."
+
+"They get fed up pretty good if they do pay a regular price for it,"
+Dolly said. "You can't get something for nothing in this world, and
+most everybody knows it by now."
+
+"I'm managing my restaurant a little differently," she told Collier
+Pratt a few days later, as she took her place at the little table
+beside him, where she habitually ate her dinner. "If you don't like it
+you are to tell me, and I'll see that you have things you will like."
+
+"This dinner is good," he said reflectively, "like French home
+cooking. I haven't had a real _ragoût_ of lamb since I left the
+pension of Madame Pellissier. Has your mysterious patroness got tired
+of furnishing _diners de luxe_ to the populace?"
+
+"Not exactly that," Nancy said, "but she--she wants me to try out
+another way of doing things."
+
+"I thought that would come. That's the trouble with patronage of any
+kind. It is so uncertain. There is no immediate danger of your being
+ousted, is there?"
+
+"No," Nancy said, "there--there is no danger of that."
+
+"I don't like that cutting you down," he said, frowning. "It would be
+rather a bad outlook for us all if she threw you over, now wouldn't
+it?"
+
+"Oh!--she won't, there's nothing to worry about, really."
+
+"It would be like my luck to have the only café in America turn me
+out-of-doors.--I should never eat again."
+
+"I promise it won't," Nancy said; "can't you trust me?"
+
+"I never have trusted any woman--but you," he said.
+
+"You can trust me," Nancy said. "The truth is, she couldn't put me out
+even if she wanted to. I--she is under a kind of obligation to me."
+
+"Thank God for that. I only hope you are in a position to threaten her
+with blackmail."
+
+"I could if anybody could," Nancy said. She put out of her mind as
+disloyal, the faintly unpleasant suggestion of his words. He owed her
+mythical patron a substantial sum of money by this time. He was not
+even able to pay Michael the cash for the nightly teapot full of
+Chianti that Nancy herself now sent out for him regularly. For the
+first time since her association with him she was tempted to compare
+him to Dick, and that not very favorably; but at the next instant she
+was reproaching herself with her littleness of vision. He was too
+great a man to gauge by the ordinary standards of life. Money meant
+nothing to him except that it was the insignificant means to the end
+of that Art, which was to him consecrated.
+
+They were placed a little to the left of the glowing fire--Nancy had
+restored the fireplace in the big central dining-room--and the light
+took the brass of the andirons, and all the polished surface of copper
+and pewter and silver candelabra that gave the room its quality of
+picturesqueness.
+
+"Some of those branching candlesticks are very beautiful," he said;
+"the impression here is a little like that of a Catholic altar just
+before the mass. I've always thought I'd like to have my meals served
+in church, _Saint-Germain-des-Prés_ for instance."
+
+"It is rather dim religious light." Nancy had no wish to utter
+this banality, but it was forced from her by her desire to seem
+sympathetic.
+
+"Can we go to your place for a little while to-night?"
+
+These were the words she had spent her days and nights hungering for;
+yet now she hesitated for a perceptible instant.
+
+"Yes, we can, of course. There is a friend of mine--Billy Boynton, up
+there this evening. He is not feeling very fit, and phoned to ask if
+he could go up and sprawl before my fire, so, of course, I said he
+could."
+
+"Oh! yes, Sheila's friend. Can't he be disposed of?"
+
+"I think so. We could try."
+
+But at Nancy's apartment they found not only Billy, but Caroline, and
+the atmosphere was like that of the glacial regions, both literally
+and figuratively.
+
+"Hitty had the windows open, and the fire went out, and I forgot to
+turn on the heat," Billy explained from his position on the hearth
+where he was trying to build an unscientific fire with the morning
+paper, and the remains of a soap box. There was a long smudge across
+his forehead.
+
+Caroline drew Nancy into the seclusion of her bedroom and clutched her
+violently by the arm.
+
+"I can't stand the strain any longer," she cried, "you've got to tell
+me. Are you or are you not going to marry Dick Thorndyke for his
+money, and is Billy Boynton putting you up to it--out of cowardice?"
+
+"No, I'm not and he isn't," Nancy said. "What's the matter with you
+and Billy anyway?"
+
+"I haven't seen him for weeks before. I just happened to be in this
+neighborhood to-night, and ran in here, and there he was."
+
+"Why don't you take him home with you?" Nancy said.
+
+"I don't want him to go home with me."
+
+"Don't you love him?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. That isn't the point."
+
+"It is the point," Nancy said; "there isn't any other point to the
+whole of existence. There's nothing else in the world, but love, the
+great, big, beautiful, all-giving-up kind of love, and bearing
+children for the man you love; and if you don't know that yet,
+Caroline, go down on your bended knees and pray to your God that He
+will teach it to you before it is too late."
+
+"I--I didn't know you felt like that," Caroline gasped.
+
+"Well, I do," Nancy said, "and I think that any woman who doesn't is
+just confusing issues, and taking refuge in sophistry. I wouldn't give
+_that_"--she snapped an energetic forefinger, "for all your silly,
+smug little ideas of economic independence and service to the race,
+and all that tommy-rot. There is only one service a woman can do to
+her race, and that is to take hold of the problems of love and
+marriage,--and the problems of life, birth and death that are involved
+in them--and work them out to the best of her ability. They _will_
+work out."
+
+"You--you're a sort of a pragmatist, aren't you?" Caroline gasped.
+
+"Billy loves you, and you love Billy. Billy needs you. He is the most
+miserable object lately, that ever walked the face of the earth. I'm
+going to call a taxi-cab, and send you both home in it, and when you
+get inside of it I want you to put you arms around Billy's neck, and
+make up your quarrel."
+
+"I won't do that," said Caroline, "but--but somehow or other you've
+cleared up something for me. Something that was worrying me a good
+deal."
+
+"Shall I call the taxi?" Nancy said inexorably.
+
+"Well, yes--if--if you want to," Caroline said.
+
+The fire was crackling merrily in the drawing-room when she stepped
+into it again after speeding her departing guests. Collier Pratt was
+walking up and down impatiently with his hands clasped behind his
+back.
+
+"You got rid of them at last," he said. "I was afraid they would
+decide to remain with us indefinitely."
+
+"I didn't have as much trouble as I anticipated," admitted Nancy
+cryptically.
+
+Collier Pratt made a round of the rose-shaded lamps in the room--there
+were three including a Japanese candle lamp,--and turned them all
+deliberately low. Then he held out his arms to Nancy.
+
+"We'll snatch at the few moments of joy the gods will vouchsafe us,"
+he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
+
+
+Sheila and Nancy were doing their Christmas shopping. The weather,
+which had been like mid-May--even to betraying a bewildered Jersey
+apple tree into unseasonable bloom that gave it considerable newspaper
+notoriety,--had suddenly turned sharp and frosty. Sheila, all in gray
+fur to the beginning of her gray gaiters, and Nancy in blue, a smart
+blue tailor suit with black furs and a big black satin hat--she was
+dressing better than she had ever dressed in her life--were in that
+state of physical exhilaration that follows the spur of the frost.
+
+"We mustn't dance down the avenue, Sheila," Nancy said, "it isn't
+done, in the circles in which we move."
+
+"It is you who are almost very nearly dancing, Miss Dear," Sheila
+said, "I was only walking on my toetips."
+
+"Oh! don't you feel good, Sheila?" Nancy cried.
+
+"Don't you, Miss Dear?"
+
+"I feel almost too good," Nancy said, "as if in another minute the top
+of the world might come off."
+
+"The top of the world is screwed on very tight, I think," said Sheila.
+"I used to think when I was a little girl that it was made out of blue
+plush, but now I know better than that."
+
+"It might be," Nancy argued, "blue plush and bridal veils. There's a
+great deal of filmy white about it, to-day."
+
+"It's a long way off from Fifth Avenue," Sheila sighed, "too far. I am
+not going to think about it any more. I am going to think hard about
+what to give my father. Michael said to get a smoking set, but I don't
+know what a smoking set is. Hitty said some hand knit woolen
+stockings, but I am afraid he would be scratched by them. Gaspard said
+a big bottle of _Cointreau_, but I do not know what that is either."
+
+"Couldn't we give him a beautiful brocaded dressing-gown and a Swiss
+watch, thin as a wafer, and some handkerchiefs cobwebby fine, and a
+dozen bottles of _Cointreau_, and--then get the other things as we
+think of them?"
+
+"Are we rich enough to do _that_?" Sheila asked, her eyes sparkling
+with excitement.
+
+"Rich enough to buy anything we want, Sheila," Nancy cried. "I had no
+idea it was going to be such a heavenly feeling. When you say your
+prayers to-night, Sheila, I hope you will ask God to bless somebody
+you've never heard of before. _Elijah Peebles Martin_, do you think
+you could remember that long name, Sheila?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Dear,--do you remember him in your prayers every night?"
+
+"Well, I haven't," Nancy said, "but I intend to from now on. Do you
+think Collier--father--would like to have a new pipe?"
+
+"I don't know," Shelia said; "wouldn't Uncle Dick like to have one?"
+
+"I don't know whether Uncle Dick is going to want a Christmas present
+from me or not, Sheila." Nancy answered seriously. "There may
+be--reasons why he won't come to see us for a while when he knows
+them."
+
+"Oh, dear," Sheila said, "but I can buy him a Christmas present
+myself, can't I? I don't want it to be Christmas if I can't."
+
+"Of course, dear. What shall we buy Aunt Caroline and Uncle Billy?"
+
+"Some pink and blue housekeeping dishes, I think."
+
+"I'm going to have trouble buying Caroline _anything_," Nancy said.
+"She's so sure I can't afford it. If I give a silver chest I'll have
+to make Billy say it came from his maiden aunt."
+
+"What shall we give Aunt Betty?"
+
+"I don't know exactly why," Nancy said, "but someway I feel more like
+giving her a good shaking than anything else."
+
+"For a little surprise," Sheila said presently, "do you think we could
+go down to see my father in his studio, after we have shopped? I feel
+like seeing my father to-day. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I
+think of Hitty and my breakfast, and the canary bird, and of you, Miss
+Dear, fast asleep where I can hear you breathing in your room--if I
+listen to it--and then other mornings I wake up thinking only of my
+father, and how he looks in his shirt-sleeves and necktie. I was
+thinking of him this morning like that. So now I should like to see
+him."
+
+"You shall, dear. I want him to see you in your new clothes. He'll
+think you look like a little gray bird with a scarlet breast."
+
+"Then I must open the front of my coat when I go in so he shall see my
+vest at once, mustn't I?"
+
+"Do you know how much I love you, Sheila?" Nancy cried suddenly.
+
+"Is it a great deal, Miss Dear?"
+
+"It's more than I've ever loved anybody in this world but one person,
+and if I should ever be separated from you I think it would break my
+heart--so that you could hear it crack with a loud report, Sheila."
+
+The little girl slipped her gray gloved hand into Nancy's and held it
+there silently for a moment.
+
+"Then we won't ever be separated, Miss Dear," she said.
+
+The shops were crowded with the usual conglomerate Christmas throng,
+and their progress was somewhat retarded by Sheila's desire to make
+the acquaintance of every department-store and Salvation Army Santa
+Claus that they met in their peregrinations. In the toy department of
+one of the Thirty-fourth Street shops there was a live Kris Kringle
+with animated reindeers on rollers, who made a short trip across an
+open space in one end of the department for a consideration, and
+presented each child who rode with him a lovely present, tied up in
+tissue and marked "Not to be opened until Christmas." Sheila refused a
+second trip with him on the ground that it would not be polite to take
+more than one turn.
+
+Nancy was able to discover the little girl's preferences by a tactful
+question here and there when they were making the rounds of the
+different counters. She wanted, it developed, a golden-haired doll
+with a white fur coat, a pair of roller skates, an Indian costume, a
+beaded pocketbook, with a blue cat embroidered on it, a parchesi board
+to play parchesi with her Uncle Dick, some doll's dinner dishes, a
+boy's bicycle, some parlor golf sticks, a red leather writing set, a
+doll's manicure set, a sailor-boy paper doll, a dozen small suede
+animals in a box, a drawing book and crayon pencils and several other
+trifles of a like nature. The things she did not want she rejected
+unerringly. It pleased Nancy to realize that she knew exactly what she
+did want, even though her range of taste was so extensive. Nancy had a
+sheaf of her own cards with her address on them in her pocketbook, and
+each time Sheila saw the thing her heart coveted Nancy nodded to the
+saleswoman and whispered to her to send it to the address given and
+charge to her account.
+
+They took their lunch in a famous confectionary shop, full of candy
+animals and alluring striped candy sticks and baskets. Here Sheila's
+eye was taken by a basket of spun sugar flowers, which she insisted on
+buying for Gaspard. By the time they were ready to resume their
+shopping tour, Sheila began to show signs of fag, so they bought only
+brooches for the waitresses, and the watch as thin and exquisite of
+workmanship as a man's pocket watch could be, for Collier Pratt.
+
+"I think we had better give it to him now, Miss Dear," Sheila decided.
+"I don't see how he can wait till Christmas for it--it is so
+beautiful. He has not had a gold watch since that time in Paris when
+we had all that trouble."
+
+"What trouble, Sheila dear?" Nancy said. She had tucked the child in a
+hansom, and they were driving slowly through the lower end of Central
+Park to restore Sheila's roses before she was exhibited to her
+parent.
+
+"When we lost all our money, and my father and some one I must not
+speak of, had those dreadful quarrelings, and we ran away. I do not
+like to think of it. My father does not like to think of it."
+
+"Well, then, you mustn't, dear," Nancy said, "but just be glad it is
+all over now. I don't like to realize that so many hard things
+happened to you and him before I knew you, but I do like to think that
+I can perhaps prevent them ever happening to you again."
+
+She closed resolutely that department of her mind that had begun to
+occupy itself with conjectures concerning the past of the man to whom
+she had given her heart. The child's words conjured up nightmare
+scenes of unknown panic and dread. It was terrible to her to know that
+Collier Pratt had the memory of so much bitterness and distress of
+mind and body locked away in the secret chambers of his soul. "Some
+one of whom I must not speak," Sheila had said, "and some one of whom
+I must not think," Nancy added to herself. It was probably some one
+with whom he had quarreled and struggled passionately maybe, with
+disastrous results. He could not have injured or killed anybody, else
+how could he be free and honorably considered in a free and honorable
+country? She laughed at her own melodramatic misgivings. It was only,
+she realized, that she so detested the connotation of the words "ran
+away." Nancy had never run away from anything or anybody in her life,
+and she could not understand that any one who was close to her should
+ever have the instinct of flight.
+
+The most conscientious objector to New York's traffic regulations can
+not claim that they fail to regulate. The progress of their cab down
+the avenue was so scrupulously regulated by the benignant guardians of
+the semaphores that twilight was deepening into early December evening
+before they reached their objective point,--the ramshackle studio
+building on the south side of Washington Square where the man she
+loved lived, moved and had his being, with the gallant ease and grace
+which made him so romantic a figure to Nancy's imagination.
+
+She had never been to his studio before without an appointment, and
+her heart beat a little harder as, Sheila's hand in hers, they tiptoed
+up the worn and creaking stairs, through the ill-kept, airless
+corridors of the dingy structure, till they reached the top, and stood
+breathless from their impetuous ascent, within a few feet of Collier
+Pratt's battered door.
+
+"I feel a little scared, Miss Dear," Sheila whispered. "I thought it
+was going to be so much fun and now I don't think so at all. Do you
+think he will be very angry at my coming?"
+
+"I don't think he will be angry at all," Nancy said. "I think he will
+be very much surprised and pleased to see both of us. Turn around,
+dear, and let me be sure that you're neat."
+
+Sheila turned obediently. Nancy fumbled with her pocket mirror, and
+then thought better of it, but passed a precautionary hand over the
+back of her hair to reassure herself as to its arrangement, and
+straightened her hat.
+
+"Now we're ready," she said.
+
+But Sheila put out her hand, and clutched at Nancy's sleeve.
+
+"There's some one in there," she said, "somebody crying. Oh! don't
+let's go in, Miss Dear."
+
+From behind the closed door there issued suddenly the confused murmur
+of voices, one--a woman's--rising and falling in the cadence of
+distress, the other low pitched in exasperated expostulation.
+
+"It's Collier," Nancy said mechanically, "and some woman with him."
+
+Sheila shrank closer into the protecting shelter of her arms.
+
+"Don't let's go in, Miss Dear," she repeated.
+
+"It may be just some model," Nancy said. "We'll wait a minute here and
+see if she doesn't come out."
+
+"I--I don't want to see who comes out," the child said, her face
+suddenly distorted.
+
+There was a sharp sound of something falling within, then Collier
+Pratt's voice raised loud in anger.
+
+"You'd better go now," he said, "before you do any more damage. I
+don't want you here. Once and for all I tell you that there is no
+place for you in my life. Weeping and wailing won't do you any good.
+The only thing for you to do is to get out and stay out."
+
+This was answered by an indistinguishable outburst.
+
+"I won't tell you where the child is," Collier Pratt said steadily.
+"She's well taken care of. God knows you never took care of her.
+There's nothing you can do, you know. You might sue for a restitution
+of conjugal rights, I suppose, but if you drag this thing into the
+courts I'll fight it out to the end. I swear I will."
+
+"You brute,--you--"
+
+At the first clear sound of the woman's voice the child at Nancy's
+side broke into sobs of convulsive terror.
+
+"Take me away, Miss Dear. Oh! take me away from here, quickly,
+quickly, I'm so frightened. I'm so afraid she'll come out and get me.
+It's my _mother_," she moaned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+GOOD-BY
+
+
+Nancy had no memory of her actions during the time that elapsed
+between leaving the studio building and her arrival at her own
+apartment. She knew that she must have guided Sheila to the beginning
+of the bus route at the lower end of the square, and as perfunctorily
+signaled the conductor to let her off at the corner of Fifth Avenue
+and her own street, but she could never remember having done so. Her
+first conscious recollection was of the few minutes in Sheila's room,
+while she was slipping off the child's gaiters, in the interval before
+she gave her over to Hitty for the night. The little girl was still
+sobbing beneath her breath, though her emotion was by this time purely
+reflexive.
+
+"I didn't understand that your mother was living, Sheila," she said.
+
+"She isn't very nice," the little girl said miserably. "We don't tell
+any one. She always cries and screams and makes us trouble?"
+
+"Did she live with you in Paris?"
+
+"Only sometimes."
+
+"Does she do--something that she should not do, Sheila?" Nancy asked,
+with her mind on inebriety, or drug addiction.
+
+"She just isn't very nice," Sheila repeated. "She is _histérique_; she
+pounded me with her hands, and hurt me."
+
+Nancy telephoned to the Inn that she had a headache, and shut herself
+into her room, without food, to gather her scattered forces. She lay
+wide-awake all the night through, her mind trying to work its way
+through the lethargy of shock it had received. She remembered falling
+down the cellar stairs, when she was a little girl, and lying for
+hours on the hard stone floor, perfectly serene and calm, without
+pain, until she tried to do so much as move a little finger or lift an
+eyelid, when the intolerable nausea would begin. She was calm now,
+until she made the attempt to think what it was that had so prostrated
+her, and then the anguish spread through her being and convulsed her
+with unimaginable distress of mind and body.
+
+By morning she had herself in hand again,--at least to the extent of
+dealing with the unthinkable fact that Collier Pratt, her lover, the
+man to whom she had given the lover's right to hold her in his arms
+and cover her upturned face with kisses, had a living wife, and that
+he was not free to make honorable love to any woman.
+
+Her life had been too sound, too sweet, to give her any perspective on
+a situation of the kind. It was inconceivable to her that a married
+man should make advances to an unmarried woman,--but gradually she
+began to make excuses for this one man whose circumstances had been so
+exceptional. Tied to an insane creature, who beat his child, who made
+him strange hectic scenes, and followed him all over the world to
+threaten his security, and menace that beautiful and inexplicable
+creative instinct that animated him like a holy fire, and set him
+apart from his kind; she began to see how it might be with him. She
+was still the woman he loved,--she believed that; he was weaker than
+she had thought,--that was all, weaker and not so wise. This being
+true, she must put aside her own pain and bewilderment, her own
+devastating disillusionment, and comfort him, and help him. She rose
+from her bed that morning firmly resolved to see him before the day
+was through.
+
+She breakfasted with Sheila, and made a brave attempt to get through
+the morning on her usual schedule, but once at the Inn she collapsed,
+and Michael and Betty had to put her in a cab and send her home again,
+where Hitty ministered to her grimly,--and she slept the sleep of
+exhaustion until well on into the evening, and into the night again.
+
+On the day following she was quite herself; but she still hesitated to
+bring about the momentous interview that she so dreaded, and yet
+longed for. She intended to take her place at the table beside Collier
+Pratt when he came for his dinner that night, but when the time came
+she could not bring herself to do it, and fled incontinently. Later in
+the evening he telephoned that he wanted to see her, and she told him
+that he might come.
+
+She faced him with the facts, breathlessly, and in spite of herself
+accusingly,--and then waited for the explanation that would extenuate
+the apparent ugliness of his attitude toward her, and set all the
+world right for her again. As she looked into his face she felt that
+it must come. She noted compassionately how the shadows under the dark
+eyes had deepened; how weary the pose of the fine head; and for the
+moment she longed only to rest it on her breast again. Even as she
+spoke of the thing that had so tortured her it seemed insignificant in
+light of the fact that he was there beside her, within reach of her
+arms whenever she chose to hold them out to him.
+
+"I regret that the revelation of my private embarrassments should have
+been thrust upon you so suddenly," he said, when she had poured out
+the story to him. "My marriage has proved the most uncomfortable
+indiscretion that I ever committed; and unfortunately my indiscretions
+have been numberless as the well-known leaves of Vallombrosa."
+
+"You always said that Sheila was motherless," Nancy said.
+
+"It is simpler than stating that she is worse than motherless."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me you were married?"
+
+Collier Pratt smiled at her--kindly it seemed to Nancy.
+
+"It hadn't anything to do with _us_," he said. "I should never want to
+marry again--even if I were free. The thought is horrible to me. You
+mean a great deal to me. _Think_, if you doubt that and think again. I
+have had in this little front room of yours the only real moments of
+peace and happiness that I have had for years. I value them--you can
+not dream or imagine how much--but surely it is understood between us
+that our relation can not be anything but transitory. I am an artist
+with a way to make for my art: you are a working woman with a career,
+odd as it is," he smiled whimsically, "that you have chosen, and that
+you will pursue faithfully until some stalwart young man dissuades you
+from it, when you will take your place in your niche as wife and
+mother, and leave me one more beautiful memory."
+
+"Surely," Nancy said, "you know it isn't--like that."
+
+"What is it like then?"
+
+Nancy felt every sane premise, every eager hope and delicate ideal
+slipping beyond her reach as she faced his mocking, tender eyes.
+
+"It can't be that you believe you have been--fair with me," she
+faltered.
+
+"I don't think I have been unfair," he said, "I have made no
+protestations, you know."
+
+Nancy shut her eyes. Curious scraps of her early religious education
+came back to her.
+
+"You have partaken of my bread and wine," she said.
+
+"It wasn't exactly consecrated."
+
+"I think it was," she said faintly. "Oh! don't you understand that
+that isn't a way for a man to think or to feel about a woman like
+me?"
+
+"Little American girl," Collier Pratt said, "little American girl,
+don't you understand that there is only one way for a woman to think
+or feel about a _man_ like _me_? I have had my life, and I haven't
+liked it much. I'm to be loved warmly and lightly till the flesh and
+blood prince comes along, but I'm never to be mistaken for him."
+
+"I don't believe you're sincere," Nancy cried; "women must have loved
+you deeply, tragically, and have suffered all the torture there is, at
+losing you."
+
+"That may be. Sincerity is a matter of so many connotations. You
+haven't known many artists, my dear."
+
+"No," said Nancy. "No, but I thought they were the same as other men,
+only worthier."
+
+"How should they be? He who perceives a merit is not necessarily he
+who achieves it. Else the world would be a little more one-sided than
+it is."
+
+"I can't believe those things," Nancy said. "I want to believe in you.
+You _must_ care for me, and what becomes of me. You have known so long
+what I was like, and what I was made for. All this seems like a
+terrible nightmare. I want you to tell me what it is you want of me,
+and let me give it to you."
+
+"I am proving some faint shadow of worthiness at least, when I say to
+you that I want absolutely nothing of you. I love, but I refrain."
+
+"You love," Nancy cried, "you _love_?"
+
+"Not as you understand loving, I am afraid. In my own way I love
+you."
+
+"I don't like your way, then," Nancy said wearily.
+
+"We're both so poor, little girl,--that's one thing. If I were free
+and could overcome my prejudice against matrimony, and could be a
+little surer of my own heart and its constancy,--even then, don't you
+see, practical considerations would and ought to stand in our way. I
+couldn't support you, you couldn't possibly support me."
+
+"I see," said Nancy. "Would you marry me If I were rich?" she said
+slowly.
+
+"I already have one wife," Collier Pratt smiled. Nancy remembered
+afterward that he smiled oftener during this interview than at any
+other. "But if somebody died, and left you a million, she might
+possibly be disposed of."
+
+For one moment, perhaps, his fate hung in the balance. Then he took a
+step forward.
+
+"Kiss me good night, dear," he said, "and let us end this bitter and
+fruitless discussion."
+
+"Kiss you good night," Nancy cried. "Kiss you good night. Oh! how dare
+you!--How dare you?" And she struck him twice across his mouth. "I
+wish I could kill you," she blazed. "Oh! how dare you,--how dare
+you?"
+
+"Oh! very well," said Collier Pratt calmly, wiping his mouth with his
+handkerchief. "If that's the way you feel--then our pleasant little
+acquaintanceship is ended. I'll take my hat and stick and my
+child--and go."
+
+"Your child?" Nancy cried aghast. "You wouldn't take Sheila away from
+me."
+
+"I don't feel exactly tempted to leave her with you," he said
+deliberately. "I don't mind a woman striking me--I'm used to that; it
+is one of my charming wife's ways of expressing herself in moments of
+stress--but I do object to any but the most purely formal relations
+with her afterward. There is a certain degree of intimacy involved in
+your having charge of my child. I think I will take the little girl
+away with me now."
+
+"Please, please, please don't," Nancy said. "I love her. I couldn't
+bear it now. You can't be so cruel."
+
+"Better get it over," Collier Pratt said. "Will you call Hitty, or
+shall I?"
+
+"Sheila is in bed," Nancy cried. "You wouldn't take her out of her
+warm bed to-night. I'll send her to you to-morrow at whatever hour you
+ask."
+
+"I ask for her now."
+
+There was no fight left in Nancy. She called Hitty and superintended
+the dressing of the little girl to its last detail. She could not
+touch her.
+
+"Won't you kiss me good night, Miss Dear?" Sheila said, drowsily, as
+she took her father's hand at the door.
+
+"Not to-night," Nancy said hoarsely. "I've a bad throat, dear, I
+wouldn't want you to catch it."
+
+"I don't know where I'm going," the little girl said, "but I suppose
+my father knows. I'll come back as soon as I can."
+
+"Yes, dear," Nancy said. "Good-by."
+
+Collier Pratt turned at the door and made an exaggerated gesture of
+farewell.
+
+"We part more in anger than in sorrow," he said.
+
+"Oh! Go," Nancy cried.
+
+As the door closed upon the two Nancy sank to her knees, and thence to
+a crumpled heap on the floor, but remembering that Hitty would find
+her there shortly, and being entirely unable to regain her feet
+unaided, she started to crawl in the direction of her own room, and
+presently arrived there, and pushed the door to behind her with her
+heel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TAME SKELETONS
+
+
+It was Sunday night, and New Year's Eve. Gaspard was preparing, and
+Molly and Dolly were serving a special dinner for Preston Eustace,
+planned weeks before on his first arrival in New York.
+
+Before the great logs--imported by Michael for the occasion--that
+blazed in the fireplace, a round table was set, decorously draped in
+the most immaculate of fine linen, and crowned with a wreath of holly
+and mistletoe, from which extended red satin trailers with a present
+from Nancy for each guest, on the end of each. All the impedimenta of
+the restaurant was cleared away, and a couch and several easy chairs
+that Nancy kept in reserve for such occasions were placed comfortably
+about the room. Only the innumerable starry candles and branching
+candelabra were reminiscent of the room's more professional aspect.
+
+Billy and Caroline were the first to arrive,--Caroline in pale
+floating green tulle, which accentuated the pure olive of her
+coloring, and transported Billy from his chronic state of adoration to
+that of an almost agonizing worship. Dick and Betty were next. He had
+realized the possible awkwardness of the situation for her, and had
+been thoughtful enough to offer to call for her. She was in defiant
+scarlet from top to toe, and had never looked more entrancing. Preston
+Eustace was to come in from Long Island where he was spending the
+holidays with a married sister. Michael received the guests and did
+the honors beamingly.
+
+"Where's Nancy?" Dick asked, as, divested of his outer garments, he
+appeared without warning in the presence of the lovers. "Don't bother
+to drop her hand, Billy. I don't see how you have the heart to, she's
+so lovely to-night."
+
+"We don't know where Nancy is," Caroline answered for him. "It seems
+to be all right, though. She's expected, Michael says."
+
+"Where's Nancy?" Betty asked, in her turn, appearing on the threshold
+with every hair most amazingly in place.
+
+"Coming," Dick reassured her.
+
+"Has anybody heard from her?" Betty asked.
+
+"Michael has, I think."
+
+"You aren't worried about her, are you?" Caroline asked.
+
+"Yes, I am," Betty said.
+
+"I thought you and Nancy were rather on the outs," Caroline suggested.
+"It seems odd to have you worrying about her like her maiden aunt."
+
+"You wait till you see her, you'll be worried about her, too."
+
+"What's wrong?" Dick asked quickly.
+
+"She's lost Sheila for one thing. That unspeakable Collier Pratt--I
+hope he chokes on his dinner to-night, and I hope it's a rotten
+dinner--has taken the child away."
+
+"The devil he has."
+
+There was a step on the rickety stair.
+
+"Hush! There she is now," Caroline cried.
+
+"No," Betty said quietly, listening. "That's not Nancy. That's your
+brother, Caroline."
+
+"I haven't heard his step for such a long time I've forgotten it,"
+Billy said.
+
+"I haven't heard it for a long time either," Betty said, her face
+draining of its last bit of color.
+
+"Promises to be one of those merry little meals when everybody present
+is attended by a tame skeleton," Billy whispered, "except us,
+Caroline."
+
+"I don't feel that we have any right to be so happy with the whole
+continent of Europe in the state it's in," Caroline whispered in
+reply.
+
+"I feel better about the continent of Europe than I did a while back,"
+Billy said, contentedly.
+
+"Hello, everybody," Preston Eustace said as Michael held the door for
+him. "How's everything, Caroline?"
+
+"All right," Caroline said. Then she added unnecessarily, "You--you
+know Betty, don't you?"
+
+"I used to know Betty," he said slowly.
+
+The two looked at each other, with that look of incredulity with which
+lovers sometimes greet each other after absence and estrangement.
+"This can't be you," their eyes seem to be saying, "I've disposed of
+you long since, God help me!"
+
+"How do you do, Preston?" Betty said, giving him her hand. Then she
+smiled faintly, and added with a caricature of her usual manner:
+"Lovely weather we're having for this time of year, aren't we?"
+
+"I'm very fond of you, Betty,"--Dick smiled as she sank into the chair
+beside him and Preston turned to his sister. "I think you're a little
+sport."
+
+"I don't know how you can, Dicky," she smiled at him forlornly. "I've
+got a bad black heart, and I play the wrong kind of games."
+
+"Well, I see through them, so it's all right. What's this about
+Nancy?"
+
+"I'll tell you later," Betty said; "there she comes now."
+
+Nancy, stimulated by massage and steam, her hair dressed by a
+professional; powdered, and for the first time in her life rouged to
+hide the tell-tale absence of her natural quickening color, came
+forward to meet her guests in supreme unconsciousness of the pathos of
+the effect she had achieved. She was dressed in snowy white like a
+bride,--the only gown she had that was in keeping with the holiday
+decorations, and she moved a little clumsily, as if her brain had
+found itself suddenly in charge of an unfamiliar set of reflexes. Her
+lids drooped over burning eyes that had known no sleep for many
+nights, and every line and lineament of her face was stamped with
+pain.
+
+"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting," she said. Her voice,
+curiously, was the only natural thing about her. "I've been scouring
+off every vestige of my work-a-day self, and that takes time. Thank
+you for the roses, Dick, but the only flowers I could have worn with
+this color scheme would have been geraniums."
+
+"I'll send you some geraniums to-morrow."
+
+"Don't," she said. "How do you do, Preston?"
+
+She gave him a cold hand, and he stared at her almost as he had stared
+at Betty. He was a tall grave-looking youth, with Caroline's straight
+features and olive coloring, and a shock of heavy blond hair.
+
+"I hope you'll like your party," Nancy hurried on. "Gaspard is
+bursting with pride in it. I think it would be a nice thing to have
+him in and drink his health after the coffee. He would never forget
+the honor."
+
+"My God!" Dick said in an undertone to Betty, "how long has she been
+like this?"
+
+"I'll tell you later," she promised him again.
+
+With the serving of the first course of dinner--Gaspard's wonderful
+_Purée Mongol_--an artist's dream of all the most delicate vegetables
+in the world mingled together as the clouds are mingled, the tensity
+in the air seemed to break and shatter about them in showers of
+brilliant, artificial mirth, which presently, because they were all
+young and fond of one another and their group had the habit of
+intimacy, became less and less strained and unreal.
+
+Nancy's tired eyes lost something of their unnatural glitter, and
+Betty seemed more of a woman than a scarlet sprite, while Caroline's
+smile began to reflect something of the real gladness that possessed
+her soul. Dick and Billy took up the burden of the entertainment of
+the party, and gave at least an excellent imitation of inspirational
+gaiety.
+
+"This _filet of sole_," Billy observed as he sampled his second course
+appreciatively, "is common or barnyard flounder,--and the shrimp and
+the oyster crab, and that mushroom of the sea, and the other little
+creature in the corner of my plate who shall be nameless, because I
+have no idea what his name is,--are all put in to make it harder."
+
+"Gaspard is using some of the simpler native products now instead of
+the high-priced imported ones," Nancy said eagerly, "and he is getting
+wonderful results, I think."
+
+"Flounder _a la Française_ is all right," Dick said.
+
+"Our restaurant has reformed," Betty said. "We're running it on a
+strictly business basis."
+
+"And making money?" Dick asked quickly.
+
+"We're not losing much," Betty said. "That's a great improvement."
+
+"Some of those little girls from the publishing houses look paler to
+me than they did," Nancy said. "I wish I could give them hypodermics
+of protein and carbohydrates."
+
+"Give me the name and address of any of your customers that worry
+you," Dick said, "and I'll buy 'em a cow or a sugar plum tree or a
+flivver or anything else they seem to be in need of."
+
+"Don't those things tend to pauperize the poor?" Caroline's brother
+put in gravely.
+
+"Sure they do," Billy agreed, "only Nancy has kind of given up her
+struggle not to pauperize them."
+
+"I started in with some very high ideals about scientific service,"
+Nancy explained. "I was never going to give anybody anything they
+hadn't actually earned in some way, except to bring up the average of
+normality by feeding my patrons surreptitious calories. I had it all
+figured out that the only legitimate charity was putting flesh on the
+bones of the human race,--that increasing the general efficiency that
+way wasn't really charity at all."
+
+"You don't believe that now?" Preston Eustace asked.
+
+"I don't know what I believe now."
+
+"What is scientific charity, anyhow?" Dick looked about inquiringly.
+
+"There ain't no such animal," Billy contributed.
+
+"It's substituting the cool human intellect for the warm human heart,
+I guess," Betty said dreamily.
+
+"But that so often works," Caroline said.
+
+"I was never going to make any mistakes," Nancy said. "I was going
+to keep my fists scientifically shut, and my heart beatifically
+open." She hesitated. "I--I was going to swing my life, and my
+undertakings--right." It became increasingly hard for her to
+speak, and a little gasp went round the table. "I've--I've made
+nothing--nothing but mistakes," she finished piteously.
+
+"But you've rectified them," Betty put in vigorously. "Nancy, dear,
+I've never known you to make a mistake that you haven't rectified, and
+that is more than I can say of any other person in the world."
+
+"Sirloin and carrots," Caroline said, as the next course came in.
+"I'll wager you've cut the price of this dinner in two by judicious
+ordering."
+
+"There's nothing else but field salad," Nancy said, still piteously,
+"and raspberry _mousse_."
+
+"Nancy, you'll break my heart," Betty said, wiping her eyes frankly,
+but Nancy only looked at her wonderingly, wistfully, preoccupied and
+remote, while Preston Eustace gazed at Betty as if he too would find a
+welcome relief in shedding a heavy tear or two.
+
+"Collier Pratt has broken her heart, Dick," Betty told him in the
+limousine on the way home. "It's been going on ever since the first
+time she saw him. Down at the restaurant we've all known it. She's
+been eating at his table every night for months, and Gaspard and
+everybody else in the place, in fact, has been a slave to his lightest
+whim. I've always disliked him intensely, myself."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me before, Betty?"
+
+"It wasn't my business to tell you. I thought it was coming off, you
+know."
+
+"What was coming off?"
+
+"Their affair. I thought it was past my meddling."
+
+"Do you mean to say that you thought Nancy was going to marry Collier
+Pratt--_Nancy_?"
+
+"Why, yes, if I hadn't I--I wouldn't have acted up the way I did in
+your rooms that night."
+
+But Dick neither heard nor understood her.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you think Collier Pratt has been making love
+to her?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"But the damned scoundrel is married."
+
+"Oh!" Betty cried. "_Oh!_--I didn't know that."
+
+"I've known it--I've always known it," Dick said. "I never dreamed
+that Nancy had any special interest in him."
+
+"Well, she had. She's going through everything, Dick, even Sheila--you
+know how she loved Sheila?"
+
+"I know," Dick said grimly. "Do you mind going on home alone, Betty?
+You'll be perfectly safe with Williams, you know."
+
+"Of course not. What are you going to do, Dick? Are you going to
+Nancy?"
+
+"No, I'm not going to Nancy."
+
+Betty, looking at him more closely, realized for the first time that
+she was sitting beside a man in whom the rage of the primitive animal
+was gaining its ascendency. His breath was coming in short stertorous
+gasps, his hands were clinched, the purplish color was mounting to his
+brows, but he still went through the motions of a courteous
+leave-taking.
+
+"Where are you going, Dick?" she asked again, as he stood on the curb
+where he had signaled Williams to leave him, with the door of the car
+in his hand, staring down at it, and for the moment forgetting to
+close it.
+
+"I'm going to find Collier Pratt," he said thickly. Then with a slam
+that splintered the hinge of the door he was holding he crashed it in
+toward the car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+OTHER PEOPLE'S TROUBLES
+
+
+Nancy was trying conscientiously to interest herself in other people's
+troubles. After the first great shock of pain following her loss at a
+blow of her lover and Sheila, she began automatically to try to work
+her way through her suffering. The habit of application to the daily
+task combined with her instinct for taking immediate action in a
+crisis stood her in good stead in her hour of need. She decided what
+to occupy herself with, and then devoted herself faithfully to the
+prescribed occupation.
+
+The Inn did not need her. With Betty to guide him economically Gaspard
+was able to superintend all the details of the establishment
+adequately and artistically. Sheila was gone. She packed up several
+trunks of dresses and toys and other childish belongings and sent them
+to Washington Square, but even without these constant reminders of
+her, the hunger for the child's presence did not abate. The little
+girl was curiously dissociated from her father in Nancy's mind. She
+had seen so little of the two together that they seemed to belong to
+entirely different compartments of her consciousness. It was only the
+anguish of losing them that linked them together.
+
+Nancy decided to devote a certain proportion of her days and nights to
+remedying such evils as lay under her immediate observation;--to
+helping the individuals with whom she came into daily contact--the
+dependents and tradespeople with whom she dealt. She had always been
+convinced that the people who ministered to her daily comfort in New
+York should occupy some part in her scheme of existence. It was one of
+her favorite arguments that a little more energy and imagination on
+the part of New York citizens would develop the communal spirit which
+was so painfully lacking in the soul of the average Manhattanite.
+
+So the milkman and the corner grocer, the newspaper man, and Hitty's
+small brood of grand nieces and nephews, to say nothing of the Italian
+fruit man's family, and her laundress's invalid daughter, were all
+occupying a considerable place in Nancy's daily schedule. In a very
+short interval she had the welfare of more than half a dozen families
+on her hands, and was involved in all manner of enterprises of a
+domestic nature,--from the designing of confirmation gowns to the
+purchase of rubber-tired rolling chairs, and heterogeneous woolen
+garments and other intimate necessities.
+
+She was a little ashamed of her new line of activities, and still hurt
+enough to shun the scrutiny of her friends, and thereby succeeded in
+mystifying and alarming Billy and Dick and Betty and Caroline almost
+beyond the limit of their endurance by resolutely keeping them at
+arm's length. She was supremely unconscious of anything at all
+remarkable in her behavior, and believed that they accepted her
+excuses and apologies at their face value. She had no conception of
+the fact that her tortured face, with tragedy looking newly out of her
+eyes, kept them from their rest at night.
+
+Sheila wrote to thank her for sending the trunks.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My dear, _ma chère_, Miss Dear," she said. "_Merci beaucoup pour_ my
+clothes and other beautiful things. I like them. _Je t'aime--je t'aime
+toujours_. My father will not permit me to go back. _Comme_--how I
+desire to see you! My father has been sick. He fell down or was hurt
+in the street. There was blood--a great deal. Are they well--the
+others? Tell Monsieur Dick I give him _tout mon coeur_. Come to see me
+if it is _permit_. No more. You could write _peut-être_. _Je
+t'aime_."
+
+                                                       "Yours,
+                                                           "SHEILA."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nancy read this letter, in the quaint childish hand, with a great wave
+of dumb sickness creeping over her--a devastating, disintegrating
+nausea of soul and body. The most significant fact in it, however,
+that Collier Pratt had fallen down "or been hurt in the street," of
+course escaped her entirely, except to stir her with a kind of dim
+pity for his distress.
+
+In one of her long night vigils Preston Eustace's face came back to
+her oddly. She remembered suddenly the strange sad way he had stared
+at Betty on the evening of her party at the Inn. She reconstructed
+Betty's love-story, and its sudden breaking off, three years before,
+and with her new insight into the human heart, decided that these two
+loved each other still, and must be helped to the consummation of
+their happiness. She telephoned to them both the next day that they
+could be of service to her; and made an appointment to meet them at a
+given hour the next evening at her apartment.
+
+She expected and intended to be there herself to give the meeting the
+semblance of coincidence, and to offer them the hospitality of her
+house before she was inspired with the excuse that would permit her an
+exit that left them alone together; but she found herself in the slums
+of Harlem by an Italian baby's bedside at that hour, and decided that
+even to telephone would be superfluous, as once finding each other the
+lovers would be oblivious to all other considerations.
+
+What actually happened was that Preston Eustace, exactly on time as
+was his habit, had been waiting some ten minutes on Nancy's hearth-rug
+when Betty, delayed by the eccentricities of a casual motor-bus
+engine, and frantic with anxiety for her friend, burst in upon him. So
+full was she of the most hectic speculations concerning Nancy's sudden
+appeal to her that she scarcely noticed who was waiting there to greet
+her, and when she did notice, scarcely heeded that recognition.
+
+"Where's Nancy?" she demanded breathlessly.
+
+"I don't know, Betty," Preston Eustace said.
+
+"Doesn't Hitty know?"
+
+"She says she doesn't!"
+
+"How did you happen to be here?"
+
+"She sent for me."
+
+"She's probably sent for everybody else," Betty said. "She's killed
+herself, I know she has."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"Her heart is broken, she's been suffering terribly."
+
+"I don't think she would have sent for me if she had been going to
+kill herself," Preston Eustace said, a little as if he would have
+added, "We are not on those terms."
+
+"I don't suppose she would," Betty said. "But oh, Preston, I'm so
+worried about her. I don't know where she is or anything. I tell you
+her heart is broken."
+
+"I didn't know you believed in hearts--broken or otherwise, Betty."
+
+"I believe in Nancy's heart."
+
+"You never believed in mine."
+
+"You never gave me much reason to, Preston. You--you let me give you
+back your ring the first time I threatened to."
+
+"Of course I did."
+
+"You never came near me again."
+
+"Of course I didn't."
+
+"You let three years go by without a word."
+
+"Of course--"
+
+"If you say 'of course I did' again I'll fly straight up through this
+roof. If you'd ever loved me you wouldn't have gone away and left
+me."
+
+"If I hadn't loved you I wouldn't have gone away."
+
+"Oh, dear," Betty sighed. "I don't see how you can stand there and
+think about yourself with Nancy out in the night--we don't know
+where."
+
+"Ourselves, Betty--did you ever really love me?"
+
+"It doesn't make any difference whether I did or not," Betty said. "I
+hate men."
+
+"I think I'd better be going," Preston Eustace said, his face dark
+with pain. He was rather a literal-minded young man, as Caroline's
+brother would have been likely to be.
+
+Betty buried her face in her hands.
+
+"My head aches," she said, "and I was never in my life so mad and so
+miserable. I can't understand why everything and everybody should
+behave so--devilishly. You and every one else, I mean. I just simply
+can't bear to have Nancy suffer so. My head aches and my heart aches
+and my soul aches." She lifted her head defiantly.
+
+"I think I had better be going," Preston Eustace repeated, looking
+down at her sorrowfully.
+
+"Oh! don't be going," Betty said. "What in the name of sense do you
+want to be going for?" Then without warning or premeditation she
+hurled herself at his breast. "Oh! Preston, if there is anything
+comforting in this world," she said, "tell it to me, now."
+
+Preston Eustace gathered her to his breast with infinite tenderness.
+
+"I love you," he said with his lips on her brow. "Doesn't that comfort
+you a little?"
+
+"Yes," she admitted, "yes," winding her arms about his neck, "but you
+have no idea what a little devil I am, Preston."
+
+"I don't want to have any idea," he said, still holding her hungrily.
+
+"No, I don't think you do," Betty said. "Oh! kiss me again, dear, and
+tell me you won't ever let me go now."
+
+When Nancy came in she found the lovers so oblivious to the sound of
+her key in the latch or her footstep in the corridor that she decided
+to slip into bed without disturbing them, and did so, without their
+ever realizing that for the latter part of the evening at least, they
+had a hostess within range of the sound of their voices--indeed, she
+was obliged to stuff the pillow into her ears to prevent herself from
+actually hearing what they were saying.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first her freedom--her release from the monotonous constraint of
+her daily confinement at the Inn--the unaccustomed independence of her
+new activities which justified her most untoward goings and
+comings--was very soothing to her. She liked the feeling of slipping
+out of the house at night, accountable to no one except the
+redoubtable Hitty to whom she presented any explanation that happened
+to occur to her,--however wide its departure from the actual
+facts--and losing herself in the resurgent town. But after a while her
+liberty lost its savor. She began to feel uncared for and neglected.
+The unaccountable anguish in her breast was neither assuaged nor
+mitigated by the geographical latitude she permitted herself. She kept
+doggedly on with her personally conducted philanthropies, but she
+began to feel a little frightened about her capacity for endurance.
+Her body and brain began to show strange signs of fatigue. She was
+afraid that one or the other might suddenly refuse to function.
+
+One night, on coming out into the heterogeneous human stream on Avenue
+A, after a visit to a Polish family in the model tenements on
+Seventy-ninth Street, she ran into Dick.
+
+"Why, Dick," she said, "what an extraordinary place to find you!"
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" he said. "My business often brings me up this way."
+
+"Your business? What business?" she asked incredulously.
+
+"I don't know exactly what business it is. The ministering business, I
+guess." He motioned toward the basket on her arm: "Let me carry that,
+and you, too, if you'll let me, Nancy. You look tired."
+
+"I am tired, Dick," she said. "Have you got a car anywhere around?"
+
+"I can phone for it in two shakes," he said. "Here in this ice-cream
+parlor. Can I buy you a cone while you're waiting?"
+
+"Buy cones for that crowd of children and I'll watch them eat them.
+Doesn't that little girl in the pink dress look like Sheila, Dick?"
+
+She sank down on a stool in the interior of the candy shop and rested
+her elbows on the damp marble table in front of her, splotched and
+streaked still with the refreshment of the last customer who occupied
+the seat there and watched the horde of dirty clamorous street
+children devouring ice-cream cones and cheap sweets to the limit of
+their capacity.
+
+"I didn't know you believed in this promiscuous feeding of children
+between meals," Dick said, when she was settled comfortably at last
+among the cushions of his car, which had arrived on the scene with an
+amazing, not to say, suspicious promptness.
+
+"I don't," Nancy said, "in the least; but I don't _really_ believe in
+the things I believe in any more."
+
+"Poor Nancy!" Dick said.
+
+"I've had some trouble, Dick. I'm shaken all out of my poise. I can't
+seem to get my universe straight again."
+
+"I'm sorry for that," he said. "Anything I can do?"
+
+"Stand by; that's all, I guess."
+
+"You couldn't tell me a little more about it, could you?"
+
+"No, I couldn't, Dick."
+
+"I'm not even to guess?"
+
+"You couldn't guess. It's the kind of thing that's entirely outside
+of--of the probabilities. I think it's outside of the range of your
+understanding, Dick. I don't think you know that there is exactly that
+kind of trouble in the world."
+
+"And you think you'd better not enlighten me?"
+
+"I couldn't, Dick, even if I wanted to. Funny you happened to be in
+this part of town to-night just when I really needed you."
+
+He smiled. Every night of his life he followed her, watching over her,
+dodging down dark alley ways, waiting at squalid entrances until she
+came out. To-night he had ventured to speak to her only because he
+knew her to be in need of actual physical assistance.
+
+"Awfully glad to be anywhere around when you need me," he said; "still
+I hope you don't mind my suggesting that this is a Gehenna of a place
+for either of us to be in."
+
+"Haven't you any feeling for the downtrodden?" Nancy asked, with a
+faint reflection of what Billy referred to as her "older and better
+manner."
+
+"I'm downtrodden myself, Nancy."
+
+She smiled in her turn.
+
+"You don't look very downtrodden to me," she said. "_You've_ got
+everything to live for."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Well, money and freedom and--and--"
+
+"Money is the only thing I've got that you haven't, and that doesn't
+mean much unless you can share it with the person you love."
+
+"No, it doesn't, does it?" Nancy said unexpectedly. "What's that scar
+on your forehead?"
+
+"That's a scratch I got."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Shaving or fighting, or something like that."
+
+"_Was_ it fighting, Dick?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who were you fighting with?"
+
+"I wasn't fighting. I was assaulting and battering."
+
+"Why, Dick!"
+
+"If it's any satisfaction to you to know it I made one grand job of
+it."
+
+"Why should it be any satisfaction to me?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Why, Dick!" Nancy said again. "I didn't know you had any of that kind
+of brutality in you."
+
+"Didn't you?"
+
+"What happens to a man when he--does a thing like that?"
+
+"He gets jugged."
+
+"Did he get jugged?"
+
+"Well, that wasn't the part that interested me."
+
+An odd picture presented itself to Nancy's mind of the men of the
+world engaged in one grand mêlée of brawling; struggling, belaying one
+another with their bare fists, drawing blood; brutes turned on
+brutes.
+
+"Men are queer things," she said.
+
+Dick's face was turned away from her. It was not at the moment a face
+she would have recognized. The eyes were contracted: the nostrils
+quivering: the teeth set.
+
+"I'm always at your service, Nancy," he said presently. "Is there
+anything in the world you want that I can get for you?"
+
+"The only thing I want is something you can't get?"
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"Sheila."
+
+"No," Dick said. "I can't get Sheila for you. I'm sorry. I suppose
+that's the whole answer to you," he went on musingly. "You want
+something, somebody to mother--to minister to. It doesn't make so much
+difference what else it is, so long as it's--downtrodden. That's why
+I've never made more of a hit with you. I've never been downtrodden
+enough. I didn't need feeding or nursing. I've always sort of
+cherished the feeling that I liked to be the one creature you didn't
+have to carry on your back. I thought that to stand behind _you_ was a
+pretty good stunt, but you've never needed anything yet to fall back
+on."
+
+"I don't think I ever shall," Nancy said. "Not,--not in the way you
+mean, Dick."
+
+"So be it," he said, folding his arms. "But there's still one thing
+you'll take from me, and that's the thing I've got that you
+haven't--money. I never have cared much about it before, but now that
+there are so many things I can't put right for you, I know you won't
+be selfish enough to deny this one satisfaction. Let me make over to
+you all the money you need to get you out of your difficulties with
+the Inn. Let me hand out a good round sum for all these charities of
+yours. If you knew how everything else in connection with you had
+conspired to hurt me,--how this being discounted and losing out all
+around has cut into me, you wouldn't deny me this one privilege. You
+don't want _me_, you wouldn't take me, but for God's sake, Nancy, take
+this one thing that I can give you."
+
+They had just swung into the lower entrance of the Park, and the big
+car was speeding silently into the deepening night, low hung with
+silver stars, and jeweled with soft lights.
+
+"You're awfully good to me, Dick," Nancy said, "and I appreciate every
+word you've been saying. I'd take your money, not for myself, but for
+the things I'm doing, if I needed it, but I don't, you know." She
+looked out into the coolness of the evening, lulled by the transition
+to a region of so much airiness and space, soothed by the soft motion,
+and the presence of a friend who loved her. The conversation in which
+she was engaged suddenly became trivial and unimportant to her. She
+was very tired, and she found herself beginning to rest and relax. "I
+don't need it," she repeated vaguely. "I've got plenty of money of my
+own. Over a million, Billy says now. Uncle Elijah left it to me. I
+didn't want him to, but perhaps it was all for the best." She put her
+head back against the cushions and shut her eyes. "I'm terribly
+sleepy," she said, "and as for the Inn--that's making money, too, you
+know. Last month we cleared more than two hundred dollars."
+
+And Dick saying nothing, but continuing to stare into space--the
+panoramic space fleeting rhythmically by the car window,--she let
+herself gradually slip into the depths of sudden drowsiness that had
+overtaken her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+HITTY
+
+
+Hitty put on her bonnet--she had worn widow's weeds for twenty-five
+years--and went out into the morning. She finally succeeded in
+boarding a south-bound Sixth Avenue car,--though since it was her
+habit to ignore the near side stop regulation, she always had
+considerable trouble in getting on any car,--and in seating herself
+bolt upright on the lengthwise seat, her black gloved hands folded
+indomitably before her.
+
+At Fourth Street she descended and made her way east to the square,
+and thence to the top floor of the studio building to which Collier
+Pratt had taken his little daughter on the memorable occasion when he
+had plucked her from her warm nest of blankets and led her, sleepy and
+shivering, into the cold of the night. She had been at some pains to
+secure the address without taking Nancy into her confidence.
+
+She took each creaking stair with a snort of disgust, and reaching the
+battered door with Collier Pratt's visiting card tacked on the smeary
+panel on a level with her eye, she knocked sharply, and scorning to
+wait for a reply, turned the knob and walked in.
+
+Collier Pratt was making coffee on a small spirit lamp, set on the
+wash-stand, which was decorously concealed during the more formal
+hours of the day behind a soft colored Japanese screen. He was wearing
+a smutty painter's smock, and though his face was shining with soap
+and water, his hair was standing about his face in a disorder eloquent
+of at least a dozen hours' neglect. Sheila, in a mussy gingham dress,
+was trying to pry off the pasteboard covering of a pint bottle of milk
+with a pair of scissors, and succeeding only indifferently. They both
+turned on Hitty's entrance, and the milk bottle went crashing to the
+floor when the little girl recognized her friend, but after one
+terrified look at her father she made no move at all in Hitty's
+direction.
+
+"And to what," Collier Pratt ejaculated slowly and disagreeably, as is
+any man's wont before he has had his draught of breakfast coffee, "am
+I to attribute the pleasure of this visit?"
+
+"It ain't no pleasure to me," Hitty said, advancing, a figure of
+menace, into the center of the dusty workshop, strangely uncouth and
+unprepossessing in the cold morning light,--"and if it's any pleasure
+to you, that's an effect that I ain't calculated to produce. I've come
+here on business--the business of collecting that poor neglected child
+there, and taking her back where she belongs, where there's folks that
+knows enough to treat her right."
+
+"Another of Miss Martin's friends and well-wishers, I take it. These
+American girls are given to surrounding themselves with groups of warm
+and impulsive associates. Do you by any chance happen to know a young
+lawyer by the name of Boynton, Hitty? A collection lawyer?"
+
+"I'll thank you to call me Mrs. Spinney, if you please, or if you
+don't please. Mrs. Spinney is the name I go by when I'm spoken to by
+them that knows their manners. If Billy Boynton thinks he can collect
+blood out of a stone he's welcome to try, but I should think he was
+too long headed to waste his time."
+
+"I gave him my I. O. U.," Collier Pratt said wearily. "If you don't
+mind, Hitty,--I really must be excused from your inexcusable
+surname--I am going to drink a cup of coffee before we continue this
+interesting discussion--_café noir_, our late unfortunate accident
+depriving me of _café au lait_ as usual. Sheila, get the cups."
+
+"You don't mean to say that you feed that peaked child with full
+strength coffee, do you? It'll stunt her growth; ain't you got the
+sense to know that?"
+
+"I don't like _big_ women," Collier Pratt said. "She's very fond of
+coffee."
+
+"Well! I've come to get her and take her away where you won't be in a
+position to stunt her growth, whatever your ideas on the subject is."
+
+Collier Pratt seated himself at the deal table that Sheila had set
+with the coffee-cups and a big loaf of French bread, and began slowly
+consuming a bowl of inky fluid, strong of chicory, into which from
+time to time he dipped a portion of the loaf. Sheila imitated his
+processes with less daintiness and precision, since she was shaken
+with excitement at Hitty's appearance.
+
+"I should spread a newspaper down if I was you," Hitty said, "before I
+et my vittles off a table that way. If a table ain't scrubbed as often
+as twice a day it ain't fit to be et off."
+
+"I know your breed," Collier Pratt said. "You'd be capable of taking
+your breakfast off _The Evening Telegram_ if no more appropriately
+colored sheet were at hand. Tell me, did Miss Martin send you here
+this morning, or was the inspiration to come entirely your own?"
+
+"Nobody had to send me. Wild horses wouldn't have kept me away from
+here."
+
+"Nor drag you away from here, I suppose, until your gruesome visit is
+accomplished. What makes you think that I would give up Sheila to
+you?"
+
+"I don't _think_ you would. I know you're a-goin' to."
+
+"Indeed."
+
+"We want the child. You don't want her, and you can't pretend to me
+that you do. Even if you did want her you can't take care of her in no
+way that's decent."
+
+"There's a great deal in what you say, Hitty."
+
+"What you're going to do is to sign a paper giving up your claim to
+her, and then Nancy can adopt her when she sees fitting to do so."
+
+"What would you suggest my doing about the child's mother? She has a
+mother living, you know."
+
+"Well, I didn't know," Hitty said, "but now I do know I guess I ain't
+going to have so much trouble as I thought I was. You're just a plain
+low-down yellow cur that any likely man I know would come down here
+and lick the lights out of."
+
+"Well, don't send any more of them, Hitty," Collier Pratt protested.
+"My work won't stand it."
+
+"You 'tend to the child's mother then, and I'll 'tend to you. You'd
+better let Sheila come away peaceable without any more trouble."
+
+"What do you propose doing to me if I don't?"
+
+"There's so many different things I could use," Hitty said thoughtfully,
+"that I don't know which one to hold over your head first."
+
+"I don't see how you could use anything you've got."
+
+"I'd just as soon use something I hadn't got," Hitty said grimly. "I'd
+sue you for breach o' promise myself ruther than lose what I come
+after."
+
+"I don't doubt you're capable of it," Collier Pratt said, surveying
+her ruefully. "That certainly would ruin my reputation. But seriously,
+supposing I were to give my consent to Sheila's going back to Miss
+Martin--Sheila's fond of her, and I should be very glad to do Miss
+Martin a service--little as you may be inclined to believe it of me.
+I'm fond enough of the child, but she is a considerable embarrassment
+to a man situated as I am. Supposing I should consent to giving her up
+as you suggest, how can a woman situated as Miss Martin is situated
+undertake such a charge permanently? How could she afford it? What
+kind of a future should I be surrendering my little girl to? One has
+to think of those things. Miss Martin is a poor girl--"
+
+"It's a lucky thing that you didn't know it before," Hitty said
+deliberately. "What you don't know that a woman's got, you wouldn't be
+trying to get away from her. Nancy's Uncle Elijah that died last year
+left her a million dollars in his will."
+
+"The devil he did--"
+
+"I guess if anybody's going to talk about devils it had better be me,"
+Hitty said dryly. "Does the child go or stay?"
+
+"Oh! she goes," Collier Pratt said. "I'm sorry you didn't come after
+me too, Hitty."
+
+"Nobody from up our way is ever coming after you. You can put that in
+your pipe and smoke it. Put on your bonnet, Sheila."
+
+"In some ways that is more of a relief than you know, Hitty. Some of
+the young men from up your way are so violent."
+
+"It ain't generally known yet," Hitty said as a parting shot when,
+Sheila's hand in hers, she stood at the door preparatory to taking her
+triumphal departure. "But Nancy is going to marry considerable money
+in addition to what she's inherited."
+
+Nancy finding it impossible to spend an hour of her time idly and with
+no appointments before noon that day, was engaged in darning a basket
+full of slum socks that she had brought home from the tenements to
+occupy Hitty's leisure moments. She was not very expert at this
+particular task, and the holes were so huge, and their method of
+behaving under scientific management so peculiar--it is hardly
+necessary to say that Nancy knew the theory of darning perfectly--that
+she was becoming more and more dissatisfied with her progress. Hitty's
+unprecedented and taciturn donning of her best bonnet in the early
+morning hours, followed by her abrupt departure without explanation or
+apology, was also a little disconcerting to any one acquainted with
+her habits. Nancy was relieved to hear her key in the lock again, and
+put down her work to greet her.
+
+The door opened and Sheila stood on the threshold. Hitty was close
+behind her, but Nancy had eyes only for the child.
+
+"Don't cry, Miss Dear," Sheila said, in her arms. "I cried hard every
+night when I was gone from you, but now I have come back. My father
+does not want me, and he says that you can have me."
+
+"He signed a paper," Hitty said. "I've got it in my bag with my specs.
+If ever he shows his face around here we can have the law on him."
+
+"Can I really have Sheila?" Nancy cried. "I can't believe that--her
+father would let her go. I can't understand it."
+
+"He's a kind of a poor soul," Hitty said. "He ain't got no real
+contrivance. He's glad enough to get rid of her."
+
+"Did he say so?"
+
+"Well, nearabout. He has a high-falutin way of talking but that was
+the amount of it. He knows which side his bread is buttered. He ain't
+nobody's fool. I'll say that for him."
+
+"I can't say that you make him out a very pleasant character," Nancy
+said. "But he's an artist, Hitty. Artists don't react to the same set
+of laws that we do. They're different somehow."
+
+"They ain't so different, when it comes to that," Hitty said dryly.
+"They won't take a hint, but the harder you kick 'em the better for
+all concerned. Don't you go sticking up for that low-down loon. He
+ain't worth it."
+
+"I suppose he isn't," Nancy said; "he's a pretty poor apology for a
+man as we understand men, Hitty, but there's something about him,--a
+power and a charm that you can't altogether discount, even though you
+have lost every particle of your respect for him."
+
+"He has a kind of way," Hitty conceded, "but I ain't one o' them kind
+o' women that hankers much for the society of a man that's once shown
+himself to be more of a sneak than the average."
+
+"I don't think that I am, either," Nancy said gravely.
+
+"I want to be your little girl always," Sheila announced, "if I may
+talk now, may I? And Monsieur Dick's, too, and sit on a cushion and
+sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream. I want
+to see Monsieur Dick. Where is he?"
+
+"He's been sick," Nancy said, "but he's getting better now, I think. I
+haven't seen him for some time, myself."
+
+"Don't you love him very much and aren't you very sorry?"
+
+"He probably isn't very sick," Nancy said. "I don't think he could
+be--but if he were I should be sorry, of course."
+
+"I don't want him to be sick," Sheila said, making herself a nest in
+Nancy's lap, and curling around in it like a kitten. "If he was I
+should be very, very unhappy, and I am tired of being unhappy, Miss
+Dear."
+
+Nancy's arms closed tight about her little body, which was lighter in
+her arms than she had ever known it. "Oh! I'm going to make such a
+strong well, little girl of you," she cried, "and we're going to have
+so many pleasant times together. I'm tired of being unhappy, too,
+Sheila, dear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+LOHENGRIN AND WHITE SATIN
+
+
+Dick, having la grippe, and doing his bewildered best to get pneumonia
+and gastritis by creeping out of bed when his temperature was highest,
+and indulging in untrammelled orgies of food and drink and exposure to
+draughts, had finally succeeded in making himself physically very
+miserable indeed. His mind had been out of joint for weeks. He reached
+the phase presently of refusing all nourishment and spiritual
+consolation, indiscriminately, and finding himself unbenefited by
+these heroic methods, decided in his own mind that all was over with
+him.
+
+He knew nothing about sickness, having led a charmed life in that
+respect since the measles period, and the persistent misery in his
+interior, attacking lung and liver impartially,--to say nothing of the
+top of his head and the back of his neck, and as his weakness
+increased, his cardiac region where there was a perpetual palpitation,
+and the calves of his legs which set up an ache like that of a
+recalcitrant tooth,--persuaded him that such suffering as his must be
+a certain indication of the approaching end. He had dismissed his
+doctor after the first visit, and denying himself to visitors, found
+himself alone and apparently in a desperate condition, with no one to
+minister to him but paid dependents. It was then that the loss of
+Nancy began to assume spectral proportions. He had been so long
+accustomed to think of himself as the strong silent lover, equipped
+with the patience and understanding that would outlast all the
+vagaries of Nancy's adventurous tendencies, that it was difficult to
+readjust himself to a new conception of her as a woman that another
+and even less worthy man had so nearly won,--under his nose.
+
+He had never thought much of his money until it began to acquire the
+virtue of an alkahest in his mind, an universal solvent that would
+transmute all the baser metals in Nancy's life and the lives of the
+people in whom Nancy was interested, into the pure gold of luxury and
+ease. He knew that the conventional fairy gifts would mean very little
+to her, but he had dreamed, when she was ready, of working out with
+her some practicable and gracious scheme of beneficence. There was one
+power she coveted that he could put in her hands,--one way that he
+could befriend and relieve her even before she conceded him that
+prerogative. When he learned that she had a fortune of her own his
+hopes came tumbling about his head, and he lay disconsolate among the
+ruins. His creeping physical disability seemed significant of the
+cataclysmic overthrow of all his dreams and desires. From having
+secretly and in some terror arrived at the conclusion that death was
+imminent, he began to look upon such a solution of his misery with
+some favor.
+
+It was a very gaunt and hollow-eyed caricature of the Dick she had
+known that confronted Nancy, when instigated by Betty, who had his
+illness heavily on her mind, she forced her way unannounced into the
+curious Georgian living-room of the suite wherein he was incarcerated.
+He had been stretched in an attitude of abandon on the couch when she
+opened the oak paneled door, but he jumped to his feet in a spasm of
+rage and alarm when he discovered that he had a visitor.
+
+"Go away," he said, "I am not able to see anybody. There's a mistake.
+I gave strict orders that nobody at all was to be admitted."
+
+"I know, Dick," Nancy said gently, "don't blame your faithful
+servitors. I thought I should have to use a gun on them, but I
+explained to them that you must be looked after."
+
+"I don't want to be looked after. I'm all right, thank you. Are you
+alone?"
+
+"No, Hitty's outside. Betty simply insisted on my bringing her,--I
+don't know why, but she said you'd be kinder to me if I did. I don't
+think you're very kind."
+
+A flicker of a smile crossed Dick's face, which seemed to say that if
+anything could bring back a momentary relish of existence the mention
+of Betty's name would be that thing. Nancy saw the expression and
+misinterpreted it.
+
+"I don't want to see anybody," Dick repeated firmly. "Will you be good
+enough to go away and leave me to my misery?"
+
+"No, I won't," Nancy said, "I never left anybody to their misery yet,
+and I'm not going to begin on you. Of course, if you'd rather see
+Betty, I'll send for her. She seems to know a good deal about your
+habits and customs. You look like a monk in that bathrobe. I'm glad
+you're not a fat man, Dick. It's so very hard to calculate just how
+much to cut down on starches and sweets without injury to the health.
+What are you feeding up on?"
+
+"You know very well that I'm not feeding up on anything, but if you
+think you can come around here, and dope out one of your darned health
+menus for me, and sit around watching me eat it, you are jolly well
+mistaken. I wish you'd go home, Nancy. I don't like you to-day. I
+don't like myself or anybody in this whole universe. I'm not fit for
+human society--don't you see I'm not?"
+
+"You're awful cross, dear."
+
+"Don't call me dear. I'm not Sheila or one of your sick waitresses,
+you know."
+
+"Sheila's back."
+
+"Is she?"
+
+"Don't you care?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose so."
+
+"She loves you."
+
+"She's unique."
+
+"You told me once there were other girls, Dick."
+
+"They're all over it by now."
+
+"Dick, can't I do something for you?"
+
+"Yes, leave me alone."
+
+"I've never seen you like this before."
+
+"No, thank God."
+
+"I didn't know you were ever anything but sort of smug and superior."
+
+"Grand description."
+
+"You ought to be in bed, dear--I didn't mean to call you dear, it
+slipped out, Dicky,--and taking nourishment every hour or so. What
+does the doctor say?"
+
+"Nothing, he's given me up as a bad job."
+
+"Given you up?"
+
+"Yes, there's nothing he can do for me."
+
+"Why, Dick, my dear, what is it?"
+
+"Oh! lungs or liver or something. I don't know."
+
+"What are you taking, Dick?"
+
+"I tell you I can't take anything," he said, misunderstanding her. "It
+makes me sick to eat. Every time I try to eat anything I feel a lot
+worse for it."
+
+"When did you try last?"
+
+"Oh, yesterday some time. Now what in the name of sense makes a woman
+shed tears at a simple statement like that? I'm not in shape to stand
+this. Once and for all, Nancy, will you get out and leave me? I tell
+you I never wanted to see you less in my life. I'll write you a letter
+and apologize if you'll only go, now."
+
+"Oh, I'll go," Nancy said. "I couldn't really believe that you wanted
+me to,--that's all."
+
+She started for the door--but Dick, weakened by lack of food, tortured
+beyond his endurance by the sudden assault on his nerves made by
+Nancy's appearance, gave way to his relief at her going an instant too
+soon. Like a small boy in pain he crooked his elbow and covered his
+face with his arm.
+
+Nancy ran to him and knelt at his side, taking his head on her
+breast.
+
+"Dear," she said, "you do want me. We want each other. You love me,
+Dicky, and I am going to love you--if you'll only let me look after
+you and nurse you back to health again."
+
+"I don't want to be nursed," Dick blubbered, his head buried in her
+bosom, "I want to look out for you, and take care of you, and--and now
+look at me. You'll never love me after this, Nancy."
+
+"Yes, I shall, dear," Nancy said. "I've always loved you somehow.
+It'll--it'll be the saving of me, Dick."
+
+"Well, then I do want to be nursed. I--I haven't cried before since I
+had the measles, Nancy."
+
+"I'm glad you cried, now, then," Nancy said.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I suppose you'll want to be married in the courtyard of the Inn,"
+Dick said some weeks later, when they were conventionally ensconced in
+Nancy's own drawing-room; Hitty happily rattling silverware in the
+butler's pantry in the rear, "with old Triton blowing his wreathed
+horn above us, and all the nymphs and gargoyles and Hercules as
+interested spectators. Well, go as far as you like. I haven't any
+objection. I'll be married in a Roman bath if you want me to, and eat
+bran biscuit and hygienic apple sauce for my wedding breakfast."
+
+"Betty and Preston are going to be married at the Inn," Nancy said;
+"you know her mother's an invalid, and they can't have it at home. Do
+you know what I'd like to give them as a wedding present?"
+
+"I don't."
+
+"Well, you know, Preston's firm has gone out of existence. The war
+simply killed it. They haven't much money ahead, and he may have a
+harder time than he thinks getting located again."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I thought I'd like to give them Outside Inn for a wedding present.
+Besides, I don't see what else there is to do with it. It's making
+several hundred a month, now, and promises to make more."
+
+"Good idea," Dick said.
+
+"You don't seem exceedingly interested."
+
+"Oh, I am," Dick said, "I'm more interested in our wedding than
+Betty's wedding present, but that doesn't imply a lack of merit in
+your idea. _You'll_ want to be married at the Inn, I take it?"
+
+"You'd let me, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Sure I'd let you. When a man marries a modern girl with all the
+trappings and the suits of modernity, he ought to be prepared to take
+the consequences cheerfully."
+
+"Then I'm going to surprise you. I don't want anything modern at all
+about my wedding. I want it in church with a huge bridal bouquet and
+_Lohengrin_ and white satin; Caroline for my matron of honor and Betty
+for my bridesmaid, and Sheila for flower girl. I want a wedding
+breakfast at the Ritz and rice and old shoes--just all the old
+traditional things."
+
+"Gee whiz," Dick ejaculated, "is this straight, or are you only making
+it up to sound good to me? You can have it anyway you like it, you
+know."
+
+"That's the way I like it," Nancy said. "It's good to be a modern
+girl, but I really prefer to be an old-fashioned wife--with
+reservations," she added hastily.
+
+"That's what we all come to in the end," Dick said, "no matter how we
+feel or think we feel about it--being modern with reservations."
+
+"I saw Collier Pratt to-day," Nancy said suddenly, as she watched a
+log split apart in the fireplace and scatter its tiny shower of
+sparks, "on the avenue."
+
+Dick carefully stamped out two smoldering places on the rug before he
+answered.
+
+"Did you?" he said.
+
+"He had a cheap little creature with him, dark haired in messy
+cerise."
+
+"It may have been his wife. I hear that she's living with him again."
+
+"Is she?"
+
+"Nancy," Dick said with an effort, after a few minutes of silence,
+"are you all over that? Is it really fair and right of me to take you?
+I've been puzzling over that lately. I want you on any terms, you
+know, as far as I am concerned, but I'm a sort of monogamist. If a
+woman has once cared for a person, no matter who or what that person
+is, can she ever care again in the same way for any one? Isn't it pity
+you feel for me, after all?"
+
+"No it isn't pity," Nancy said slowly. "I cared for that man until I
+found that he was the shadow and not the substance. He isn't fit to
+black your shoes, Dick.--Besides--if--if it was pity," she added
+irrelevantly, "that's the way to get me started, you know."
+
+"If I only have got you started--really."
+
+Nancy crossed the two feet of space between them and sank at his feet,
+leaning her head back against his knee while he stroked her hair
+silently.
+
+"There's one way of proving," she said presently, "if--if you've made
+a woman really care for you. I should think you'd know that. I told
+you how you'd made me feel about the bridal bouquet and _Lohengrin_."
+
+"Does that prove something?"
+
+"Doesn't it?"
+
+"I suppose it does. You mean it proves that a woman truly loves a man
+if he's made her feel that she wants to be an old-fashioned wife--"
+
+"And mother, Dick," Nancy finished for him bravely.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Outside Inn, by Ethel M. Kelley
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTSIDE INN ***
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Outside Inn, by Ethel M. Kelley.</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Outside Inn, by Ethel M. Kelley
+
+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: Outside Inn
+
+Author: Ethel M. Kelley
+
+Illustrator: W. B. King
+
+Release Date: November 16, 2009 [EBook #30483]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTSIDE INN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>OUTSIDE INN</h1>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='figtag'>
+<a  id='linki_1'></a>
+</div>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' title='' width='392' height='560' /><br />
+<p class='caption'>
+&ldquo;If&mdash;if you&rsquo;ve made a woman really care&rdquo;<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:2.2em;margin-bottom:10px;'>OUTSIDE INN</p>
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em;margin-bottom:10px;'><i>By</i></p>
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:1.2em;margin-bottom:10px;'>ETHEL M. KELLEY</p>
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em;margin-bottom:10px;'><i>Author of</i><br />Over Here, Turn About Eleanor, Etc.</p>
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em;'><i>With Frontispiece by</i><br />W. B. KING</p>
+
+<div style='margin:80px auto; text-align:center;'>
+<img alt='emblem' src='images/illus-emb.png' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='tp' >INDIANAPOLIS<br />THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS</p>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em;'>C<span style='font-size:0.7em'>OPYRIGHT</span> 1920</p>
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em; margin-bottom:30px;'>T<span style='font-size:0.7em'>HE</span> B<span style='font-size:0.7em'>OBBS</span>-M<span style='font-size:0.7em'>ERRILL</span> C<span style='font-size:0.7em'>OMPANY</span></p>
+
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em; margin-bottom:30px;'><i>Printed in the United States of America</i></p>
+
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:0.9em;'>PRESS OF<br />BRAUNWORTH &amp; CO.<br />BOOK MANUFACTURERS<br />BROOKLYN, N. Y.</p>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:1.4em;'>CONTENTS</p>
+<table border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents' style='margin:1em auto;'>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'><span style='font-size:0.8em'>CHAPTER</span></td>
+  <td />
+  <td valign='top' align='right'><span style='font-size:0.8em'>PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>I</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>A Good Little Dream</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_I_A_GOOD_LITTLE_DREAM'>1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>II</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Applicants for Blue Chambray</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_II_APPLICANTS_FOR_BLUE_CHAMBRAY'>19</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>III</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Inauguration</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_III_INAUGURATION'>33</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>IV</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Cinderella</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_IV_CINDERELLA'>49</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>V</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Science</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_V_SCIENCE'>69</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>An Eleemosynary Institution</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VI_AN_ELEEMOSYNARY_INSTITUTION'>84</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Cave-man Stuff</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VII_CAVEMAN_STUFF'>93</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>VIII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Science Applied</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VIII_SCIENCE_APPLIED'>113</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>IX</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Sheila</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_IX_SHEILA'>134</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>X</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>The Portrait</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_X_THE_PORTRAIT'>151</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Billy and Caroline</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XI_BILLY_AND_CAROLINE'>166</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>More Cave-Man Stuff</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XII_MORE_CAVEMAN_STUFF'>180</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XIII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>The Happiest Day</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIII_THE_HAPPIEST_DAY'>198</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XIV</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Betty</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIV_BETTY'>209</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XV</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Clouds of Glory</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XV_CLOUDS_OF_GLORY'>220</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XVI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Christmas Shopping</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVI_CHRISTMAS_SHOPPING'>236</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XVII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Good-By</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVII_GOODBY'>248</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XVIII</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Tame Skeletons</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII_TAME_SKELETONS'>259</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XIX</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Other People&rsquo;s Troubles</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIX_OTHER_PEOPLES_TROUBLES'>271</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XX</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Hitty</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XX_HITTY'>288</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td valign='top' class='chalgn'>XXI</td>
+  <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class='smcap'>Lohengrin and White Satin</span></td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXI_LOHENGRIN_AND_WHITE_SATIN'>299</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<p class='tp' style='font-size:1.4em;'>OUTSIDE INN</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_1' ></a>1</span></div>
+<div class='chsp' style='padding-top:0'>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_I_A_GOOD_LITTLE_DREAM'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>A Good Little Dream</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>&ldquo;I Elijah Peebles Martin, of the
+city and county of Harrison, in the
+state of Rhode Island, being of sound and disposing
+mind and memory, do make and declare
+the following, as and for, my last will and testament.&rsquo; ... I
+wish you&rsquo;d take your head
+out of that barrel, Nancy, and listen to the document
+that is going to make you rich beyond
+the dreams of avarice.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was beyond them anyway.&rdquo; The young
+woman in blue serge made one last effectual
+dive into the depths of excelsior, the topmost
+billows of which were surging untidily over the
+edge of a big crate in the middle of the basement
+floor, and secured a nest of blue and rose
+colored teacups, which she proceeded to unwrap
+lovingly and display on a convenient packing
+box. &ldquo;Not one single thing broken in this
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_2' ></a>2</span>
+whole lot, Billy.... What is a disposing
+mind and memory, anyhow?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t deserve to know,&rdquo; the blond young
+man in the Norfolk jacket assured her, adjusting
+himself more firmly to the idiosyncrasies of
+the rackety step-ladder he was striding.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not human about this. Here you are
+suddenly in possession of a fortune. Money
+enough to make you independently wealthy for
+the rest of your life&mdash;money you didn&rsquo;t know
+the existence of, two weeks ago&mdash;fed to you by
+a gratuitous providence. A legacy is a legacy,
+and deserves to be treated as such, and I propose
+to see that it gets what it deserves, without
+any more shilly-shallying.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a busy woman,&rdquo; Nancy groaned, &ldquo;and
+I&rsquo;ve hammered my finger to a pulp, trying to
+open this crate, while you perch on a broken
+step-ladder and prate to me of legacies. The
+saucers to these cups may be in here, and I
+can&rsquo;t wait to find out. I&rsquo;m perfectly crazy
+about this ware. It&rsquo;s English&mdash;Wedgewood,
+you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know.&rdquo; Billy resignedly let himself
+to the floor, and appropriated the screwdriver.
+&ldquo;I thought Wedgewood was dove color,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3' ></a>3</span>
+and consisted chiefly of ladies in deshabille, doing
+the tango on a parlor ornament. I smashed
+one in my youth, so I know. There, it&rsquo;s open
+now. I may as well unpack what&rsquo;s here. These
+seem to be demi-tasses.</p>
+<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
+<p>&lsquo;You may tempt your upper classes,</p>
+<p>With your villainous demi-tasses.</p>
+<p>But Heaven will protect the working girl,&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+</div></div>
+<p class='ni'>he finished lugubriously, in a wailing baritone,
+taking an imaginary encore by bowing a head
+picturesquely adorned with a crop of excelsior
+curls, accumulated during his activities in and
+about the barrel.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The trouble with the average tea-room, or
+Arts and Crafts table d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te,&rdquo; Nancy said, sinking
+into the depths of a broken armchair in the
+corner of the dim, overcrowded interior, &ldquo;is
+that when the pinch comes, quantity is sacrificed
+to quality. Smaller portions of food, and
+chipped chinaware. People who can&rsquo;t keep a
+place up, let it run down genteelly. They won&rsquo;t
+compromise on quality. I should never be like
+that. I should go to the ten-cent stores and
+replenish my whole establishment, if I couldn&rsquo;t
+make it pay with imported ware and Colonial
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4' ></a>4</span>
+silver. I&rsquo;d never go to the other extreme. I&rsquo;d
+never be so perceptibly second-rate, but in the
+matter of furnishings as well as food values,
+I&rsquo;d find my perfect balance between quality
+and quantity, and keep it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe you would. You are a thorough
+child, when you set about a thing. I&rsquo;ll bet you
+know the restaurant business from A to Z.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do. You know, I studied the organization
+of every well-run restaurant in New York,
+when I was doing field work from Teachers&rsquo;
+College. I&rsquo;ve read every book on the subject
+of Diet and Nutrition and Domestic Economy
+that I could get my hands on. I&rsquo;m just ready
+now for the practical application of all my
+theories.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy Calory Martin is your real name. I
+don&rsquo;t blame you for hating to give up this tea-room
+idea. You&rsquo;ve dug so deep into the possibilities
+of it, that you want to go through. I
+get that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s eyes widened in satiric admiration.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You could understand almost anything,
+couldn&rsquo;t you, Billy?&rdquo; she mocked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All I want now,&rdquo; Billy continued imperturbably,
+&ldquo;is a chance to make <i>you</i> understand
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5' ></a>5</span>
+something.&rdquo; He smote the document in his left
+hand. &ldquo;Of course, your uncle&rsquo;s lawyer has explained
+all the details in his letters to you, but
+if you won&rsquo;t read the letters or familiarize yourself
+with the contents of this will, somebody
+has got to explain it to you in words of one syllable.
+My legal training, slight as it is&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sketchy is the better word, don&rsquo;t you think
+so, Billy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Slight as it is&rdquo;&mdash;except for a prodigious
+frown, Billy ignored the interruption, though
+he took advantage of her suddenly upright position
+to encircle her neatly with a barrel hoop,
+as if she were the iron peg in a game of quoits&mdash;&ldquo;enables
+me to put the fact before you in a
+few short, sharp, well-chosen sentences. I
+won&rsquo;t again attempt to read the document&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better not,&rdquo; Nancy interrupted witheringly,
+&ldquo;your delivery is poor. Besides, I don&rsquo;t
+want to know what is in that will. If I had, it
+stands to reason that I would have found out
+long before this. I&rsquo;ve had it three days.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve had it three days and never once
+looked into it?&rdquo; Billy groaned. &ldquo;Who started
+all this scandal about the curiosity of women,
+anyway?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_6' ></a>6</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to know what&rsquo;s in it,&rdquo; Nancy
+insisted. &ldquo;As long as I&rsquo;m not in possession of
+any definite facts, I can ignore it. I&rsquo;ve got the
+kind of mind that must deal with concrete facts
+concretely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy grinned. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d hate the job of trying to
+subp&oelig;na you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but you&rsquo;d make a corking
+good witness, on the stand. Of course, you
+can proceed for a certain length of time on the
+theory that what you don&rsquo;t know can&rsquo;t hurt
+you, but take it from me, little girl, what you
+ought to know and don&rsquo;t know is the thing that&rsquo;s
+bound to hurt you most tremendously in the
+long run. What are you afraid of, anyway,
+Nancy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not <i>afraid</i> of anything,&rdquo; Nancy corrected
+him, with some heat. &ldquo;I just plain don&rsquo;t
+want to be interrupted at this stage of my
+career. I consider it an impertinence of Uncle
+Elijah, to make me his heir. I never saw him
+but once, and I had no desire to see him that
+time. It was about ten years ago, and I caught
+a grippe germ from him. He told me between
+sneezes that I was too big a girl to wear a
+mess of hair streaming down my back like a
+baby. I stuck out my tongue at him, but he was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7' ></a>7</span>
+too near-sighted to see it. Why couldn&rsquo;t he
+have left his money to an eye and ear infirmary?
+Or the Sailors&rsquo; Snug Retreat? Or&mdash;or&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you really don&rsquo;t want the money,&rdquo; Billy
+said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s your privilege to endow some institution&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know very well that I can&rsquo;t get rid of
+money that way,&rdquo; Nancy cried hotly. &ldquo;I am at
+least a responsible person. I don&rsquo;t believe in
+these promiscuous, eleemosynary institutions.
+It would be against all my principles to contribute
+money to any such philanthropy. I
+know too much about them&mdash;but he didn&rsquo;t. He
+could have disposed of his money to any one of
+a dozen of these mid-Victorian charities, but
+no&mdash;he was just one of those old parties that
+want to shift their responsibilities on to young
+shoulders, and so he chose mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t speak very kindly of your dear
+dead relative.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel very kindly toward him. He
+was a meddling old creature. He never gave
+any member of the family a cent when they
+wanted it and needed it. Now that I&rsquo;ve just
+got my life in shape, and know what I want to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8' ></a>8</span>
+do with it without being beholden to anybody
+on earth, he leaves me a whole lot of superfluous
+money.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I weren&rsquo;t engaged to Caroline, who is a
+jealous woman, though I say it as shouldn&rsquo;t,
+I&rsquo;d be tempted to undertake the management of
+your fortune myself,&rdquo; Billy said reflectively;
+&ldquo;as it is&mdash;honor&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know what I want to do with my life,&rdquo;
+Nancy continued, as if he had not spoken. &ldquo;I
+want to run an efficiency tea-room and serve
+dinner and breakfast and tea to my fellow men
+and women. I want the perfectly balanced ration,
+perfectly served, to be my contribution to
+the cause of humanity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She looked about her ruefully. The sun,
+through the barred dusty windows, struck in
+long slant rays, athwart the confusion of the
+cellar, illuminating piles upon piles of gay, blue
+latticed chinaware,&mdash;cups set out methodically
+in rows on the lids and bottoms of packing
+boxes; assorted sizes of plates and saucers,
+graded pyramidically, rising from the floor.
+There were also individual copper casseroles
+and serving dishes, and a heterogeneous assortment
+of Japanese basketry tangled in excelsior
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9' ></a>9</span>
+and tissue. A wandering sunbeam took her
+hair, displaying its amber, translucent quality.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just got capital enough to get it going
+right; to swing it for the first year, even if I
+don&rsquo;t make a cent on it. It&rsquo;s my one big chance
+to do my share in the world, and to work out
+my own salvation. This legacy is a menace to
+all my dreams and plans.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I see that,&rdquo; Billy said. &ldquo;What I don&rsquo;t see is
+what you gain by refusing to let it catch up
+with you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not it till you&rsquo;re tagged. That&rsquo;s all.
+If I don&rsquo;t know whether my income is going to
+be five thousand dollars or twenty-five thousand
+a year, I can go on unpacking teacups with&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy whistled.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Five thousand or twenty-five&mdash;my darling
+Nancy! You&rsquo;ll have fifty thousand a year at
+the very lowest estimate. The actual money is
+more than five hundred thousand dollars. The
+stock in the Union Rubber Company will
+amount to as much again, maybe twice as much.
+You&rsquo;re a real heiress, my dear, with wads of
+real money to show for it. That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m
+trying to tell you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fifty thousand a year!&rdquo; Nancy turned a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10' ></a>10</span>
+shocked face, from which the color slowly
+drained, leaving it blue-white. &ldquo;Fifty thousand
+a year! You&rsquo;re mad. It can&rsquo;t be!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&rsquo;um. Fifty thousand at least.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s pallor increased. She closed her
+eyes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t do that,&rdquo; Billy said sharply. &ldquo;No
+woman can faint on me just because she&rsquo;s had
+money left her. You make me feel like the
+ghost of Hamlet&rsquo;s father.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy clutched at his sleeve.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t, Billy!&rdquo; she besought. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m past joking
+now. Fifty thousand a year! Why, Uncle
+Elijah bought fifteen-dollar suits and fifteen-cent
+lunches. How could a retired sea captain
+get all that money by investing in a little rubber,
+and getting to be president of a little rubber
+company?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s how. Be a good sensible girl, and
+face the music.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll have to give up the tea-room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy laid a consolatory arm over her shoulder,
+and patted her awkwardly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Cheer up,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s worse things in
+this world than money. The time may come
+when you&rsquo;ll be grateful to your poor little old
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11' ></a>11</span>
+uncle, for his nifty little fifty thousand per
+annum.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy turned a tragic face to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you I&rsquo;m not grateful to him,&rdquo; she said,
+&ldquo;and I doubt if I ever will be. I don&rsquo;t want the
+stupid money. I want to work life out in my
+own way. I know I&rsquo;ve got it in me, and I want
+my chance to prove it. I want to give myself,
+my own brain and strength, to the job I&rsquo;ve selected
+as mine. Now, it&rsquo;s all spoiled for me.
+I&rsquo;m subsidized. I&rsquo;m done for, and I can&rsquo;t see
+any way out of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can give the money away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t. Giving money away is a special
+science of itself. If I devote my life to doing
+that as it should be done, I won&rsquo;t have time or
+energy for anything else. I&rsquo;m not a philanthropist
+in that sense. I wanted my restaurant to
+be philanthropic only incidentally. I wanted
+to cram my patrons with the full value of
+their money&rsquo;s worth of good nourishing food;
+to increase the efficiency of hundreds of
+people who never suspected I was doing it, by
+scientific methods of feeding. That&rsquo;s my dream.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A good little dream, all right.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To make people eat the right food; to help
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12' ></a>12</span>
+them to a fuller and more effective use of
+themselves by supplying them with the proper
+fuel for their functions.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You could buy a chain of restaurants with
+the money you&rsquo;ve got.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want a chain of restaurants.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can endow a perpetual diet squad.
+You can buy out the whole Life Extension
+Institute. If you would only stop to think of
+the advantages of having all the money you
+wanted to spend on anything you wanted,
+you&rsquo;d&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy,&rdquo; Nancy said solemnly, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been
+through all that. If I had thought I would
+have been a better person with a great deal of
+money at my disposal, I&mdash;I might have&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Married Dick,&rdquo; Billy finished for her. &ldquo;I
+forgot that interesting possibility. I suppose
+to a girl who has just turned down a cold five
+millions, this meager little proposition&rdquo;&mdash;he
+flourished the crumpled document in his hand&mdash;&ldquo;has
+no real allure. Lord! What a world this
+is. You&rsquo;ll marry Dick yet. Them as has&mdash;<i>gits</i>.
+It never rains but it pours. To the victor
+belong the spoils, <i>et cetera, et cetera</i>&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Money simply does not interest me.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13' ></a>13</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Dick interests you. I don&rsquo;t know to what
+extent, but he interests you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be sentimental, Billy. Just because
+you&rsquo;re in love with Caroline, you can&rsquo;t make
+all your other friends marry each other. Tell
+me what to do about this legacy. What is customary
+when you get a lump of money like that?
+I suppose I&rsquo;ll have to begin to get rid of all
+<i>this</i> immediately.&rdquo; There was more than a
+hint of tears in her voice, but she smiled at
+Billy bravely. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m so perfectly crazy about
+these&mdash;these cups and saucers, Billy. See the
+lovely way that rose is split to fit into the
+design. Oh, when do I come into possession,
+anyway?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t come into possession right away,
+you know. You don&rsquo;t inherit for a couple of
+years, under the Rhode Island law. The formalities
+will take&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy Boynton, do you mean to say that
+I won&rsquo;t have to do a blessed thing about this
+money for two years?&rdquo; Nancy shrieked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, no. It takes a certain amount of red
+tape to settle an estate, to probate a will, etc.,
+and the law allows a period of time, varying
+in different states&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14' ></a>14</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Oho! Is there anything in all this universe
+so stupid as a man?&rdquo; Nancy interrupted fervently.
+&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me that before?
+Do you suppose I care how much money I have
+two years from now? Two years of freedom,
+why, that&rsquo;s all I want, Billy. There you&rsquo;ve
+been sitting up winking and blinking at me
+like a sympathetic old owl, when all I needed
+to know was that I had two years of grace.
+Of course, I&rsquo;ll go on with my tea-room, and
+not a soul shall know the difference.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;While the feminine temperament has my
+hearty admiration and my most cordial endorsement,&rdquo;
+Billy murmured, &ldquo;there are things
+about it&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t have to tell anybody, will I?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no law to that effect. If your
+friends don&rsquo;t know it from you, they&rsquo;re not
+likely to hear it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t mentioned it,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I
+only told you, because it seemed rather in your
+line of work, and I was getting so much mail
+about it, I thought it would be wise to have
+some one look it over.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve given up my law practice and Caroline
+for three days in your service.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15' ></a>15</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve done more than well, Billy, and I&rsquo;m
+grateful to you. Of course, you would have
+saved me days of nervous wear and tear if it
+had only occurred to you to tell me the one
+simple little thing that was the essential point
+of the whole matter. If I had known that I
+didn&rsquo;t inherit for two years, I wouldn&rsquo;t have
+cared <i>what</i> was in that will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy stared at her feelingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A peculiar sensation always comes over
+me,&rdquo; he said musingly, &ldquo;after I spend several
+hours uninterruptedly in the society of a
+woman who is using her mind in any way. I
+couldn&rsquo;t explain it to you exactly. It&rsquo;s a kind
+of impression that my own brain has begun to
+disintegrate, and to&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be too hard on yourself, Billy.&rdquo;
+Nancy soothed him sweetly,&mdash;Billy was not one
+of the people to whom she habitually allowed
+full conversational leeway: &ldquo;Swear you won&rsquo;t
+tell Caroline or Betty&mdash;or Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I swear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy held out her hand to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a good boy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I appreciate
+you, which is more than Caroline does,
+I&rsquo;m afraid. Run along and see her now&mdash;I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16' ></a>16</span>
+don&rsquo;t need you any more, and you&rsquo;re probably
+dying to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy bowed over her hand, lingeringly and
+politely, but once releasing it, he shook his
+big frame, and straightening up, drew a long
+deep breath of something very like relief.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With all deference to your delightful sex,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;the only society that I&rsquo;m dying for at
+the present moment is that of the old family
+bar-keep.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>As Billy left her, Nancy turned to her basement
+window, and stood looking out at the
+quaint stone court he had to cross in order to
+reach the high gate that guarded the entrance
+to the marble worker&rsquo;s establishment, under
+the shadow of which it was her intention to
+open her out-of-door tea-room. She watched
+him dreamily is he made his way among the
+cinerary urns, the busts and statues and bas-reliefs
+that were a part of the stock in trade
+of her incongruous business associate.</p>
+<p>In her investigation of the various sorts and
+conditions of restaurants in New York, she
+characteristically hit upon the garden restaurant,
+a commonplace in the down-town table
+d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te district, as the ideal setting for her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17' ></a>17</span>
+adventure in practical philanthropy, while the
+ubiquitous tea-room and antique-shop combination
+gave her the inspiration to stage her
+own undertaking even more spectacularly.
+Her enterprise was destined to flourish picturesquely
+in the open court during the fair
+months of the year, and in the winter months,
+or in the event of a bad storm, to be housed
+under the eaves in the rambling garret of the
+old brick building, the lower floor of which
+was given over to traffic in marbles.</p>
+<p>She sighed happily. Billy, extricating himself
+from the grasp of an outstretched marble
+hand, which bad seemed to clutch desperately
+at his elbow, and narrowly escaping a plunge
+into a too convenient bird&rsquo;s bath, turned to see
+her eyes following him, and waved gaily, but
+she scarcely realized that he had done so. It
+was rather with the eye of her mind that she
+was contemplating the dark, quadrangular
+area outstretched before her. In spirit she
+was moving to and fro among the statuary,
+bringing a housewifely order out of the chaos
+that prevailed,&mdash;placing stone ladies draped in
+stone or otherwise; cherubic babies, destined to
+perpetual cold water bathing; strange mortuary
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18' ></a>18</span>
+furniture, in the juxtaposition that would
+make the most effective background for her
+enterprise.</p>
+<p>She saw the gritty, gray paving stones of
+the court cleared of their litter, and scoured
+free from discoloration and grime, set with
+dozens of little tables immaculate in snowy
+napery and shiny silver, and arranged with
+careful irregularity at the most alluring angle.
+She saw a staff of Hebe-like waitresses in blue
+chambray and pink ribbons, to match the chinaware,
+and all bearing a marked resemblance to
+herself in her last flattering photograph, moving
+among a crowd of well brought up but
+palpably impoverished young people,&mdash;mostly
+social workers and artists. They were <i>all</i>
+young, and most of them very beautiful. In
+all her twenty-five years, she had never before
+been so close to a vision realized, as she was
+at that moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Outside Inn,&rdquo; she said to herself, still smiling.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a perfect name for it, really. Outside
+Inn!&rdquo;</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19' ></a>19</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_II_APPLICANTS_FOR_BLUE_CHAMBRAY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Applicants for Blue Chambray</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Ann Martin was an orphan of New
+England extraction. Her father, the
+eldest child of a simple unpretentious country
+family in Western Massachusetts, had been a
+brilliant but erratic throw-back to Mayflower
+traditions and Puritan intellectualism. He had
+married a girl with much the same ancestry as
+his own, but herself born and brought up in
+New York, and of a generation to which the
+assumption of prerogative was a natural
+rather than an acquired characteristic. The
+possession of a comfortable degree of fortune
+and culture was a matter of course with Ann
+Winslow, while to poor David Martin education
+in the finer things of life, and the opportunity
+to indulge his taste in the choice of surroundings
+and associates, were hard-won privileges.</p>
+<p>Both parents had been killed in a railroad
+accident when Ann, or Nancy as her mother had
+insisted on calling her from the day of her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20' ></a>20</span>
+christening, was about seven years old. She
+had been placed in the care of a maternal aunt,
+and had flourished in the heart of a well
+ordered establishment of the mid-Victorian
+type, run by a vigorous, rather worldly old
+lady.</p>
+<p>From her lovely mother&mdash;Ann Winslow had
+been more than a merely attractive or pretty
+woman; she had the real grace and distinction,
+and purity of profile that placed her in the
+actual category of beauty,&mdash;Nancy had inherited
+a healthy and equitable outlook on life,
+while her father, irresistible and impracticable
+being that he was, had endowed her with a
+certain eccentric and adventurous spirit in the
+investigation of it.</p>
+<p>She had been educated in a boarding-school,
+forty minutes&rsquo; run from New York, and had
+specialized in the domestic sciences and basket
+ball; and on attaining her majority had taken
+up a course or two at Columbia, rather more
+to put off the evil day of assuming the responsibility
+of the stuffy, stately old house in Washington
+Square than because she ever expected
+to make any use of her superfluous education.
+She was conceded by every one to be her aunt&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21' ></a>21</span>
+heir, but old Miss Winslow died intestate, very
+suddenly in Nancy&rsquo;s twenty-third year; and the
+beneficiaries of this accident, most of them extremely
+well-to-do themselves, combined to
+make Nancy a regular allowance until she was
+twenty-five. On her twenty-fifth birthday fifteen
+thousand dollars was deposited to her account
+in the Trust Company which conserved
+the family fortunes of the Winslows, and
+Nancy understood that they considered their
+duty by her to be done. It was with this fifteen
+thousand dollars that she was to inaugurate
+her darling enterprise,&mdash;Outside Inn.</p>
+<p>Money, as she had truthfully told Billy,
+meant nothing to her. Her aunt, living and
+giving generously, had furnished her with a
+background of comfortable, unostentatious well
+being, against which the rather vivid elements
+that went to make up her intimate social circle&mdash;she
+was a creature of intimates&mdash;stood out
+in alluring relief. She had literally never
+wanted for anything. Her tastes, to be sure,
+were modest, but the wherewithal to gratify
+them had always been almost stultifyingly near
+at hand. The excitement and adventure of an
+income to which there was attached some
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22' ></a>22</span>
+uncertainty had never been hers, and she was
+too much her father&rsquo;s daughter to be interested
+in the playing of any game in which she could
+not lose. With all she possessed staked against
+her untried business acumen she was for the
+first time in her life concerned with her financial
+situation, and quite honestly resentful of
+any interruption of her experiment. Her life
+was closely associated with her mother&rsquo;s family.
+Her father&rsquo;s people had at no time entered
+into her scheme of living,&mdash;her uncle Elijah
+less than any member of it, and she found his
+post-obit intervention in her affairs embarrassing
+in a dozen different connections.</p>
+<p>The best friend she had in the world, before
+he had made the tactical error of asking her
+to marry him, was Richard Thorndyke. He
+was still, thanks to his immediate skill in trying
+to retrieve that error, a very good friend
+indeed. Nancy would normally have told him
+everything that happened to her in the exact
+order of its occurrence; but partly because she
+did not wish to exaggerate her eccentricity in
+eyes that looked upon her so kindly, and partly
+because she had the instinct to spare him the
+realization that there was no way in which he
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23' ></a>23</span>
+might come to her rescue in the event of disaster,&mdash;she
+did not inform him of her legacy.
+She knew that he was shrewdly calculating to
+stand behind her venture, morally and practically,
+and that the chief incentive of his
+encouragement and helpfulness was the hidden
+hope that through her experiment and its probable
+unfortunate termination she would learn
+to depend on <i>him</i>. Nancy was so sure of herself
+that this attitude of Dick&rsquo;s roused her
+tenderness instead of her ire.</p>
+<p>The two girls who were closest to her, Caroline
+Eustace and Betty Pope, had been actively
+enlisted in the service of Outside Inn and the
+ideals that it represented. Betty, a dimpling,
+dynamic little being, who took a sporting interest
+in any project that interested her, irrespective
+of its merits, was to be associated with
+Nancy in the actual management of the restaurant.
+Caroline, who took herself more seriously,
+and was busy with a dozen enterprises
+that had to do with the welfare of the race, was
+concerned chiefly with the humanitarian side
+of the undertaking and willing to deflect to it
+only such energy as she felt to be essential to
+its scientific betterment. She was tentatively
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24' ></a>24</span>
+engaged to Billy Boynton,&mdash;for what reason no
+one&mdash;not even Billy&mdash;had been able to determine;
+since she systematically disregarded him
+in relation to all the interests and activities
+that went to make up her life.</p>
+<p>The affairs of the Inn progressed rapidly. It
+was in the first week of May that Nancy and
+Billy had their memorable discussion of her
+situation. By the latter part of June, when she
+could be reasonably sure of a succession of
+propitious days and nights, for she had set her
+heart on balmy weather conditions, Nancy
+expected to have her formal opening,&mdash;a dinner
+which not only initiated her establishment, but
+submitted it to the approval of her own group
+of intimate friends, who were to be her guests
+on that occasion.</p>
+<p>Meantime, the most extensive and discriminating
+preparations were going forward. Billy
+and Dick were present one afternoon by special
+request when Betty and Nancy were interviewing
+a contingent of waitresses.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got three perfectly charming girls
+already,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;that is, girls that look
+perfectly charming to me, but a man&rsquo;s point
+of view on a woman&rsquo;s looks is so different that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25' ></a>25</span>
+I thought it would be a good plan to have you
+boys look over this lot. They are all very
+high-class and competent girls. The Manning
+Agency doesn&rsquo;t send any other kind.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Trot &rsquo;em along,&rdquo; Billy said; &ldquo;where are they
+anyway?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In the room in front.&rdquo; They were in the
+smallest of the nest of attic rooms that Nancy
+planned to make her winter quarters. &ldquo;Michael
+receives them, and shows them in here one by
+one.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You like Michael then?&rdquo; Dick asked. &ldquo;I
+always said his talents were hidden at our
+place. He has a soul above the job of handy
+man on a Long Island farm.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s certainly a handy man here,&rdquo; Nancy
+said; &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t live without him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The lucky dog,&rdquo; Billy said, with a side
+glance at Dick.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; Betty explained, &ldquo;the girl comes
+in, and we ask her questions. Then if I don&rsquo;t
+like her I take my pencil from behind my ear,
+and rap against my palm with it. If Nancy
+doesn&rsquo;t like her she says, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re losing a hairpin,
+Betty.&rsquo; If we like her we rub our hands
+together.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26' ></a>26</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good system,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t
+see why Nancy doesn&rsquo;t take her pencil from
+behind her ear, or why you don&rsquo;t say to her&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t put a pencil behind my ear,&rdquo;
+Nancy said scathingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And she never loses a hairpin,&rdquo; Betty cut
+in. &ldquo;If I approve this system of signals I don&rsquo;t
+see what you have to complain of. Nancy
+couldn&rsquo;t get a pencil behind her ear even if
+she wanted to. It&rsquo;s only a criminal ear like
+mine that accommodates a pencil.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Speaking of ears,&rdquo; Dick said, looking at
+his watch, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s get on with the beauty show.
+I have to take my mother to see <i>Boris</i> to-night,
+and she has an odd notion of being on time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aw right,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s Michael.
+Bring in the first one immediately, Michael.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure an&rsquo; I will that, Miss Pope.&rdquo; The old
+family servitor of the Thorndykes pulled a
+deliberate lid over a twinkling left eye by way
+of acknowledging the presence of his young
+master. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s quite a display of thim this
+time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The first applicant, guided thus by Michael,
+appeared on the threshold and stood for a
+moment framed in the low doorway. Seeing
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27' ></a>27</span>
+two gentlemen present she carefully arranged
+her expression to meet that contingency. She
+was a blonde girl with masses of doubtfully
+tinted hair and no chin, but her eyes were
+very blue and matched a chain of turquoise
+beads about her throat, and she radiated a
+peculiar vitality.</p>
+<p>Betty took her pencil from behind her ear.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re losing a hair&mdash;&rdquo; Nancy began, but
+Dick and Billy exchanged glances and began
+rubbing their hands together energetically and
+enthusiastically.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry,&rdquo; Nancy said crisply, &ldquo;but you&rsquo;re
+a little too tall for our purpose.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And too blonde,&rdquo; Betty added with a bland
+dismissing smile. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking for a special
+type of girl.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I understood you were looking for a waitress,&rdquo;
+the girl said pertly, with her eyes on
+Billy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was,&rdquo; Billy answered, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m not now.
+My&mdash;my wife won&rsquo;t let me.&rdquo; He waved an
+inclusive hand in the direction of Nancy and
+Betty.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t behave,&rdquo; Nancy said, while they
+waited for Michael to bring in the next
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28' ></a>28</span>
+girl, &ldquo;you can&rsquo;t stay. If that is the kind of
+girl you men find attractive then my restaurant
+is doomed from the beginning. I wouldn&rsquo;t
+have that girl in my employ for&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Before she could begin again, applicant number
+two stood before them,&mdash;a comfortable,
+kind-eyed girl, no longer very young but with
+efficiency written all over her, despite the shyness
+that beset her.</p>
+<p>Nancy rubbed her hands with satisfaction
+and looked at Betty, who beamed back at her.
+The girl, encouraged by Nancy&rsquo;s kindly smile
+took a step forward, and began to recite her
+qualifications for the position. Dick fumbled
+with a fountain-pen which he placed elaborately
+behind his ear for an instant, and then
+as ostentatiously removed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re losing a hairpin, Dick,&rdquo;
+Billy suggested solicitously, as Nancy, ignoring
+their existence entirely, proceeded to make
+terms with the newcomer.</p>
+<p>The next girl created a diversion&mdash;being
+palpably an adventuress out of a job and
+impressing none of the quartette as being interesting
+enough to deserve one,&mdash;but the two girls
+who followed her were bright and sprightly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29' ></a>29</span>
+creatures, disarmingly graceful and ingenuous,
+of whom the entire quartette approved.
+They were twin sisters, they said, Dolly and
+Molly, and they had always had places together
+ever since they had begun working out.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Tell me, pretty maiden, <i>are</i> there any more
+at home <i>like</i>&mdash;&rdquo; Billy was addressing Molly
+gravely when Dick slipped a friendly but firm
+hand over his jugular region, and cut off his
+utterance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s not feeling quite himself,&rdquo; he explained
+suavely to Dolly, &ldquo;but we&rsquo;ll bring him around
+soon.&mdash;I think you&rsquo;ll find Miss Martin an ideal
+person to work for, and the salary and the
+hours unusually satisfactory.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said Molly and Dolly
+together, in the English manner which showed
+the excellence of their training.</p>
+<p>There were several other dubby creatures so
+much out of the picture that they were not
+even considered, and then Michael brought in
+what he called &ldquo;a grand girl,&rdquo; and left her
+standing statuesquely in their midst.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With large lovely arms and a neck like a
+tower,&rdquo; Dick quoted in his throat.</p>
+<p>Nancy engaged her without enthusiasm.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30' ></a>30</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;ll draw,&rdquo; she said briefly. &ldquo;Personally,
+I dislike these Alma Tadema girls.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What the men see,&rdquo; Betty said, curling
+around the better part of two straight dining
+chairs, in the moment of relaxation that followed
+the final disposition of the business of
+the day, &ldquo;in a girl like that first one is one of
+the mysteries of existence.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; Nancy agreed, with New England
+colloquialism. &ldquo;You feel reasonably allied
+to them as a sex, and then suddenly they show
+some vulgar preference for a woman like that,
+and it&rsquo;s all off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This from the woman who thinks my chauffeur
+is an ideal of manly beauty,&rdquo; Dick scoffed,
+&ldquo;a dimpled man with a little finger ring.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He can run a car, though,&rdquo; Nancy retorted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll bet little blue eyes could run a restaurant.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That was just the trouble,&mdash;she would have
+been running mine in twenty-four hours. Oh!
+I think what you men really like is a bossy
+woman.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, what a woman really likes in a man&mdash;&rdquo;
+Betty began, &ldquo;is&mdash;is&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quality,&rdquo; Nancy finished for her succinctly.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31' ></a>31</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder&mdash;&rdquo; Dick mused. &ldquo;I should have
+said finish.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Almost any kind of finish so long as it is
+smooth enough,&rdquo; Billy supplemented. &ldquo;Look at
+the way they eat up this artistic and poetic
+veneer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Look at the way they mangle their metaphors,&rdquo;
+Nancy complained to Betty.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>&ldquo;I know what I really like in a woman,&rdquo; Dick
+whispered to Nancy, as he helped her into her
+coat just before they started out together, &ldquo;and
+you know what I like, too. That&rsquo;s one of the
+subjects that needs no discussion between us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Betty and Billy walking up the avenue ahead
+of them,&mdash;Outside Inn was located in one of
+the cross-streets in the thirties,&mdash;were discussing
+their relation to one another.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder sometimes if Nancy&rsquo;s got it in her
+really to care for a man,&rdquo; Betty argued; &ldquo;she&rsquo;s
+as fond as she can be of Dick, but she&rsquo;d sacrifice
+him heart, soul and body for that restaurant
+of hers. She&rsquo;s a perfect darling, I don&rsquo;t
+mean that; she&rsquo;s the very essence of sweetness
+and kindness, but she doesn&rsquo;t seem to
+understand or appreciate the possibilities of a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32' ></a>32</span>
+devotion like Dick&rsquo;s. Do you think she&rsquo;s really
+capable of loving anybody&mdash;of putting any man
+in the world before all her ideas and notions
+and experiments?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Lord, yes,&rdquo; said Billy, accelerating his pace,
+suggestively in the hope of getting Betty home
+in good time for him to dress to keep his
+engagement with Caroline.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33' ></a>33</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_III_INAUGURATION'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Inauguration</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Nancy&rsquo;s heart was beating heavily when
+she woke on the memorable morning of
+the day that was to inaugurate the activities of
+Outside Inn. A confused dream of her Uncle
+Elijah in tatters on a park bench, which was
+instantly metamorphosed into one of the rustic
+seats she had arranged against the wall along
+the side of some of the bigger tables in the
+marble worker&rsquo;s court, was ostensibly the cause
+of the disturbance in her cardiac region. She
+had, it seemed, in the interminable tangle of
+nightmare, given Molly and Dolly and the
+Alma Tadema girl instructions to throw out
+the unwelcome guest, and she was standing by
+with Michael, who was assuring her that the
+big blonde was &ldquo;certain a grand bouncer,&rdquo; when
+she was smitten with a sickening dream-panic
+at her own ingratitude. &ldquo;He has given me
+everything he had in the world, poor old man,&rdquo;
+she said to herself, and approached him remorsefully;
+but when she looked at him again
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34' ></a>34</span>
+she saw that he had the face and figure of a
+young stranger, and that the garments that had
+seemed to her to be streaming and unsightly
+rags, were merely the picturesque habiliments
+of a young artist, apparently newly translated
+from the Boulevard Montparnasse. At the
+sight of the stranger a heart-sinking terror
+seemed to take possession of her, and so, quaking
+and quavering in mortal intimidation,&mdash;she
+woke up.</p>
+<p>She laughed at herself as she brushed the
+sleep out of her eyes, and drew the gradual
+long breaths that soothed the physical agitation
+that still beset her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m scared,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m as excited and
+nervous as a youngster on circus day.&mdash;Oh! I&rsquo;m
+glad the sun shines.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy lived in a little apartment of her own
+in that hinterland of what is now down-town
+New York, between the Rialto and its more conventional
+prototype, Society,&mdash;that is, she lived
+east of Broadway on a cross-street in the
+forties. The maid who took care of her had
+been in her aunt&rsquo;s employ for years, and had
+seen Nancy grow from her rather spoiled babyhood
+to a hoydenish childhood, and so on to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35' ></a>35</span>
+soft-eyed, vibrant maturity. She was the only
+person who tyrannized over Nancy. She
+brought her a cup of steaming hot water with
+a pinch of soda in it, now.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You were moaning and groaning in your
+sleep,&rdquo; she said, in the strident accents of her
+New England birthplace, &ldquo;so you&rsquo;ll have to
+drink this before I give you a living thing for
+your breakfast.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will, Hitty,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;and thank you
+kindly. Now I know you&rsquo;ve been making pop-overs,
+and are afraid they will disagree with
+me. I&rsquo;m glad&mdash;for I need the moral effect of
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I dunno whether pop-overs is so moral, or
+so immoral if it comes to that. I notice it&rsquo;s
+always the folks that ain&rsquo;t had much to do with
+morals one way or the other that&rsquo;s so almighty
+glib about them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a good deal in what you say, Hitty.
+If I had time I would go into the matter with
+you, but this is my busy day.&rdquo; Nancy sat up
+in bed, and began sipping her hot water obediently.
+She looked very childlike in her
+straight cut, embroidered night-gown, with a
+long chestnut pig-tail over either shoulder. &ldquo;I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36' ></a>36</span>
+feel as if I were going to be married, or&mdash;or
+something. I&rsquo;m so excited.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I guess you&rsquo;d be a good sight more excited
+if you was going to be married&rdquo;&mdash;Hitty was
+a widow of twenty-five years&rsquo; standing&mdash;&ldquo;and
+according to my way of thinking &rsquo;twould be
+a good deal more suitable,&rdquo; she added darkly.
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t take much stock in this hotel business.
+In my day there warn&rsquo;t no such newfangled
+foolishness for a girl to take up with instead
+o&rsquo; getting married and settled down. When I
+was your age I was working on my second set
+o&rsquo; baby clothes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t scold, Hitty,&rdquo; Nancy coaxed. &ldquo;I could
+make perfectly good baby clothes if I needed
+to. Don&rsquo;t you think I&rsquo;ll be of more use in the
+world serving nourishing food to hordes of
+hungry men and women than making baby
+clothes for one hypothetical baby?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I dunno about the hypothetical part,&rdquo; Hitty
+said, folding back the counterpane, inexorably.
+&ldquo;What I do know is that a girl that&rsquo;s getting to
+be an old girl&mdash;like you&mdash;past twenty-five&mdash;ought
+to be bestirring herself to look for a life
+pardner if she don&rsquo;t see any hanging around
+that suits her, instead of opening up a hotel for
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37' ></a>37</span>
+a passel of perfect strangers. If ever I saw a
+woman spoiling for something of her own to
+fuss over&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If ever there was a woman who <i>had</i> something
+of her own to fuss over,&rdquo; Nancy cried
+ecstatically, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m that woman to-day, Hitty.
+You&rsquo;re a professional Puritan, and you don&rsquo;t
+understand the broader aspects of the maternal
+instinct.&rdquo; She sprang out of bed, and tucked
+her bare pink toes into the fur bordered blue
+mules that peeped from under the bed, and
+slipped into the wadded blue silk bathrobe that
+lay on the chair beside her. &ldquo;Is my bath drawn,
+Hitty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your bath is drawed,&rdquo; Hitty acknowledged
+sourly, &ldquo;and your breakfast will be on the table
+in half an hour by the clock.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose I must require that corrective
+New England influence,&rdquo; Nancy said to herself,
+as she tried the temperature of her bath and
+found it frigid, &ldquo;just as some people need
+acid in their diet. If my mother were alive, I
+wonder what she would have said to me this
+morning.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy spent a long day directing, planning,
+and arranging for the great event of the evening,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38' ></a>38</span>
+the first dinner served to the public at
+Outside Inn.</p>
+<p>From the basement kitchen to the ground-floor
+serving-room in the rear, space cunningly
+coaxed from the reluctant marble worker, the
+mechanism of Nancy&rsquo;s equipment was as perfect
+as lavish expenditure and scientific management
+could make it. The kitchen gleamed with
+copper and granite ware; huge pots for soup
+and vegetables, mammoth double boilers of
+white enamel,&mdash;Nancy was firm in her conviction
+that rice and cereal could be cooked in
+nothing but white enamel,&mdash;rows upon rows of
+shelves methodically set with containers and
+casseroles and odd-shaped metal serving-dishes,
+as well as the ubiquitous blue and rose-color
+chinaware presenting its gay surface from
+every available bit of space.</p>
+<p>Presiding over the hooded ranges, two of gas
+and one coal for toasting and broiling, there
+was to be a huge Franco-American man-cook,
+discovered in one of the Fifth Avenue pastry
+shops in the course of Nancy&rsquo;s indefatigable
+tours of exploration, who was the son of a
+French <i>chef</i> and a Virginian mother, and could
+express himself in the culinary art of either
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39' ></a>39</span>
+his father&rsquo;s or his mother&rsquo;s nativity. His staff
+of helpers and dishwashers had been chosen by
+himself, with what Nancy considered most
+felicitous results, while her own galaxy of waitresses,
+who operated the service kitchen up-stairs,
+proved themselves to a woman almost
+unbelievably superior and efficient.</p>
+<p>The courtyard itself was a brave spectacle in
+its final aspect of background for the detail
+and paraphernalia of polite dining. The more
+unself-conscious of the statues, the nymphs and
+nereids and Venuses, she managed either to
+relegate to the storehouse within, or to add a
+few cunningly draped vines to the nonchalance
+of their effect, while the gargoyles and Roman
+columns and some of the least ambitious of the
+fountain-models she was able to adapt delightfully
+to her outrageous ideal of arrangement.
+Dick had denuded several smart florist shops
+to furnish her with field flowers enough to
+develop her decorative scheme, which included
+strangely the stringing of half a dozen huge
+Chinese lanterns that even in the daylight took
+on a meteoric light and glow.</p>
+<p>The night was clear and soft, and Fifth
+Avenue, ingratiatingly swept and garnished,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40' ></a>40</span>
+stretched its wake of summer allure before the
+never unappreciative eyes of Billy and Caroline,
+and Betty and Dick respectively, who had met
+at the Waldorf by appointment, and were now
+making their way, thus ceremoniously and in
+company, to the formal opening dinner of
+Nancy&rsquo;s Inn.</p>
+<p>Two nondescript Pagan gentlemen of Titanesque
+proportions had joined the watch of the
+conventional leonine twins, and the big gate
+now stood hospitably open, over it swinging
+the new sign in gallant crimson and white,
+that announced to all the world that Outside
+Inn was even at that moment, at its most punctilious
+service.</p>
+<p>Molly and Dolly, in the prescribed blue
+chambray, their cheeks several shades pinker
+than their embellishment of pink ribbon, and
+panting with ill-suppressed excitement, rushed
+forward to greet the four and ushered them
+solemnly to their places,&mdash;the gala table in the
+center of the court, set with a profusion of
+fleur de lis, with pink ribbon trainers.
+Thanks to Dick&rsquo;s carefully manipulated advertising
+campaign and personal efforts among
+his friends and business associates, they were
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41' ></a>41</span>
+not by any means the first arrivals. Half a
+dozen laughing groups were distributed about
+the round tables in the center space, while
+several t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te couples were confidentially
+ensconced in corners and at cozy tables for
+two, craftily sheltered by some of the most
+imposing of the marble figures and columns.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It seems like a real restaurant,&rdquo; Caroline
+said wonderingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What did you think it would seem like?&rdquo;
+Betty asked argumentatively. &ldquo;Just because
+Nancy is the best friend you have in the world,
+and you&rsquo;re familiar with her in pig-tails and a
+dressing-gown doesn&rsquo;t argue that she is incapable
+of managing an undertaking like this as
+well as if she were a perfect stranger.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose it does,&rdquo; Caroline mused,
+&ldquo;but someway I&rsquo;d feel easier about a perfect
+stranger investing her last cent in such a venture.
+I don&rsquo;t see how she can possibly make
+it pay, and I don&rsquo;t feel as if I could ever have
+a comfortable moment again until I knew
+whether she could or not.&mdash;What are you looking
+so guilty about, Billy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was regretting your uncomfortable moments,
+Caroline,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;and wishing it
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42' ></a>42</span>
+were in my power to do away with them, but
+it isn&rsquo;t. I was also musing sadly, but quite
+irrelevantly, on the tangled web we weave when
+first we practise to deceive.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you deceiving Caroline in some way?&rdquo;
+Dick inquired.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, he isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Caroline answered for him,
+&ldquo;though he has full permission to if he wants.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The time may come when he will avail
+himself of that permission,&rdquo; Betty said; &ldquo;you
+ought to be careful how you tempt Fate, Caroline.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She ought to be,&rdquo; Billy groaned, &ldquo;but the
+fact is that I am not one of the things she is
+superstitious about. Pipe the dame at the
+corner table with the lorgnette. Classy, isn&rsquo;t
+she?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Friend of my aunt&rsquo;s,&rdquo; Dick said, acknowledging
+the lady&rsquo;s salute.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And the Belasco adventuress in the corner.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My stenographer,&rdquo; Dick explained, bowing
+again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a bunch of men coming,&rdquo; Billy
+said; &ldquo;if they put the place on the bum you&rsquo;ve
+got to help me bounce them, Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Up-stairs in the service kitchen,&rdquo; Betty was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43' ></a>43</span>
+explaining to Caroline, &ldquo;they keep all the dishes
+that don&rsquo;t have to be heated for serving, also
+the silver and daily linen supply. When we
+seat ourselves at a table like this, the waitress
+to whom it is assigned goes in and gets a
+basket of bread&mdash;I think it&rsquo;s a pretty idea to
+serve the bread in baskets, don&rsquo;t you?&mdash;and
+whatever silver is necessary, and a bottle of
+water. When she places those things she asks
+us what our choice of a meat course is,&mdash;there
+is a choice except on chicken night&mdash;and gives
+that order in the kitchen when she goes to get
+our soup.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who serves the things,&mdash;puts the meat on
+the plates, and dishes up the vegetables?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The cook&mdash;Nancy won&rsquo;t let me call him the
+<i>chef</i>&mdash;because she is going to make a specialty
+of the southern element of his education. He
+has a serving-table by his range and he cuts
+up the meat and fowl, and dishes up the vegetables.
+In a bigger establishment he would
+have a helper to do that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t Michael help him?&rdquo; Dick asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Michael calls him the Haythan Shinee. He
+is rather a <i>glossy</i> man, you know, and he says
+when the time comes for him, Michael, to dress
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44' ></a>44</span>
+like a street cleaner and pilot a gravy boat,
+he&rsquo;ll let us know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Respect for his superiors is not one of Michael&rsquo;s
+most salient characteristics,&rdquo; Dick twinkled.
+&ldquo;Nancy and I have a scheme for making
+a match between him and Hitty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the soup,&rdquo; Betty announced.
+&ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s idea is to have everything perfectly
+simple, and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Simply perfect,&rdquo; Billy assisted her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t she going to eat with us?&rdquo; Dick asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She can&rsquo;t. She&rsquo;s busy getting it going just
+at present. She may appear later.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Somebody&rsquo;s got to direct this pageant, old
+top,&rdquo; Billy reminded him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The soup is perfect,&rdquo; Caroline said seriously.
+&ldquo;It is simple&mdash;with that deceptive simplicity of
+a Paris morning frock.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;French home cooking is all like that,&rdquo; Dick
+said. &ldquo;I like pur&eacute;e of forget-me-nots!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Molly or Dolly, I can&rsquo;t tell the difference between
+you,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;extend our compliments
+to Miss Martin, and tell her that this course is
+a triumph.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wait till you see the roast, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the very <i>best</i> sirloin,&rdquo; Dick announced
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45' ></a>45</span>
+at the first mouthful, &ldquo;and these assorted vegetables
+all cut down to the same size are as pretty
+as they are good, as one says of virtuous innocence.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This variety of asparagus is expensive,&rdquo;
+Caroline said; &ldquo;she can&rsquo;t do things like this at
+seventy-five cents a head. She&rsquo;ll ruin herself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how she can,&rdquo; Dick said thoughtfully,
+&ldquo;with the price of foodstuffs soaring sky-high.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never for a moment expected it to pay,&rdquo;
+Betty said, &ldquo;but think of the run she will have
+for her money, and the experience we&rsquo;ll get out
+of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re in it for the romance there is in it,
+Betty. I must confess it isn&rsquo;t altogether my
+idea of a good time,&rdquo; Caroline said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know, you would go in for military training
+for women, and that sort of thing. There&rsquo;s
+a woman over there asking for more olives, and
+she&rsquo;s eaten a plate full of them already.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re as big as hen&rsquo;s eggs anyhow,&rdquo; Caroline
+groaned, &ldquo;and almost as extravagant. I
+don&rsquo;t see how Nancy&rsquo;ll go through the first
+month at this rate. There she comes now.
+Doesn&rsquo;t she look nice in that color of green?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46' ></a>46</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you like my party?&rdquo; Nancy asked,
+slipping into the empty chair between Dick and
+Billy; &ldquo;isn&rsquo;t the food good and nourishing, and
+aren&rsquo;t there a lot of nice-looking people here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very much, and it is, and there are,&rdquo; Dick
+answered with affectionate eyes on her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The salad is alligator pear served in half
+sections, with French dressing,&rdquo; she said
+dreamily. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m too happy to eat, but I&rsquo;ll have
+some with you. Look at them all, don&rsquo;t they
+look relaxed and soothed and refreshed? Every
+individual has a perfectly balanced ration of
+the most superlatively good quality, slowly beginning
+to assimilate within him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see many respectable working girls,&rdquo;
+Billy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There are though,&mdash;from the different shops
+and offices on the avenue. There is a contingent
+from the Columbia summer school coming to-morrow
+evening. This group coming in now
+is newspaper people.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the fellow sitting over in the corner
+with that Vie de Boh&ecirc;me hat? He looks familiar,
+but I can&rsquo;t seem to place him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The man in black with the mustache?&rdquo; Dick
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47' ></a>47</span>
+asked. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an artist, pretty well known.
+That impressionistic chap&mdash;I can&rsquo;t think of his
+name&mdash;that had that exhibition at the Palsifer
+galleries.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Does he sell?&rdquo; Caroline asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, they say he&rsquo;s awfully poor, refuses to
+paint down to the public taste. What the deuce
+is his name&mdash;oh! I know, Collier Pratt&mdash;do
+you know him, Nancy? Lived in Paris always
+till the war. He&rsquo;ll appreciate Ritz cooking at
+Riggs&rsquo; prices if anybody will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy looked fixedly at the small side-table
+where the stranger had just placed himself as
+if he were etched upon the whiteness of the wall
+behind him. He sat erect and brooding,&mdash;his
+dark, rather melancholy eyes staring straight
+ahead, and a slight frown wrinkling his really
+fine forehead. He wore an Inverness cape slung
+over one shoulder.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Looks like one of Rembrandt&rsquo;s portraits of
+himself,&rdquo; Caroline suggested.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He looks like a brigand,&rdquo; Betty said.
+&ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s struck dumb with the privilege of
+adding fuel to a flame of genius like that. Wake
+up and eat your peach Melba, Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48' ></a>48</span></div>
+<p>Nancy started, and took perfunctorily the
+spoon that Molly was holding out to her, which
+she forgot to lift to her lips even after it was
+freighted with its first delicious mouthful.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I dreamed about that man,&rdquo; she said.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49' ></a>49</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_IV_CINDERELLA'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Cinderella</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Nancy shut the door of her apartment behind
+her, and slipped out into the dimly
+lit corridor. From her sitting-room came a
+burst of concerted laughter, the sound of
+Betty&rsquo;s sweet, high pitched voice raised in sudden
+protest, and then the echo of some sort of
+a physical struggle; and Caroline took the piano
+and began to improvise.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They won&rsquo;t miss me,&rdquo; Nancy said to herself,
+&ldquo;I must have air.&rdquo; She drew a long breath
+with a hand against her breast, apparently to
+relieve the pressure there. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stay shut
+up in a <i>room</i>,&rdquo; she kept repeating as if she were
+stating the most reasonable of premises, and
+turning, fled down the two flights of stairs that
+led to the outside door of the building.</p>
+<p>The breath of the night was refreshingly cool
+upon her hot cheeks, and she smiled into the
+darkness gratefully. Across the way a row of
+brownstone houses, implacably boarded up for
+the summer, presented dull and dimly defined
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50' ></a>50</span>
+surfaces that reflected nothing, not even the
+lights of the street, or the shadow of a passing
+straggler. Nancy turned her face toward the
+avenue. The nostalgia that was her inheritance
+from her father, and through him from a long
+line of ancestors that followed the sea whither
+it might lead them, was upon her this night, although
+she did not understand it as such. She
+only thought vaguely of a strip of white beach
+with a whiter moon hung high above it, and the
+long silver line of the tide,&mdash;drawing out.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish I had a hat on,&rdquo; she said. There was
+a night light in the chemist&rsquo;s shop at the corner,
+and the panel of mirror obligingly placed
+for the convenience of the passing crowd, at the
+left of the big window, showed her reflection
+quite plainly. She was suddenly inspired to
+take the soft taffeta girdle from the waist of
+her dark blue muslin gown, and bind it turban-wise
+about her head. The effect was pleasingly
+modish and conventional, and she quickened her
+steps&mdash;satisfied. There was a tingle in the air
+that set her blood pleasantly in motion, and
+she established a rhythm of pace that made her
+feel almost as if she were walking to music.
+Insensibly her mind took up its responsibilities
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51' ></a>51</span>
+again as the blood, stimulated from its temporary
+inactivity, began to course naturally
+through her veins.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There is plenty of beer and ginger ale in
+the ice-box,&rdquo; she thought, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;ve done this
+before, so they won&rsquo;t be unnaturally disturbed
+about me. Billy wanted to take Caroline home
+early, and Dick can go on up-town with Betty,
+without making her feel that she ought to leave
+him alone with me for a last t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te. It will
+hurt Dick&rsquo;s feelings, but he understands really.
+He has a most blessed understandingness, Dick
+has.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She had the avenue almost entirely to herself,
+a silent gleaming thoroughfare with the
+gracious emptiness that a much lived in street
+sometimes acquires, of a Sunday at the end of
+an adventurous season. It was early July, the
+beginning of the actual summer season in New
+York. Nancy had never before been in town so
+late in the year, nor for that matter had Caroline
+or Betty, but Betty&rsquo;s interest in the affairs
+of the Inn was keeping her at Nancy&rsquo;s side,
+while Caroline had just accepted a secretarial
+position in one of the big Industrial Leagues
+recently organized by women for women, that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52' ></a>52</span>
+would keep her in town all summer. Billy and
+Dick, by virtue of their respective occupations,
+were never away from New York for longer
+than the customary two weeks&rsquo; vacation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My soul smoothed itself out, a long cramped
+scroll,&rdquo;&mdash;her conscience placated on the score of
+her deserted guests, Nancy was quoting Browning
+to herself, as she widened the distance between
+herself and them. &ldquo;I wonder why I
+have this irresistible tendency to shake the people
+I love best in the world at intervals. I am
+such a really well-balanced and rational individual,
+I don&rsquo;t understand it in myself. I
+thought the Inn was going to take all the nonsense
+out of me, but it hasn&rsquo;t, it appears,&rdquo; she
+sighed; &ldquo;but then, I think it is going to take the
+nonsense out of a lot of people that are only
+erratic because they have never been properly
+fed. I guess I&rsquo;ll go and have a look at the old
+place in its Sunday evening calm. Already it
+seems queer not to be there at nine o&rsquo;clock in
+the evening, but I don&rsquo;t really think there are
+people enough in New York now on Sundays to
+make it an object.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s feet turned mechanically toward the
+arena of her most serious activities. Like most
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53' ></a>53</span>
+of us who run away, she was following by instinct
+the logical periphery of her responsibilities.</p>
+<p>The big green latticed gate was closed against
+all intruders. Nancy had the key to its padlock
+in her hand-bag, but she had no intention of
+using it. The white and crimson sign flapped
+in the soft breeze companionably responsive to
+the modest announcement, &ldquo;Marble Workshop,
+Reproductions and Antiques, Garden Furniture,&rdquo;
+which so inadequately invited those
+whom it might concern to a view of the petrified
+vaudeville within. Through the interstices
+of the gate the courtyard looked littered and
+unalluring;&mdash;the wicker tables without their
+fine white covers; the chairs pushed back in a
+heterogeneous assemblage; the segregated columns
+of a garden peristyle gaunt against the
+dark, gleamed a more ghostly white than the
+weather-stained busts and figures less recently
+added to the collection. It seemed to Nancy
+incredible that the place would ever bloom again
+with lights and bouquets and eager patrons,
+with her group of pretty flower-like waitresses
+moving deftly among them. She stared at the
+spot with the cold eye of the creator whose
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54' ></a>54</span>
+handiwork is out of the range of his vision, and
+the inspiration of it for the moment, gone.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel like Cinderella and her godmother
+rolled into one,&rdquo; she thought disconsolately. &ldquo;I
+waved my wand, and made so many things
+happen, and now that the clock has struck,
+again here I am outside in the cold and dark,&rdquo;&mdash;the
+wind was taking on a keener edge, and
+she shivered slightly in her muslins&mdash;&ldquo;with
+nothing but a pumpkin shell to show for it.
+Hitty says that getting what you want is apt
+to be unlikely business, and I&rsquo;m inclined to
+think she&rsquo;s right.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It seemed to her suddenly that the thing she
+had wanted,&mdash;a picturesque, cleverly executed
+restaurant where people could be fed according
+to the academic ideals of an untried young
+woman like herself was an unthinkable thing.
+The power of illusion failed for the moment.
+Just what was it that she had hoped to accomplish
+with this fling at executive altruism?
+What was she doing with a French cook in
+white uniform, a competent staff of professional
+dishwashers and waitresses and kitchen
+helpers? How had it come about that she
+owned so many mounds and heaps and pyramids
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55' ></a>55</span>
+of silver and metal and linen? What was
+this Inn that she had conceived as a project so
+unimaginably fine? Who were these shadow
+people that came and went there? Who was
+she? Why with all her vitality and all her
+hungry yearning for life and adventure
+couldn&rsquo;t she even believe in her own substantiality
+and focus? Wasn&rsquo;t life even real enough
+for a creature such as she to grasp it,&mdash;if it
+wasn&rsquo;t&mdash;</p>
+<p>She saw a figure that was familiar to her
+turn in from the avenue, a tall man in an Inverness
+with a wide black hat pulled down
+over his eyes. For the moment she could not
+remember who he was, but by the time he had
+stopped in front of the big gate, giving utterance
+to a well delivered expletive, she knew
+him perfectly, and stood waiting, motionless,
+for him to turn and speak to her. She was sure
+that he would have no recollection of her. He
+turned, but it was some seconds before he addressed
+her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Doubt thou the stars are fire,&rdquo; he said at
+last, with a shrug that admitted her to the companionship
+of his discomfiture. &ldquo;Doubt thou
+the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56' ></a>56</span>
+never doubt that your favorite New York restaurant
+will be closed on a Sunday night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! <i>is</i> it your favorite New York restaurant?&rdquo;
+Nancy cried, her heart in her throat.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s mine, you know, my&mdash;my favorite.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So I judged, or you wouldn&rsquo;t be beating
+against the gate so disconsolately.&rdquo; It was too
+dark to see his face clearly, but Nancy realized
+that he was looking down at her quizzically
+through the darkness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you really like this restaurant?&rdquo; she persisted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In some ways I like it very much. The food
+is quite possible as you know, very American in
+character, but very good American, and it has
+the advantage of being served out-of-doors. I
+am a Frenchman by adoption, and I like the
+outdoor caf&eacute;. In fact, I am never happy eating
+inside.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The surroundings are picturesque?&rdquo; Nancy
+hazarded.</p>
+<p>The stranger laughed. &ldquo;According to the
+American ideal,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;they are&mdash;but I do
+admit that they show a rather extraordinary
+imagination. I&rsquo;ve often thought that I should
+like to make the acquaintance of the woman,&mdash;of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57' ></a>57</span>
+course, it&rsquo;s a woman&mdash;who conceived the notion
+of this mortuary tea-room.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, of course, is it a woman?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A man wouldn&rsquo;t set up housekeeping in&mdash;in
+<i>P&egrave;re Lachaise</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not, if he found a really domestic-looking
+corner?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He <i>wouldn&rsquo;t</i> in the first place, it wouldn&rsquo;t
+occur to him, that&rsquo;s all, and if he did he couldn&rsquo;t
+get away with it. The only real drawback to
+this hostelry is, as you know, that they don&rsquo;t
+serve spirits of any kind. I&rsquo;m accustomed to a
+glass or two of wine with my dinner, and my
+food sticks in my throat when I can&rsquo;t have it,
+but I&rsquo;ve found a way around that, now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! have you?&rdquo; said Nancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t give me away, but there&rsquo;s a man
+about the place here whose name is Michael,
+and he possesses that blend of Gallic facility
+with Celtic canniness that makes the Irish so
+wonderful as a race. I told my trouble to Michael,&mdash;with
+the result that I get a teapot full
+of Chianti with my dinner every night, and no
+questions asked.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! you do?&rdquo; gasped Nancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see Michael is serving the best interests
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58' ></a>58</span>
+of his employer, who wants to keep her patrons,
+because if I couldn&rsquo;t have it I wouldn&rsquo;t be there.
+He couldn&rsquo;t trouble the lady about it, naturally,
+because it is technically an offense against the
+law. Come, let&rsquo;s go and find a quiet corner
+where we can continue our conversation comfortably.
+There&rsquo;s a painfully respectable little
+hotel around the corner here that looks like the
+Caf&eacute; L&rsquo;avenue when you first go in, but is a
+place where the most bourgeoise of one&rsquo;s aunts
+might put up.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know that I can go,&rdquo; said Nancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no reason why you shouldn&rsquo;t, you
+know. My name is Collier Pratt. I&rsquo;m an artist.
+The more bourgeoise of my aunts would introduce
+me if she were here. She&rsquo;s a New Englander
+like so many of your own charming relatives.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How did you know that?&rdquo; Nancy asked, as
+she followed him with a docility quite new to
+her, past the big green gate, and the row of
+nondescript shops between it and the corner
+of Broadway.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was <i>born</i> in Boston,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said a
+trifle absently. &ldquo;I know a Massachusetts product
+when I see one. Ah! here we are.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59' ></a>59</span></div>
+<p>He led her triumphantly to a table in the far
+corner of the practically empty restaurant,
+waved away the civilities of a swarthy and
+somewhat badly coordinated waiter, and pulled
+out her chair for her himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, let me have a look at you,&rdquo; he said;
+&ldquo;why, you&rsquo;ve nothing on but muslin, and you&rsquo;re
+wearing your belt for a turban.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A sop to the conventions,&rdquo; Nancy said,
+blushing burningly. She was not quite able yet
+to get her bearings with this extraordinary
+man, who had assumed charge of her so cavalierly,
+but she was eager to find her poise in
+the situation. &ldquo;I ran away, and I thought it
+would look better to have something like a
+hat on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Looks,&rdquo; said Collier Pratt, &ldquo;looks! That&rsquo;s
+New England, always the looks of a thing, never
+the feel of it. Mind you I don&rsquo;t mean the <i>look</i>
+of a thing, that&rsquo;s something different again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I know, the conventional slant as opposed
+to the artistic perspective.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good! It isn&rsquo;t necessary to have my remarks
+followed intelligently, but it always adds
+piquancy to the situation when they are.
+Speaking of artistic perspective, you have a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60' ></a>60</span>
+very nice coloring. I like a ruddy chestnut hair
+with a skin as delicately white and pink as
+yours.&rdquo; He spoke impersonally with the narrowing
+eye of the artist. &ldquo;I can see you either
+in white,&mdash;not quite a cream white, but almost,&mdash;against
+a pearly kind of Quakerish background,
+or flaming out in the most crude,
+barbaric assemblage of colors. That&rsquo;s the advantage
+of your type and the environment you
+connote&mdash;you can be the whole show, or the
+veriest little mouse that ever sought the protective
+coloring of the shadows.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t exactly taking the quickest way
+of putting me at my ease,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+very much embarrassed, you know. I&rsquo;d stand
+being looked over for a few minutes longer if
+I could,&mdash;but I can&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;m not having one of my
+most equable evenings.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said.</p>
+<p>For the first time since she had seen his face
+with the light upon it, he smiled, and the smile
+relieved the rather empiric quality of his habitual
+expression. Nancy noticed the straight
+line of the heavy brows scarcely interrupted by
+the indication of the beginning of the nose, and
+wondering to herself if it were not possible
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61' ></a>61</span>
+for a person with that eyebrow formation to
+escape the venality of disposition that is popularly
+supposed to be its adjunct,&mdash;decided affirmatively.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not used to talking to American girls
+very much. I forget how daintily they&rsquo;re accustomed
+to being handled. I&rsquo;m extremely anxious
+to put you at your ease,&rdquo; he added quietly.
+&ldquo;I appreciate the privilege of your company on
+what promised to be the dullest of dull evenings.
+I should appreciate still more,&rdquo; he bowed,
+as he handed her a bill of fare of the journalistic
+proportions of the usual hotel menu,
+&ldquo;if you would make a choice of refreshment,
+that we may dispense with the somewhat pathological
+presence of our young friend here,&rdquo; he
+indicated the waiter afflicted with the jerking
+and titubation of a badly strung puppet. &ldquo;I advise
+Rhine wine and seltzer. I offer you anything
+from green chartreuse to Scotch and soda.
+Personally I&rsquo;m going to drink Perrier water.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather have an ice-cream,&rdquo; Nancy said,
+&ldquo;than anything else in the world,&mdash;coffee ice-cream,
+and a glass of water.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder if you would, or if you only think
+it&rsquo;s&mdash;safer. At any rate I&rsquo;m going to put my
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62' ></a>62</span>
+coat over your shoulders while you eat it. I
+never leave my rooms at this hour of the night
+without this cape. If I can find a place to sit
+out in I always do, and I&rsquo;m naturally rather
+cold-blooded.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not,&rdquo; said Nancy, but she meekly allowed
+him to drape her in the folds of the light
+cape, and found it grateful to her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Bring the lady a big cup of coffee, and mind
+you have it hot,&rdquo; Collier Pratt ordered peremptorily,
+as her ice-cream was served by the
+shaking waiter. &ldquo;Coffee may be the worst
+thing in the world for you, nervously. I don&rsquo;t
+know,&mdash;it isn&rsquo;t for me, I rather thrive on it, but
+at any rate I&rsquo;m going to save you from the combination
+of organdie and ice-cream on a night
+like this. What is your name?&rdquo; he inquired
+abruptly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ann Martin.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not at my service?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know,&mdash;but I hope and trust
+so. I like you. You&rsquo;ve got something they
+don&rsquo;t have&mdash;these American girls,&mdash;softness
+and strength, too. I imagine you&rsquo;ve never been
+out of America.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63' ></a>63</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I have.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With two other girls and a chaperon, doing
+Europe, and staying at all the hotels doped up
+for tourist consumption.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy was constrained to answer with a
+smile.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t like America very much,&rdquo; she
+said presently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I like it for itself, but I loathe it&mdash;for
+myself. My way of living here is all wrong. I
+can&rsquo;t get to bed in this confounded city. I can&rsquo;t
+get enough to eat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! can&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; Nancy cried.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In Paris, or any town where there is a caf&eacute;
+life one naturally gets fed. The technique of
+living is taken care of much better over there.
+Your <i>concierge</i> serves you a nourishing breakfast
+as a matter of course. When you&rsquo;ve done
+your morning&rsquo;s work you go to your favorite
+caf&eacute;&mdash;not with the one object in life&mdash;to cram
+a <i>Ch&acirc;teaubriand</i> down your dry and resisting
+throat because he who labors must live,&mdash;but to
+see your friends, to read your daily journals,
+to write your letters, and do it incidentally in
+the open air while some diplomat of a waiter
+serves you with food that assuages the palate,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64' ></a>64</span>
+without insulting your mood. That&rsquo;s what I
+like about the little restaurant in the court
+there. It&rsquo;s out-of-doors, and you may stay
+there without feeling your table is in requisition
+for the next man. It&rsquo;s a very polite little
+place.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t expect to get in there to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I had hopes of it. I&rsquo;ve not dined, you see.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not dined?&rdquo; Nancy&rsquo;s eyes widened in dismay.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no use for me to dine unless I can
+eat my food tranquilly, in some accustomed corner.
+Getting nourished with me is a spiritual,
+as well as a physical matter. It is with all
+sensitive people. Don&rsquo;t you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose so. I&mdash;I hadn&rsquo;t thought of it
+that way. Couldn&rsquo;t you eat something now&mdash;an
+oyster stew, or something like that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing in any way remotely connected with
+that. An oyster stew is to me the most barbarous
+of concoctions. I loathe hot milk,&mdash;an
+oyster is an adjunct to a fish sauce, or a
+preface to a good dinner.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to have something,&rdquo; Nancy
+urged, &ldquo;even ice-cream is more nourishing than
+mineral water, or coffee with cream in it.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65' ></a>65</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I like coffee after dinner, not before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you only eat when it&rsquo;s convenient, or the
+mood takes you,&rdquo; Nancy cried out in real distress,
+&ldquo;how can you ever be sure that you have
+calories enough? The requirement of an average
+man at active labor is estimated at over
+three thousand calories. You must have something
+like a balanced ration in order to do your
+work.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Must I?&rdquo; Collier Pratt smiled his rare
+smile. &ldquo;Well, at any rate, it is good to hear you
+say so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She finished her ice-cream, and Collier Pratt
+drank his mineral water slowly, and smoked innumerable
+cigarettes of Virginia tobacco. The
+conversation which had proceeded so expeditiously
+to this point seemed for no apparent
+reason, suddenly to become gratuitous. Nancy
+had never before begun on the subject of the
+balanced ration without being respectfully allowed
+to go through to the end. She had not
+been allowed to feel snubbed, but she was a little
+bewildered that any conversation in which
+she was participating, could be so gracefully
+stopped before it was ended by her expressed
+desire.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66' ></a>66</span></div>
+<p>Collier Pratt took his watch out of his pocket,
+and looked at it hastily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By jove,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I had entirely forgotten.
+I have a child in my charge. I must be
+about looking after her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A child?&rdquo; Nancy cried, astonished.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, a little girl. She&rsquo;s probably sitting up
+for me, poor baby. Can you get home alone,
+if I put you on a bus or a street-car?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you&rsquo;ll call a taxi for me&mdash;&rdquo; Nancy said.</p>
+<p>She noticed that the check was paid with
+change instead of a bill. In fact, her host
+seemed not to have a bill of any denomination
+in his pocket, but to be undisturbed by the fact.
+He parted from her casually.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good-by, child,&rdquo; he said with his head in the
+door after he had given the chauffeur her street
+number; &ldquo;with the permission of <i>le bon Dieu</i>,
+we shall see each other again. I feel that He is
+going to give it to us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; Nancy said to his retreating
+shoulder.</p>
+<p>At her own front door was Dick&rsquo;s big Rolls-Royce,
+and Dick sitting inside of it, with his
+feet comfortably up, feigning sleep.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d go home until I saw
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67' ></a>67</span>
+you safe inside your own door, did you?&rdquo; he
+demanded.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Betty?&rdquo; Nancy asked mechanically.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I sent Williams home with her. Then he
+came back here, and left the car with me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t have waited,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+sorry, Dick, I&mdash;I had to have air. I had to get
+out. I couldn&rsquo;t stay inside a minute longer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You need never explain anything to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you want to know where I&rsquo;ve been?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick looked at her carefully before he made
+his answer. Then he said firmly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I might have told you,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you had
+wanted to know.&rdquo; She felt her knees sagging
+with fatigue, and drooped against the door-frame.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come and sit in the car, and talk to me for
+a minute,&rdquo; he suggested. &ldquo;Do you good, before
+you climb the stairs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He opened the car door for her ingratiatingly,
+but she shook her head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done unconventional things enough for
+one evening,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Unlock the door for
+me. Hitty&rsquo;ll be waiting up to take care of me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that queer thing you&rsquo;re wearing?&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68' ></a>68</span>
+he asked her, as he held the door for her to pass
+through, &ldquo;I never remember seeing you wear
+that before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy looked down wonderingly at the folds
+of the Inverness still swinging from her shoulders.
+She had been subconsciously aware of
+the grateful warmth in which she was encased
+ever since she snuggled comfortably into the
+depths of the taxi-cab into which Collier Pratt
+had tucked her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I never <i>have</i> worn it before,&rdquo; she said,
+answering Dick&rsquo;s question.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69' ></a>69</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_V_SCIENCE'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER V<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Science</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>The activities of the day at Outside Inn began
+with luncheon and the preparation for
+it. Nancy longed to serve breakfast there, but
+as yet it had not seemed practicable to do so.
+Most of the patrons of the restaurant conducted
+the business of the day down-town, but
+had their actual living quarters in New York&rsquo;s
+remoter fastnesses,&mdash;Brooklyn, the Bronx or
+Harlem. Nancy was satisfied that the bulk of
+her patronage should be the commuting and
+cliff dwelling contingent of Manhattanites,&mdash;indeed
+it was the sort of patronage that from
+the beginning she had intended to cater to.</p>
+<p>Nancy did most of the marketing herself at
+first, but Gaspard&mdash;the big cook&mdash;gradually
+coaxed this privilege away from her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we sit&mdash;us together, and
+talk of eating&rdquo;&mdash;he prided himself on his use
+of English, and never used his native tongue
+to help him out, except in moments of great excitement.
+&ldquo;It is immediately after breakfast.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70' ></a>70</span>
+Yes! I am full of milk-coffee sopped with
+bread, and you of bacon with eggs and marmalade.
+We say, what shall we give to our
+custom for its dinner and its luncheon? We
+think sadly&mdash;we who have but now brushed
+away the crumbs of breakfast&mdash;of those who
+must sit down so soon to the table groaning
+with viands. Therefore we say, &lsquo;Market delicately.
+Have the soup clear, the entr&eacute;e light and
+the salad green with plenty of vinegar.&rsquo; Even
+your calories&mdash;they do not help us much. They
+are in quantities so unexpected in the food that
+weighs nothing in the scales. We say you shall
+go to market and buy these things, and you go.
+I stir and walk about, and grow restless for
+my <i>d&eacute;jeuner</i>, and when you return from market,
+hungry too, we are not the same people
+who had thought our soup should be clear, and
+our entr&eacute;e more beautiful than nutritious. If
+I go to market myself <i>late</i> I am inspired there
+to buy what is right, because by that hour I
+have a proper relish and understanding of what
+all the world should eat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know he is right,&rdquo; Nancy said to Billy
+afterward in reporting the conversation, &ldquo;I
+hate to admit it, but even my notion of what
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71' ></a>71</span>
+other people should eat is colored by my own
+relation to food. I never realized before how
+little use an intellect is in this matter of food
+values. I can actually get up a meal that according
+to the tables is scientifically correct
+that wouldn&rsquo;t feed anybody if they were hungry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;One banana is equal to a pound and three-quarters
+of steak,&rdquo; Billy misquoted helpfully.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The trouble is that it <i>isn&rsquo;t</i>,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;except
+technically.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t eat it and grow thin.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t eat it and grow <i>fat</i> unless it happens
+to be the peculiar food to which you are
+idiosyncratic.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s really a word,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll overlook
+your trying it out on me. If it isn&rsquo;t you&rsquo;ll
+have to take the consequences.&rdquo; He went
+through the pantomime of one preparing to do
+physical violence.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! it&rsquo;s a word. Ask Caroline.&rdquo; Nancy&rsquo;s
+eyes still held their look of being focussed on
+something in the remote distance. &ldquo;The trouble
+with all this dietetic problem is that the individual
+is dependent on something more than
+an adjustment of values. His environment and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72' ></a>72</span>
+his heredity play an active part in his diet
+problem. Some people can eat highly concentrated
+food, others have to have bulk, and so
+on. You can&rsquo;t substitute cheese and bananas
+for steak and do the race a service no matter
+what the cost of steak may soar to. You can&rsquo;t
+even substitute rice for potatoes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not unless your patronage is more Oriental
+than Celtic.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Healthy people have to have honest fare of
+about the type to which their environment has
+accustomed them, but intelligently supervised,&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+the conclusion I&rsquo;ve come to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You may be right,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;my general
+notion has always been that everybody ate
+wrong, and that everybody who would stand
+for it ought to be started all over again. I
+wouldn&rsquo;t stand for it, so I&rsquo;ve never looked into
+the matter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;People don&rsquo;t eat wrong, that&rsquo;s the really
+startling discovery I&rsquo;ve made recently. I mean
+healthy people don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it,&rdquo; said Billy; &ldquo;the way people
+eat is one of the most outrageous of the
+human scandals. I read the newspapers.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The newspapers don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Nancy said;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73' ></a>73</span>
+&ldquo;the individual usually has an instinctive working
+knowledge of the diet that is good for him,
+and his digestional experiences have taught him
+how to regulate it to some extent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you account for the clerk that orders
+coffee and sinkers at Child&rsquo;s every day?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s exactly it,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;He knows
+that he needs bulk and stimulation. He&rsquo;s handicapped
+by his poverty, but he gets the nearest
+substitute for the diet that suits him that he
+can get. If he could afford it he would have a
+square meal that would nourish him as well as
+warm and fill him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see but what this interesting theory
+lets you out altogether. Why Outside Inn, with
+its foxy table d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te, if what&rsquo;s one man&rsquo;s meat
+is another man&rsquo;s poison, and natural selection
+is the order of the day?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Outside Inn is all the more necessary to the
+welfare of a nation that&rsquo;s being starved out by
+the high cost of living. All I need to do is to
+have a little more variety, to have all the nutritive
+requirements in each meal, and such
+generous servings that every patron can make
+out a meal satisfying to himself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Everybody knows that all fat people eat all
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74' ></a>74</span>
+the sweets that they can get, and all thin people
+take tea without sugar with lemon in it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These people aren&rsquo;t healthy. That&rsquo;s where
+the intelligent supervision comes in.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you intend to do about them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Watch over them a little more carefully.
+Regulate their servings craftily. Be sure of
+my tables. I have lots of schemes. I&rsquo;ll tell you
+about them sometime.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Sometime</i>,&mdash;for this relief much thanks,&rdquo;
+murmured Billy; &ldquo;just now I&rsquo;ve had as much
+of these matters as I can stand. I don&rsquo;t see how
+you are going to run this thing on a profit,
+though.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m losing money
+every minute. That fifteen thousand dollars is
+almost gone now, of course. Billy, do you think
+it would be perfectly awful if I didn&rsquo;t try to
+make money at all?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it would be a good deal wiser. I&rsquo;ll
+raise all the money you want on your expectations.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right then. I&rsquo;m not going to worry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy looked down into the courtyard from
+the room up-stairs in which they had been talking.
+Already the preparations for lunch were
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75' ></a>75</span>
+under way. The girls were moving deftly
+about, laying cloths and arranging flower vases
+and silver.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can I get right down there and sit down at
+one of those tables and have my lunch,&rdquo; Billy
+inquired, &ldquo;or do I have to go out of the back
+door and come in the front like a regular customer?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Whichever you prefer. There&rsquo;s Caroline
+coming in at the gate now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then, I know which I prefer,&rdquo; Billy
+said, swimming realistically toward the stairs.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are getting fat, Billy,&rdquo; Caroline informed
+him critically after the amenities were
+over, and the meal appropriately begun. &ldquo;You
+ought to watch your diet a little more carefully.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Billy said firmly, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t need to watch
+my diet, I&rsquo;m perfectly healthy, and therefore
+my natural cravings will point the way to my
+most judicious nourishment. Nancy has explained
+all to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a very interesting theory of
+Nancy&rsquo;s,&rdquo; Caroline said, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t altogether
+agree with it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do,&rdquo; said Billy, then he added hastily, &ldquo;but
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76' ></a>76</span>
+I agree with you, too, Caroline. You are to
+all other women what moonlight is to sunlight,
+or I mean&mdash;what sunlight is to moonlight. In
+other words&mdash;you are the goods.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be silly, Billy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s only one thing in all this wide universe
+that you can&rsquo;t say to me, Caroline, and
+&lsquo;don&rsquo;t be silly, Billy,&rsquo; is that thing,&mdash;express
+this same thing in <i>vers libre</i> if you must say
+it! Look at the handsome soup you&rsquo;re getting.
+What is the name of that soup, Molly?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He smiled ingratiatingly at the little waitress,
+who always beamed at any one of Nancy&rsquo;s
+particular friends that came into the restaurant,
+and made a point of serving them if she
+could possibly arrange it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Cream of spinach,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a special
+to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Beautiful soup so rich and green,&rdquo; Billy began
+in a soulful baritone, &ldquo;waiting in a hot
+tureen. Where&rsquo;s mine, Molly?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dolly&rsquo;s bringing your first course, sir.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy gazed in perplexity at the half of a delicious
+grapefruit set before him by the duplicate
+of the pretty girl who stood smiling deprecatingly
+behind Caroline&rsquo;s chair.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77' ></a>77</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s my soup, Dolly?&rdquo; Billy asked with
+a thundering sternness of manner.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry, sir,&rdquo; Dolly began glibly, &ldquo;but the
+soup has given out. Will you be good enough
+to allow the substitution of&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a formula,&rdquo; Billy said. &ldquo;The soup
+can&rsquo;t be out. We&rsquo;re the first people in the dining-room.
+Go tell Miss Nancy that I will be
+served with some of that green soup at once, or
+know the reason why.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The two waitresses exchanged glances, and
+went off together suppressing giggles, to return
+almost immediately, their risibility still causing
+them great physical inconvenience.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Intelligent supervision, she says.&rdquo; Dolly
+exploded into the miniature patch of muslin
+and ribbon that served her as an apron.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She says that&rsquo;s the reason why,&rdquo; Molly contributed,&mdash;following
+her sister&rsquo;s example.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy doesn&rsquo;t serve soup to a fat man if she
+can possibly avoid it. That&rsquo;s part of her theory,&rdquo;
+Caroline explained. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no use making a
+fuss about it, because you won&rsquo;t get it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy sat looking at his grapefruit for some
+seconds in silence. Then he began on it slowly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll be damned,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78' ></a>78</span></div>
+<p>Nancy was learning a great many things
+very rapidly. The practical application of her
+theories of feeding mankind to her actual experiments
+with the shifting population of New
+York, revolutionized her attitude toward the
+problem almost daily. She had started in with
+a great many ideas and ideals of service, with
+preconceived notions of balanced rations, and
+exact distribution of fuel stuffs to the human
+unit. She had come to realize very shortly, that
+the human unit was a quantity as incalculable
+in its relation to its digestive problems as its
+psychological ones. She had believed vaguely
+that in reference to food values the race made
+its great exception to its rule of working out
+toward normality; but she changed that opinion
+very quickly as she watched her fellow men
+selecting their diet with as sure an instinct for
+their nutritive requirements as if she had
+coached them personally for years.</p>
+<p>From the assumption that she lived in a
+world gone dietetically mad, and hence in the
+process of destroying itself, she had gradually
+come to see that in this phase of his struggle
+for existence, as well as in every other, the instinct
+of man operated automatically in the direction
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79' ></a>79</span>
+of his salvation. This new attitude in
+tie matter relieved her of much of her responsibility,
+but left her not less anxious to do what
+she could for her kind in the matter of calories.
+She was, as she had shown in her treatment of
+Billy, not entirely blinded by her growing predilection
+in favor of the doctrine of natural
+selection.</p>
+<p>Every day she had Gaspard make, in addition
+to his regular table d&rsquo;h&ocirc;te menu, dozens of
+nutritive custards, quarts of stimulating broths
+and jellies and other dishes containing the maximum
+of easily digested and highly concentrated
+nutriment, and these she managed to
+have Molly or Dolly or even Hildeguard&mdash;the
+Alma Tadema girl&mdash;introduce into the luncheon
+or dinner service in the case of those patrons
+who seemed to need peculiarly careful nourishing.
+Let a white-faced girl sink into a seat
+within the range of Nancy&rsquo;s vision,&mdash;she always
+ensconced herself in the doorway screened
+with vines at the beginning of a meal,&mdash;and she
+gave orders at once for the crafty substitution
+of invalid broth for soup, of rich nut bread for
+the ordinary rolls and crackers, of custards or
+specially made ice-cream for the dessert of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80' ></a>80</span>
+day. No overfed, pasty-faced man ever escaped
+from Outside Inn until an attempt at
+least had been made to introduce a portion of
+stewed prunes into his diet; and all such were
+fed the minimum of bread and other starchy
+foods, and the maximum of salad and green
+vegetables. Nancy had gluten bread made in
+quantities for the stouter element of her patronage,
+and in nine cases out of ten she was
+able to get it served and eaten without protest.
+Some of her regular patrons began to change
+weight gradually, a heavy man or two became
+less heavy, and a wraithlike girl now and then
+took on a new bloom and substantiality. These
+were the triumphs for which Nancy lived. Her
+only regret was that she was not able to give
+to each her personal time and attention, and establish
+herself on a footing with her patrons
+where she might learn from their own lips the
+secrets of their metabolism.</p>
+<p>She was not known as the proprietor of the
+place. In fact, the management of the restaurant
+was kept a careful secret from those who
+frequented it and with the habitual indifference
+of New Yorkers to the power behind the throne,
+so long as its affairs were manipulated in good
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81' ></a>81</span>
+and regular order, they soon ceased to feel any
+apparent curiosity about it. Betty, who sometimes
+rebelled at remaining so scrupulously incognita,
+defiantly took the limelight at intervals
+and moved among the assembled guests with an
+authoritative and possessive air, adjusting and
+rearranging small details, and acknowledging
+the presence of <i>habitu&eacute;s</i>, but since her attentions
+were popularly supposed to be those of a
+superior head waitress, she soon tired of the
+gesture of offering them.</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s intention had been to allow the restaurant
+to speak for itself, and then at the climactic
+moment to allow her connection with it
+to be discovered, and to speak for it with all
+the force and earnestness of which she was
+capable. She had meant to stand sponsor for
+the practical working theory on which her experiment
+was based, and she had already partially
+formulated interviews with herself in
+which she modestly acknowledged the success
+of that experiment, but the untoward direction
+in which it was developing made such a revelation
+inexpedient.</p>
+<p>There was one regular patron to whom she
+was peculiarly anxious to remain incognita.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82' ></a>82</span>
+Collier Pratt made it his almost invariable
+habit to come sauntering toward the table in
+the corner, under the life-sized effigy of the <i>V&ecirc;nus
+de Medici</i>, at seven o&rsquo;clock in the evening,
+and that table was scrupulously reserved for
+him. To it were sent the choicest of all the
+viands that Outside Inn could command. Michael
+was tacitly sped on his way with his teapot
+full of claret. Gaspard did amazing things
+with the breasts of ducks and segments of
+orange, with squab chicken stuffed with new
+corn, with <i>filets de sole a la Marguery</i>. Nancy
+craftily spurred him on to his most ambitious
+achievements under pretense of wishing her
+own appetite stimulated, and the big cook, who
+adored her, produced triumph after triumph
+of his art for her delectation, whereupon the
+biggest part of it was cunningly smuggled out
+to the artist. From behind her screen of vines
+Nancy watched the fine features of her quondam
+friend light with the rapture of the <i>gourmet</i>
+as be sampled Gaspard&rsquo;s sauce <i>verte</i> or
+Hollandaise or lifted the glass cover from the
+mushrooms <i>sous cloche</i> and inhaled their delicate
+aroma.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder if he finds our food very American
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83' ></a>83</span>
+in character, now,&rdquo; she said to herself,
+with a blush at the memory of the real southern
+cornbread and candied sweet potatoes that were
+offered him in the initial weeks of his patronage.
+Gaspard still made these delicacies for
+luncheon, but they had been almost entirely
+banished from the dinner menu. Afternoon
+tea at the Inn was famous for the wonderful
+waffles produced with Parisian precision from
+a traditional Virginian recipe, but Collier Pratt
+never appeared at either of these meals to criticize
+them for being American.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84' ></a>84</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_VI_AN_ELEEMOSYNARY_INSTITUTION'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>An Eleemosynary Institution</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>One night during the latter part of July
+Betty had a birthday, and according to
+immemorial custom Caroline and Nancy and
+Dick and Billy helped her to celebrate it at one
+of the old-fashioned down-town hotels where
+they had ordered practically the same dinner
+for her anniversaries ever since they had been
+grown up enough to celebrate them unchaperoned.
+Caroline&rsquo;s brother, Preston, had made
+a sixth member of the party for the first two or
+three years, but he had been located in London
+since then, in charge of the English office of his
+firm, to which he had been suddenly appointed
+a month after he and Betty, who had been
+sweethearts, had had a spectacular quarrel.</p>
+<p>Nancy stayed by the celebration until about
+half past nine, and then Dick put her into a
+taxi-cab, and she fled back to her responsibilities
+as mistress of Outside Inn, agreeing to
+meet the others later for the rounding out of
+the evening. As she drew up before the big
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85' ></a>85</span>
+gate the courtyard seemed practically deserted.
+The waitresses were busy clearing away the
+few cluttered tables left by the last late guests,
+and in one sheltered corner a man and a girl
+were frankly holding hands across the table,
+while they whispered earnestly of some impending
+parting. The big canopy of striped awning
+cloth had been drawn over the tables, as the
+rather heavy air of the evening bad been punctured
+occasionally by a swift scattering of rain.
+Nancy was half-way across the court before she
+realized that Collier Pratt was still occupying
+his accustomed seat under the shadow of the
+big Venus. She had not seen him face to face
+or communicated with him since the day she
+had looked him up in the telephone book and
+sent his cape to him by special messenger. She
+stopped involuntarily as she reached his side,
+and he looked up and smiled as he recognized
+her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re late again, Miss Ann Martin,&rdquo; he
+said, rising and pulling out a chair for her opposite
+his own. &ldquo;I think perhaps I can pull the
+wires and procure you some sustenance if you
+will say the word.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no word to say,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but how
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86' ></a>86</span>
+do you do? I&rsquo;ve just dined elsewhere. I only
+stopped in here for a moment to get something&mdash;something
+I left here at lunch.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In that case I&rsquo;ll offer you a drop of Michael&rsquo;s
+tea in my water glass.&rdquo; He poured a tablespoonful
+or so of claret from the teapot into
+the glass of ice-water before him, and added
+several lumps of sugar to the concoction, which
+he stirred gravely for some time before he offered
+it to her. &ldquo;I never touch water myself.
+This is <i>eau rougie</i> as the French children drink
+it. It&rsquo;s really better for you than ice-cream and
+a glass of water.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And less American,&rdquo; Nancy murmured with
+her eyes down.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And less American,&rdquo; he acquiesced blandly.</p>
+<p>Nancy sipped her drink, and Collier Pratt
+stirred the dregs in his coffee cup&mdash;Nancy had
+overheard some of her patrons remarking on
+the curious habits of a man who consumed a
+pot of tea and a pot of coffee at one and the
+same meal&mdash;and they regarded each other for
+some time in silence. Michael and Hildeguard,
+Molly and Dolly and two others of the staff of
+girls were grouped in the doorway exactly in
+Nancy&rsquo;s range of vision, and whispering to one
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87' ></a>87</span>
+another excitedly concerning the phenomenon
+that met their eyes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The little girl?&rdquo; Nancy said, trying to ignore
+the composite scrutiny to which she was being
+subjected, by turning determinedly to her companion,
+&ldquo;the little girl that you spoke of&mdash;is she
+well?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s as well as a motherless baby could
+be, subjected to the irregularities of a life like
+mine. Still she seems to thrive on it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is she yours?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, she&rsquo;s mine,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said, gravely
+dismissing the subject, and leaving Nancy half
+ashamed of her boldness in putting the question,
+half possessed of a madness to know the
+answer at any cost.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve discovered something very interesting,&rdquo;
+Collier Pratt said, after an interval in which
+Nancy felt that he was perfectly cognizant of
+her struggle with her curiosity; &ldquo;in fact, it&rsquo;s
+one of the most interesting discoveries that I
+have made in the course of a not unadventurous
+life. Do you come to this restaurant often?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Quite often,&rdquo; Nancy equivocated, &ldquo;earlier in
+the day. For luncheon and for tea.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I come here almost every night of my life,&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88' ></a>88</span>
+Collier Pratt declared, &ldquo;and I intend to continue
+to come so long as <i>le bon Dieu</i> spares me my
+health and my epicurean taste. You know that
+I spoke of the food here before. The character
+of it has changed entirely. It&rsquo;s unmistakably
+French now, not to say Parisian. Outside of
+Paris or Vienna I have never tasted such soups,
+such sauce, such delicate and suggestive flavors.
+My entire existence has been revolutionized by
+the experience. I am no longer the lonely and
+unhappy man you discovered at this gate a
+short month ago. I can not cavil at an America
+that furnishes me with such food as I get in
+this place.</p>
+<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'>
+<p>&ldquo;Man may live without friends, and may live without books.</p>
+<p>But civilized man can not live without cooks,&rdquo;</p>
+</div></div>
+<p class='ni'>Nancy quoted sententiously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly. The whole point is that the cooking
+here is civilized. Oh! you ought to come
+here to dinner, my friend. I don&rsquo;t know what
+the luncheons and teas are like&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re very good,&rdquo; Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But not like the dinners, I&rsquo;ll wager. The
+dinners are the very last word! I don&rsquo;t know
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89' ></a>89</span>
+why this place isn&rsquo;t famous. Of course, I do
+my best to keep it a secret from the artistic
+rabble I know. It would be overrun with them
+in a week, and its character utterly ruined.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder if it would.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;m sure of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is your discovery?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt leaned dramatically closer to
+her, and Nancy instinctively bent forward
+across the tiny table until her face was very
+near to his.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know anything about the price of
+foodstuffs?&rdquo; he demanded.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A little,&rdquo; Nancy admitted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know then that the price of every commodity
+has soared unthinkably high, that the
+mere problem of providing the ordinary commonplace
+meal at the ordinary commonplace
+restaurant has become almost unsolvable to the
+proprietors? Most of the eating places in New
+York are run at a loss, while the management
+is marking time and praying for a change in
+conditions. Well, here we have a restaurant
+opening at the most crucial period in the history
+of such enterprises, offering its patrons
+the delicacies of the season most exquisitely
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90' ></a>90</span>
+cooked, at what is practically the minimum
+price for a respectable meal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;More than that, there are people who come
+here, who order one thing and get another, and
+the thing they get is always a much more elaborate
+and extravagant dish than the one they
+asked for. I&rsquo;ve seen that happen again and
+again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you?&rdquo; Nancy asked faintly, shrinking
+a little beneath the intentness of his look. &ldquo;How&mdash;how
+do you account for it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s only one way to account for it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think that there is an&mdash;an unlimited
+amount of capital behind it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think that goes without saying,&rdquo; he said;
+&ldquo;there must be an unlimited amount of capital
+behind it, or it wouldn&rsquo;t continue to flourish
+like a green bay tree; but that&rsquo;s not in the nature
+of a discovery. Anybody with any power
+of observation at all would have come to that
+conclusion long since.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then, what is it you have found out?&rdquo;
+Nancy asked, quaking.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My discovery is&mdash;&rdquo; Collier Pratt paused for
+the whole effect of his revelation to penetrate
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91' ></a>91</span>
+to her consciousness, &ldquo;that this whole outfit is
+run <i>philanthropically</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Philanthropically?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see? There can&rsquo;t be any other
+explanation of it. It&rsquo;s an eleemosynary institution.
+That&rsquo;s what it is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy met his expectant eyes with a trifle
+of wildness in her own, but he continued to
+hold her gaze triumphantly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see,&rdquo; he repeated, &ldquo;doesn&rsquo;t everything
+point to that as the only possible explanation?
+It&rsquo;s some rich woman&rsquo;s plaything. That
+accounts for the food, the setting,&mdash;everything
+in fact that has puzzled us. Amateur,&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+the word; effective, delightful but inexperienced.
+It sticks out all over the place.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The food isn&rsquo;t amateur,&rdquo; Nancy said, a little
+resentfully.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing is amateur but the spirit behind it,
+through which we profit. Don&rsquo;t you see?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m beginning to see,&rdquo; Nancy admitted,
+&ldquo;perhaps you are right. I guess the place is
+run philanthropically. I&mdash;I hadn&rsquo;t quite realized
+it before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What did you think?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I knew that the&mdash;one who was running it
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92' ></a>92</span>
+wasn&rsquo;t quite sure where she was coming out,
+but I didn&rsquo;t think of it is an eleemosynary institution.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, it is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an unscrupulous sort of charity, then,&rdquo;
+Nancy mused, &ldquo;if it&rsquo;s masquerading as self-respecting
+and self-supporting. I&mdash;I&rsquo;ve never approved
+of things like that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why quarrel with a scheme so beneficent?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you care?&rdquo; Nancy asked with a catch
+in her voice that was very like an appeal.</p>
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why should I?&rdquo; he smiled.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I don&rsquo;t care, either,&rdquo; she decided with
+an emphasis that was entirely lost on the man
+on the other side of the table.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93' ></a>93</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_VII_CAVEMAN_STUFF'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Cave-man Stuff</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>&ldquo;Cave-man stuff,&rdquo; Billy said to Dick,
+pointing a thumb over his shoulder
+toward the interior of the Broadway moving-picture
+palace at the exit of which they had
+just met accidentally. &ldquo;It always goes big,
+doesn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It does,&rdquo; Dick agreed thoughtfully, &ldquo;in the
+movies anyhow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Caroline says that the modern woman has
+her response to that kind of thing refined all
+out of her.&rdquo; Billy intended his tone to be entirely
+jocular, but there was a note of anxiety
+in it that was not lost on his friend.</p>
+<p>Dick paused under the shelter of a lurid poster&mdash;displaying
+a fierce gentleman in crude
+blue, showing all his teeth, and in the act of
+strangling an early Victorian ingenue with a
+dimple,&mdash;and lit a cigarette with his first match.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Caroline may have,&rdquo; he said, puffing to keep
+his light against the breeze, &ldquo;but I doubt it.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94' ></a>94</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Rough stuff doesn&rsquo;t seem to appeal to her,&rdquo;
+Billy said, quite humorously this time.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s healthy,&rdquo; Dick mused, &ldquo;rides horseback,
+plays tennis and all that. Wouldn&rsquo;t she
+have liked the guy that swung himself on the
+roof between the two poles?&rdquo; He indicated
+again the direction of the theater from which
+they had just emerged.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She would have liked him,&rdquo; Billy said gloomily,
+&ldquo;but the show would have started her
+arguing about this whole moving-picture
+proposition,&mdash;its crudity, and its tremendous
+sacrifice of artistic values, and so on and so on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure, she&rsquo;s a highbrow. Highbrows always
+cerebrate about the movies in one way or another.
+Nancy doesn&rsquo;t get it at just that angle,
+of course. She hasn&rsquo;t got Caroline&rsquo;s intellectual
+appetite. She&rsquo;s not interested in the movies because
+she hasn&rsquo;t got a moving-picture house of
+her own. The world is not Nancy&rsquo;s oyster&mdash;it&rsquo;s
+her lump of putty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know which is the worst,&rdquo; Billy said.
+&ldquo;Caroline won&rsquo;t listen to anything you say to
+her,&mdash;but then neither will Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Women never listen to anything,&rdquo; Dick said
+profoundly, &ldquo;unless they&rsquo;re doing it on purpose,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95' ></a>95</span>
+or they happen to be interested. I imagine
+Caroline is a little less tractable, but
+Nancy is capable of doing the most damage.
+She works with concrete materials. Caroline&rsquo;s
+kit is crammed with nothing but ideas.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing <i>but</i>&mdash;&rdquo; Billy groaned.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;As for this cave-man business&mdash;theoretically,
+they ought to react to it,&mdash;both of them.
+They&rsquo;re both normal, well-balanced young
+ladies.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re both runnin&rsquo; pretty hard to keep in
+the same place, just at present.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy isn&rsquo;t doing that&mdash;not by a long shot,&rdquo;
+Dick said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s not keeping in the same place certainly,&rdquo;
+Billy agreed. &ldquo;Caroline is all eaten up
+by this economic independence idea.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good idea,&rdquo; Dick admitted; &ldquo;economic
+conditions are changing. No reason at all that
+a woman shouldn&rsquo;t prove herself willing to cope
+with them, as long as she gets things in the order
+of their importance. Earning her living
+isn&rsquo;t better than the Mother-Home-and-Heaven
+job. It&rsquo;s a way out, if she gets left, or gets
+stung.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m only thankful Caroline can&rsquo;t hear you.&rdquo;
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96' ></a>96</span>
+Billy raised pious eyes to heaven but he continued
+more seriously after a second, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all
+right to theorize, but practically speaking both
+our girls are getting beyond our control.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not engaged to Nancy,&rdquo; Dick said a trifle
+stiffly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you ought to be,&rdquo; Billy said.</p>
+<p>Dick stiffened. He was not used to speaking
+of his relations with Nancy to any one&mdash;even
+to Billy, who was the closest friend he had.
+They walked up Broadway in silence for a
+while, toward the cross-street which housed the
+university club which was their common objective.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know I ought to be,&rdquo; Dick said, just as
+Billy was formulating an apology for his presumption,
+&ldquo;or I ought to marry her out of hand.
+This watchful waiting&rsquo;s entirely the wrong
+idea.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why do we do it then?&rdquo; Billy inquired pathetically.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wanted Nancy to sow her economic wild
+oats. I guess you felt the same way about
+Caroline.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, they&rsquo;ve sowed &rsquo;em, haven&rsquo;t they?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not by a long shot. That&rsquo;s the trouble,&mdash;they
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97' ></a>97</span>
+don&rsquo;t get any forrider, from our point of
+view. I thought it would be the best policy to
+stand by and let Nancy work it out. I thought
+her restaurant would either fail spectacularly
+in a month, or succeed brilliantly and she&rsquo;d
+make over the executive end of it to somebody
+else. I never thought of her buckling down
+like this, and wearing herself out at it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a pretty keen edge on Caroline this
+summer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid Nancy&rsquo;s in pretty deep,&rdquo; Dick
+said. &ldquo;The money end of it worries me as much
+as anything.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t let that worry me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She won&rsquo;t take any of mine, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know she won&rsquo;t. See here, Dick, I wouldn&rsquo;t
+worry about Nancy&rsquo;s finances. She&rsquo;ll come out
+all right about money.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What makes you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know so. We&rsquo;ve got lots of things in the
+world to worry about, things that are scheduled
+to go wrong unless we&rsquo;re mighty delicate in the
+way we handle &rsquo;em. Let&rsquo;s worry about <i>them</i>,
+and leave Nancy&rsquo;s financial problems to take
+care of themselves.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Which means,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;that you are
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98' ></a>98</span>
+sure that she&rsquo;s all right. I&rsquo;m not in her confidence
+in this matter&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I am,&rdquo; Billy said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m her legal adviser,
+and with all due respect to your taste
+in girls, it&rsquo;s a very difficult position to occupy.
+What with the things she won&rsquo;t listen to and
+the things she won&rsquo;t learn, and the things she
+actually knows more about than I do&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The indulgent smile of the true lover lit
+Dick&rsquo;s face, as if Billy had waxed profoundly
+eulogistic. Unconsciously, Billy&rsquo;s own tenderness
+took fire at the flame.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t we run away with &rsquo;em?&rdquo; he said,
+breathing heavily.</p>
+<p>Dick stopped in a convenient doorway to light
+his third cigarette, end on.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the answer to you and Caroline,&rdquo; he
+said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why not to you and Nancy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It may be,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;I dunno. I&rsquo;ve
+reached an <i>impasse</i>. Still there is a great deal
+in your proposition.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They turned in at the portico that extended
+out over the big oak doors of their club. An
+attendant in white turned the knob for them,
+with the grin of enthusiastic welcome that was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99' ></a>99</span>
+the usual tribute to these two good-looking,
+well set up young men from those who served
+them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll think it over,&rdquo; Dick added, as he gave
+up his hat and stick, &ldquo;and let you know what
+decision I come to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>In another five minutes they were deep in a
+game of Kelly-pool from which Dick emerged
+triumphantly richer by the sum of a dollar and
+ninety cents, and Billy the poorer by the loss
+of a quarter.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>There is a town in Connecticut, within a reasonable
+motoring distance from New York that
+has been called the Gretna Green of America.
+Here well-informed young couples are able to
+expedite the business of matrimony with a phenomenal
+neatness and despatch. Licenses can
+be procured by special dispensation, and the
+nuptial knot tied as solemnly and solidly as if a
+premeditated train of bridesmaids and flower
+girls and loving relatives had been rehearsed
+for days in advance.</p>
+<p>Dick and his Rolls-Royce had assisted at a
+hymeneal celebration or two, where a successful
+rush had been made for the temporary altars
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100' ></a>100</span>
+of this beneficent town with the most felicitous
+results, and he knew the procedure.
+When he and Billy organized an afternoon excursion
+into Connecticut, they tacitly avoided
+all mention of the consummation they hoped to
+bring about, but they both understood the nature
+and significance of the expedition. Dick,&mdash;who
+was used to the easy accomplishment of his
+designs and purposes, for most obstacles gave
+way before his magnetic onslaught,&mdash;had only
+sketchily outlined his scheme of proceedings,
+but he trusted to the magic of that inspiration
+that seldom or never failed him. He was
+the sort of young man that the last century
+novelists always referred to as &ldquo;fortune&rsquo;s
+favorite,&rdquo; and his luck so rarely betrayed him
+that he had almost come to believe it to be
+invincible.</p>
+<p>His general idea was to get Nancy and Caroline
+to drive into the country, through the cool
+rush of the freer purer air of the suburbs, give
+them lunch at some smart road-house, soothingly
+restful and dim, where the temperature
+was artificially lowered, and they could powder
+their noses at will; and from thence go on until
+they were within the radius of the charmed circle
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101' ></a>101</span>
+where modern miracles were performed
+while the expectant bridegroom waited.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy, my dear, we are going to be married,&rdquo;&mdash;that
+he had formulated, &ldquo;we&rsquo;re going to
+be done with all this nonsense of waiting and
+doubting the evidence of our own senses and
+our own hearts. We&rsquo;re going to put an end to
+the folly of trying to do without each other,&mdash;your
+folly of trying to feed all itinerant New
+York; my folly of standing by and letting you
+do it, or any other fool thing that your fancy
+happens to dictate. You&rsquo;re mine and I&rsquo;m yours,
+and I&rsquo;m going to take you&mdash;take you to-day and
+prove it to you.&rdquo; This was to be timed to be
+delivered at just about the moment when they
+drew up in front of the office of the justice of
+the peace, who was Dick&rsquo;s friend of old. &ldquo;Hold
+up your head, my dear, and put your hat on
+straight; we&rsquo;re going into that building to be
+made man and wife, and we&rsquo;re not coming out
+of it until the deed has been done.&rdquo; In some
+such fashion, he meant to carry it through.
+Many a time in the years gone by he had
+steered Nancy through some high-handed escapade
+that she would only have consented to
+on the spur of the moment. She was one of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102' ></a>102</span>
+these women who responded automatically to
+the voice of a master. He had failed in mastery
+this last year or so. That was the secret of his
+failure with her, but the days of that failure
+were numbered now. He was going to succeed.</p>
+<p>On the back seat of the big car he expected
+Billy and Caroline to be going through much
+the same sort of scene.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve come to a show-down now, Caroline,&mdash;either
+I sit in this game, or get out.&rdquo; He
+could imagine Billy bringing Caroline bluntly
+to terms with comparatively little effort. That
+was what she needed&mdash;Caroline&mdash;a strong
+hand. Billy&rsquo;s problem was simple. Caroline
+had already signified her preference for him.
+She wore his ring. Billy had only to pick her
+up, kicking and screaming if need be, and
+bear her to the altar. She would marry him
+if he insisted. That was clear to the most superficial
+of observers,&mdash;but Nancy was different.</p>
+<p>The day was hot, and grew steadily hotter.
+By the time Nancy and Caroline were actually
+in the car, after an almost superhuman
+effort to assemble them and their various
+accessories of veils and wraps, and to dispose
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103' ></a>103</span>
+of the assortment of errands and messages
+that both girls seemed to be committed to despatch
+before they could pass the boundaries of
+Greater New York, the two men were very
+nearly exhausted. It was only when the chauffeur
+let the car out to a speed greatly in excess
+of the limitations on some clear stretch of road,
+that the breath of the country brought them
+any relief whatsoever.</p>
+<p>Dick looked over his shoulder at the two in
+the back seat, and noted Caroline&rsquo;s pallor, and
+the fact that she was allowing a listless hand
+to linger in Billy&rsquo;s; but when he turned back
+to Nancy he discovered no such encouraging
+symptoms. She was sitting lightly relaxed at
+his side, but there was nothing even negatively
+responsive in her attitude. Her color was high;
+her breath coming evenly from between her
+slightly parted lips. She looked like a child
+oblivious to everything but some innocent daydream.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You look as if you were dreaming of candy
+and kisses, Nancy,&mdash;are you?&rdquo; he asked presently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m just glad to be free. It&rsquo;s been a
+long time since I&rsquo;ve played hooky.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104' ></a>104</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I know it.&rdquo; The &ldquo;dear&rdquo; constrained him,
+and he did not add it: &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been working
+most unholy hard. I&mdash;I hate to have you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But I was never so happy in my life.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s good.&rdquo; His voice hoarsened with the
+effort to keep it steady and casual. &ldquo;Is everything
+going all right?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is&mdash;is the money end of it all right?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, that is, I am not worrying about
+money.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not making money?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are not losing any?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am&mdash;a little. That was to be expected,
+don&rsquo;t you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How much are you losing?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know exactly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to know. Are you keeping your
+own books?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty helps me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you losing a hundred a month?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Five hundred?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A thousand?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105' ></a>105</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A thousand?&rdquo; he insisted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Nancy answered recklessly, &ldquo;the way
+I run it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t make any difference, of course;&rdquo;
+Dick said, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve got all my money behind
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t anybody&rsquo;s money behind me except
+my own.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You had fifteen thousand dollars. Do you
+mean to say that you have any of that left to
+draw on?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mind telling me how you are managing?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy borrowed some money for me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On what security?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t he come to me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I told him not to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy, do you realize that you&rsquo;re the most
+exasperating woman that ever walked the face
+of this earth?&rdquo; the unhappy lover asked.</p>
+<p>Nancy managed to convey the fact that Dick&rsquo;s
+asseveration both surprised and pained her,
+without resorting to the use of words.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106' ></a>106</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish you wouldn&rsquo;t spoil this lovely party,&rdquo;
+she said to him a few seconds later. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+extremely tired, and I should like to get my
+mind off my business instead of going over
+these tiresome details with anybody.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You look very innocent and kind and loving,&rdquo;
+Dick said desperately, &ldquo;but at heart
+you&rsquo;re a little fraud, Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She interrupted him to point out two children
+laden with wild flowers, trudging along the
+roadside.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;See how adorably dirty and happy they are,&rdquo;
+she cried. &ldquo;That little fellow has his shoestrings
+untied, and keeps tripping on them, he&rsquo;s
+so tired, but he&rsquo;s so crazy about the posies that
+he doesn&rsquo;t care. I wonder if he&rsquo;s taking them
+home to his mother.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re devoted to children, Nancy, aren&rsquo;t
+you?&rdquo; Dick&rsquo;s voice softened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I am, and some day I&rsquo;m going to
+adopt a whole orphan asylum,&rdquo;&mdash;her voice
+altered in a way that Dick did not in the
+least understand. &ldquo;I could if I wanted to,&rdquo;
+she laughed. &ldquo;Maybe I will want to some
+day. So many of my ideas are being changed
+and modified by experience.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107' ></a>107</span></div>
+<p>The road-house of his choice, when they
+reached it, proved to have deteriorated sadly
+since his last visit. The cool interior that he
+remembered had been inopportunely opened to
+the hottest blast of the day&rsquo;s heat, and hermetically
+sealed again, or at least so it seemed
+to Dick; and the furniture was all red and
+thickly, almost suffocatingly, upholstered.
+Nancy had no comment on the torrid air of
+the dining-room,&mdash;she rarely complained about
+anything. Even the presence of a fly in her
+bouillon jelly scarcely disturbed her equanimity,
+but Dick knew that she was secretly
+sustained by the conviction that such an
+accident was impossible under her system of
+supervision at Outside Inn, and resented her
+tranquillity accordingly.</p>
+<p>Caroline, behaving not so well, seemed to
+him a much more human and sympathetic figure,
+though her nose took on a high shine
+unknown to Nancy&rsquo;s demurer and more discreetly
+served features; but Billy evidently
+preferred Nancy&rsquo;s deportment, which was on
+the surface calm and reassuring.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s a sport,&rdquo; he pointed out to Caroline
+enthusiastically, &ldquo;no fly in the ointment
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108' ></a>108</span>
+gets her goat. She enjoys herself even when
+she&rsquo;s perfectly miserable.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She doesn&rsquo;t feel the heat the way I do,&rdquo;
+Caroline snapped.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel the heat,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but I&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s got a system,&rdquo; Dick cut in savagely:
+&ldquo;she stands it just as long as she can, and then
+she takes it out of me in some diabolical
+fashion.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s gray-blue eyes took on the far-away
+look that those who loved her had learned to
+associate with her most baffling moments.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Just by being especially nice to Dick,&rdquo; she
+said thoughtfully, &ldquo;I can make him more furious
+with me than in any other way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy and Caroline finished their sloppy
+ices at the table together while Dick and Billy
+sought the solace of a pipe in the garage outside.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand coming into Connecticut
+to-day,&rdquo; Nancy said as soon as they were
+alone; &ldquo;it seems like such a stupid excursion
+for Dick to make. He&rsquo;s usually pretty good
+at picking out places to go. In fact, he has a
+kind of genius for it.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109' ></a>109</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;He slipped up this time,&rdquo; Caroline said,
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m so hot.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So am I,&rdquo; said Nancy, slumping limply into
+the depths of her red velour chair. &ldquo;I want to
+get back to New York. Oh! what was it you
+told me the other day that you had been saving
+up to tell me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Caroline brightened.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes! Why, it was something Collier
+Pratt said about you. You know Betty has
+scraped up quite an acquaintance with him.
+She goes and sits down at his table sometimes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s going to be stopped doing <i>that</i>,&rdquo;
+Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you remember the night when you
+went home early with a headache, and passed
+by his table going out?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, but I didn&rsquo;t know he saw me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He sees everything, Betty says.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t suspect me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t know you came out of the interior.
+He said to Betty, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s curious that Miss
+Martin never stays here to dine in the evening,
+though she so often drops in.&rsquo; Betty is pretty
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110' ></a>110</span>
+quick, you know. She said, &lsquo;I think Miss Martin
+is a friend of the proprietor.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So I am,&rdquo; said Nancy, &ldquo;the best friend
+she&rsquo;s got. Go on, dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then he said slowly and thoughtfully, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s
+a crime for a woman like that not to be the
+mother of children. If ever I saw a maternal
+type, Miss Ann Martin is the apotheosis of it.
+Why some man hasn&rsquo;t made her understand
+that long ago I can not see.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s cheeks burned crimson and then
+white again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How dare Betty?&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wait till you hear. You know Betty
+doesn&rsquo;t care what she says. Her reply to that
+was peculiarly Bettyish. She sighed and cast
+down her eyes,&mdash;the little imp! &lsquo;The course of
+true love never does run smooth,&rsquo; she said;
+&lsquo;perhaps Ann has discovered the truth of that
+old saying in some new connection.&rsquo; She
+didn&rsquo;t mean to be a cat, she was only trying
+to create a romantic interest in your affairs,
+doing as she would be done by. The effect was
+more than she bargained for though. Collier
+Pratt&rsquo;s eyes quite lit up. &lsquo;I can imagine no
+greater crime than frustrating the instincts
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111' ></a>111</span>
+of a woman like that,&rsquo; he said. Imagine that&mdash;the
+instincts&mdash;whereupon Betty, of course,
+flounced off and left him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She would,&rdquo; Nancy said. Then a storm of
+real anger surged through her. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll turn her
+out of my place to-morrow. I&rsquo;ll never look at
+her or speak to her again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it would be more to the point,&rdquo;
+Caroline said, &ldquo;to turn out Collier Pratt.
+That was certainly an extraordinary way for
+him to speak of you to a girl who is a stranger
+to him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Caroline, you&rsquo;re almost as bad as Betty is.
+You&rsquo;re both of you hopelessly&mdash;helplessly&mdash;provincially
+American. I don&rsquo;t think that was
+extraordinary or impertinent even,&rdquo; Nancy
+said. &ldquo;I&mdash;I understand how that man means
+things.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>The car drove up in front of the office of
+the justice of the peace in the town beyond
+that in which they had had their unauspicious
+luncheon party.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are we stopping here for any particular
+reason?&rdquo; Caroline said.</p>
+<p>Nancy had not spoken in more than a monosyllable
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112' ></a>112</span>
+since they had resumed their places in
+the car again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not now,&rdquo; Dick said wearily. &ldquo;I thought
+I&rsquo;d point out the sights of the town. This
+place is called the Gretna Green of America,
+you know. A great many runaway couples
+come out here to be married. The man inside
+that office, the one with whiskers and no collar,
+is the one that marries them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Does he?&rdquo; Billy asked a trifle uncertainly.</p>
+<p>Nancy turned to Dick with a real appeal in
+her voice. It was the first time during the
+day that she had addressed him with anything
+like her natural tenderness and sweetness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! Dick, can&rsquo;t we start on?&rdquo; she said.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113' ></a>113</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_VIII_SCIENCE_APPLIED'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Science Applied</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Gaspard was ill&mdash;very ill. He lay in the
+little anteroom at the top of the stairs and
+groaned thunderously. He had a pain in his
+back and a roaring in his head, and an extreme
+disorder in the region of his solar plexus.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure an&rsquo; he&rsquo;s no more nor less than a
+human earthquake,&rdquo; Michael reported after an
+examination.</p>
+<p>Nancy applied ice caps and hot-water bags
+to the afflicted areas without avail. The
+stricken man had struggled from his bed in
+the Twentieth Street lodging-house that he
+had chosen for his habitation, and staggered
+through the heavy morning heat to his post in
+the basement kitchen of Nancy&rsquo;s Inn, there to
+collapse ignominiously between his cooking
+ranges. With Molly and Dolly and Hildeguard
+at his feet and herself and Michael and a dishwasher
+at his head they had managed to get him
+up the two short flights of stairs. It developed
+that it would be necessary to remove him in an
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114' ></a>114</span>
+ambulance later in the day, but for the time
+being he lay like a contorted Colossus on the
+fragile-looking cot that constituted his improvised
+bed of pain: &ldquo;Like the great grandfather,&rdquo;
+to quote Michael again, &ldquo;of all of
+them Zeus&rsquo;es and gargoyles, and other cavortin&rsquo;
+gentlemen in the yard down-stairs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>With the luncheon menu before her, Nancy
+decided that the hour had come for her to prove
+herself. She had assumed the practical management
+of the business of the Inn only to
+have the responsibility and much of the
+authority of her position taken from her by
+the very efficiency of her staff. She was
+far too good a business woman not to realize
+that this condition was distinctly to her advantage,
+and to encourage it accordingly, but
+there was still so much of the child in her
+that she secretly resented every usurpation of
+privilege.</p>
+<p>With Gaspard ill she was able to manipulate
+the affairs of the kitchen exactly as she chose,
+and even in the moment of applying the &ldquo;hot
+at the base of the brain and the cold at the
+forehead&rdquo; that the doctor had prescribed as
+the most effective method for relieving the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115' ></a>115</span>
+pressure of blood in the tortured temples of the
+suffering man, she had been conscious of that
+thrill of triumph that most human beings feel
+when the involuntary removal of the man
+higher up invests them with power.</p>
+<p>Michael did the marketing, and the list went
+through as Gaspard had planned it, with some
+slight adaptations to the exigency, such as the
+substitution of twenty-five cans of tomato
+soup for the fresh vegetables with which Gaspard
+had planned to make his tomato bisque,
+and brandied peaches in glass jars instead of
+peach souffl&eacute;.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I allow myself a little handicap in the
+matter of details,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I know I can put
+everything else through as well as Gaspard;&rdquo;
+whereupon she enveloped herself in a huge
+linen apron, tucked her hair into one of the
+chef&rsquo;s white caps, and attacked the problem of
+preparing luncheon for from sixty-five to two
+hundred people, who were scheduled to appear
+at uncertain intervals between the hours of
+twelve and two-thirty. Later she must be
+ready to serve tea and ices to a problematical
+number of patrons, but she tried not to think
+beyond the immediate task.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116' ></a>116</span></div>
+<p>She could make a very good tomato bisque
+by adding one cup of milk and a dash of cream
+to one half-pint can of MacDonald&rsquo;s tomato
+soup, enough to serve three people adequately,
+and she proceeded to multiply that recipe by
+twenty-five. She didn&rsquo;t think of getting large
+cans till Michael in the process of opening the
+half-pint tins made the belated suggestion,
+which she greeted with some hauteur.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not the person to mind a little extra
+work, Michael, when I am sure of my results.
+Precision&mdash;that&rsquo;s the secret of the difference
+between American and French cooking.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;An&rsquo; sure and I fail to see the difference
+between the preciseness of a quart can and
+four half-pint ones, but I suppose it&rsquo;s my
+ignorance now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your supposition is correct, Michael,&rdquo; she
+said airily, but out of the corner of her eye she
+saw him smiling to himself over the growing
+heap of half-pint tins, and reddened with
+mortification at her naivet&eacute; in the matter.</p>
+<p>She looked at the vat of terra-cotta pur&eacute;e
+with considerable dismay when she had stirred
+in the last measure of cream. Twenty-five
+pints of tomato bisque is a rather formidable
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117' ></a>117</span>
+quantity of a liquid the chief virtue of which
+is its sparing and judicious introduction into
+the individual diet scheme. Nancy hardly felt
+that she wanted to be alone with it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;ll soon lick it all up, and be polishing
+their plates like so many Tom-cats,&rdquo; Michael
+said, indicating their potential patronage by
+waving his hand toward the courtyard. &ldquo;Here
+comes Miss Betty, now. She&rsquo;ll be after lending
+a hand in the cooking.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Keep her away, Michael,&rdquo; Nancy cried; &ldquo;go
+out and head her off. Make her go up-stairs
+and sit with Gaspard,&mdash;anything, but don&rsquo;t let
+her come in here. If she does I won&rsquo;t answer
+for the consequences. I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know
+what I&rsquo;ll do to her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Throw her in the soup kettle, most likely,&rdquo;
+Michael chuckled. &ldquo;Faith, an&rsquo; I never saw a
+woman yet that wasn&rsquo;t ready to scratch the
+eyes out of the next one that got into her kitchen.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She isn&rsquo;t safe,&rdquo; Nancy said darkly. &ldquo;I need
+every bit of brain and self-control I have to
+put this luncheon through. You keep Miss
+Betty&rsquo;s mind on something else&mdash;anything but
+me and the way I am doing the cooking.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118' ></a>118</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis done,&rdquo; said Michael; &ldquo;sure an&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll protect
+her from you, if I have to abduct her myself!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish he would,&rdquo; Nancy said to herself
+viciously, &ldquo;before she gets another chance at
+Collier Pratt.&mdash;Creamed chicken and mushrooms.
+It&rsquo;s a lucky thing that Gaspard diced
+the chicken last night, and fixed that mac&eacute;doine
+of vegetables for a garnish.&mdash;She&rsquo;s a
+dangerous woman; she might wreck one&rsquo;s
+whole life with her unfeeling, histrionic nonsense.&mdash;I
+wonder if thirteen quarts of cream
+sauce is going to be enough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It turned out to be quite enough after the
+crises in which the butter basis got too brown,
+and the flour after melting into it smoothly
+seemed unreasonably inclined to lump again as
+Nancy stirred the cold milk into it, but the
+result after all was perfectly adequate, except
+for the uncanny brown tinge that the whole
+mixture had taken on. Nancy was unable to
+restrain herself from taking a sample of it to
+Gaspard&rsquo;s bedside.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Mais</i>&mdash;but I can not eat it now,&rdquo; he cried,
+misunderstanding the purpose of her visit, &ldquo;nor
+again&mdash;nor ever again. <i>Jamais!</i>&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119' ></a>119</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want you to eat it, Gaspard, I want
+you to look at it, and tell me what makes it
+that color. It turned tan, you see. I don&rsquo;t
+want to poison any one.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am too miserable,&rdquo; Gaspard said. &ldquo;The
+sauce&mdash;you have made into B&eacute;chamel with the
+browning butter, <i>voil&agrave; tout</i>. It is better so,&mdash;it
+would not hurt any one in the world but me&mdash;and
+me it would kill.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor thing,&rdquo; sighed Nancy, as she took her
+place by the kitchen dresser again, trying to
+remember where she had last seen brown eyes
+that reflected the look of stricken endurance
+that glazed Gaspard&rsquo;s velvet orbs, recalled with
+a start that Dick had gazed at her in much
+the same helpless fashion on their drive home
+from their recent motor trip in Connecticut.
+She had been too absorbed in her own distresses
+to consider anybody&rsquo;s state of mind but her
+own, on that occasion, but now Dick&rsquo;s expression
+came back to her vividly, and she nearly
+ruined a big bowl of French dressing, at the
+crucial moment of putting in the vinegar, trying
+to imagine which one of the events of that
+inauspicious day might conceivably have
+caused it.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120' ></a>120</span></div>
+<p>After the actual serving of the meal began,
+however, she had very little time for reflection
+or reminiscence. The distribution of food
+to the waitresses as they called for it required
+the full concentration of her powers. Molly and
+Dolly coached her, and with their assistance
+she was soon able to fill the bewilderingly
+rapid orders from the line of girls stretching
+from the door to the open space in front of her
+serving-table, which never seemed to diminish
+however adequately its demands were met.</p>
+<p>Mechanically she took soup and meat dishes
+from the hooded shelves at the top of the
+range where they were kept warming, and
+ladled out the brick-colored bisque, the creamed
+chicken and garnishing of the individual
+orders. The chicken looked delicious with its
+accompaniment of vari-colored vegetables,&mdash;Nancy
+had done away with the side dish long
+since&mdash;and each serving was assembled with
+special reference to its decorative qualities.
+The girls went up-stairs to put the salad on
+the plates, where the desserts were already
+dished in the quaint blue bowls in which
+stewed fruits and the more fluid sweets were
+always served.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121' ></a>121</span></div>
+<p>In her mind&rsquo;s eye Nancy could see the picture.
+At noon the court was almost entirely
+in the shade, and instead of the awning top,
+which shut out the air, there were gay striped
+umbrellas at the one or two tables that were
+imperfectly protected from the sun. She had
+recently invested in some table-cloths with
+bright blue woven borders. Flowers were arranged
+in low bowls and baskets on respective
+tables. Nancy instinctively grouped tired
+young business men in blue serge and soft collars
+at the tables decorated with the baskets of
+blue flowers; and pale young women in lingerie
+blouses before the bowls of roses. She could
+see them,&mdash;those big-eyed girls with delicate
+blue veins accentuating the pallor of their white
+faces&mdash;sinking gratefully into the wicker seats
+and benches, and sniffing rapturously at the
+faint far-away fragrance of the woodland blossoms.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I hope they will steal a great many of
+them,&rdquo; she thought, for her patrons were given
+to despoiling her flower vases in a way that
+scandalized the good Hildeguard, who was a
+just but ungenerous soul in spite of her ample
+proportions and popular qualities. Molly and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122' ></a>122</span>
+Dolly were rather given to encouraging the
+vandals, knowing that they had Nancy&rsquo;s tacit
+approval.</p>
+<p>Automatically dipping the huge metal ladle&mdash;one
+filling of which was enough for a service&mdash;into
+the big soup kettle, she stood for a
+moment gazing into its magenta depths oblivious
+to everything but the rhapsodic consideration
+of her realized dream. Now for the first
+time she was contributing directly her own
+strength and energy to the public which she
+served. She had prepared with her own hands
+the meal which her grateful patrons were consuming.
+The little girls with the tired faces,
+the jaded men, the smart, weary business women&mdash;buyers
+and secretaries and modistes,&mdash;who
+were occupied in the neighborhood were all
+being literally nourished by her. She had actually
+manufactured the product that was to
+sustain them through the weary day of heat
+and effort.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do they like the lunch, Molly?&rdquo; she
+asked, as she deftly deposited the forty-fifth
+serving of chicken with B&eacute;chamel sauce on the
+exact center of the plate before her. &ldquo;Are
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123' ></a>123</span>
+they pleased with the soup? Are they saying
+complimentary things about the chicken?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some of them is, Miss Nancy. Some of
+them is complaining that they can&rsquo;t get any
+other kind of soup. Them that usually gets
+invalid broth don&rsquo;t understand our running
+out of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I forgot about the specials,&rdquo; Nancy cried.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That red-haired girl that we feed on custards
+and nut bread and that special cocoa
+Gaspard makes for her, she acted real bad.
+They get expecting certain things, and then
+they want them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll make all those
+things to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The old feller that always has the stewed
+prunes is terrible pleased though. I give him
+two helps of the peaches, and he wanted
+another. He was pleased to get white bread
+too. He complains something dreadful about
+his bran biscuit every day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I meant to send to the woman&rsquo;s exchange
+for different kinds of health bread, but I forgot
+it,&rdquo; Nancy moaned. &ldquo;Do they like the
+peaches at all?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124' ></a>124</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Most of them likes them too well. There
+was one old lady that got one whiff of them,
+and pushed back her chair and left. I guess
+she had took the pledge, and the brandy went
+against her principles.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never thought of that. I only thought
+that brandied peaches would be a treat to so
+many people who didn&rsquo;t have them habitually
+served at home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The picture in Nancy&rsquo;s mind changed in
+color a trifle. She could see sour-faced spinsters
+at single tables pushing back their
+chairs, overturning the rose bowls in their
+hurry to shake the dust of her restaurant
+from their feet.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t accept any money from people who
+don&rsquo;t like their luncheon,&rdquo; she admonished
+Molly, who was next in line with several
+orders to be filled at once. &ldquo;Tell them that
+the proprietor of Outside Inn prefers not to be
+paid unless the meal is entirely satisfactory.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid there wouldn&rsquo;t never be any
+satisfactory meals if I told them that, Miss
+Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want any one ever to pay for anything
+he doesn&rsquo;t like,&rdquo; Nancy insisted. &ldquo;Slip
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125' ></a>125</span>
+the money back in their coat pockets if you
+can&rsquo;t manage it any other way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s lots of complaints about the soup,&rdquo;
+Dolly said; &ldquo;so many people don&rsquo;t like tomato
+in the heat. Gaspard, he always had a choice
+even if it wasn&rsquo;t down on the menu. I might
+deduct, say fifteen cents now, and slip it back
+to them with their change.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Please do,&rdquo; Nancy implored. &ldquo;Tell Molly
+and Hildeguard.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hilda would drop dead, but Molly&rsquo;d like the
+fun of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>It was hot in the kitchen. The soup kettle
+bad been emptied of more than half its contents,
+but the liquid that was left bubbled
+thickly over the gas flame that had been newly
+lit to reheat it. The pungent, acrid odor of
+hot tomatoes affronted her nostrils. She had
+a vision now of the pale tired faces of the little
+stenographers turning in disgust from the contemplation
+of the flamboyant and sticky pur&eacute;e
+on their plates, annoyed by the color scheme
+in combination with the soft wild-rose pink
+of the table bouquets, if not actually sickened
+by the fluid itself. For the first time since
+his abrupt seizure that morning she began to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126' ></a>126</span>
+hope in her heart that Gaspard&rsquo;s illness might
+be a matter of days instead of weeks. She
+served Hildeguard and one of the other waitresses
+with more soup, and then began to boil
+some eggs to eke out the chicken, which, owing
+to her unprecedented generosity in the matter
+of portions, seemed to be diminishing with
+alarming rapidity.</p>
+<p>From the kitchen closet beyond came the
+clatter of dishwashing, the interminable
+splashing of water, and stacking of plates,
+punctuated by the occasional clang of smashing
+glass or pottery. She had discharged two
+dishwashers in less than two weeks&rsquo; time,
+with the natural feeling that any change in
+that department must be for the better, but
+the present incumbent was even more incompetent
+than his predecessors. Even Nancy&rsquo;s
+impregnable nerves began to feel the strain of
+the continual clamorous assault on them.</p>
+<p>Betty appeared in the doorway that led
+directly from the restaurant stairs.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to intrude,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+blame Michael, I&rsquo;m breaking my parole to get
+in here. He locked me in and made me swear
+I&rsquo;d keep out of the kitchen before he&rsquo;d let me
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127' ></a>127</span>
+out at all, but I had to tell you this. The
+tomato soup has curdled and you ought not to
+serve it any more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I thought it looked rather funny,&rdquo;
+Nancy moaned.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It won&rsquo;t do anybody any harm, you know.
+It just looks bad, and a lot of people are kicking
+about it. Did Molly tell you about the
+old fellow that got tipsy on the peaches?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, she didn&rsquo;t. I sent Michael out for some
+ripe peaches and other fruit to serve instead.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a good idea. How&rsquo;s the food holding
+out? There are lots of people you know up-stairs,&rdquo;
+she rattled on, for Nancy, who was
+getting more and more distraught with each
+disquieting detail, made no pretense of answering
+her. &ldquo;Dolly has probably kept you
+informed. Dick&rsquo;s aunt is here, and that terribly
+highbrow cousin of Caroline&rsquo;s; and that
+good-looking young surgeon that suddenly got
+so famous last winter, and admired you so
+much. Dr. Sunderland&mdash;isn&rsquo;t that his name?
+I never saw Collier Pratt here for lunch before.
+There&rsquo;s a little girl with him, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Collier Pratt?&rdquo; Nancy cried, &ldquo;Oh, Betty,
+he isn&rsquo;t here. He couldn&rsquo;t be. Don&rsquo;t frighten
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128' ></a>128</span>
+me with any such nonsense. He never comes
+here in the day-time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He is though,&rdquo; Betty said, &ldquo;and a queer-looking
+little child with him, a dark-eyed
+little thing dressed in black satin.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It seems a good deal to me as if you were
+making that up,&rdquo; Nancy cried in exasperation;
+&ldquo;it&rsquo;s so much the kind of thing you do
+make up.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; Betty said, unexpectedly
+reasonable, &ldquo;but as it happens I&rsquo;m not. Collier
+Pratt really is up-stairs with a poor little
+orphan in tow. Ask any one of the girls.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At this moment Dolly, her ribbons awry and
+her china-blue eyes widened with excitement,
+appeared with a dramatic confirmation of
+Betty&rsquo;s astonishing announcement.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a little girl took sick from the
+peaches, and moved up-stairs in the room
+next to Gaspard&rsquo;s,&rdquo; she cried breathlessly.
+&ldquo;The doctor that was sitting at the next
+table, had her moved right up there. He
+wants to see the lady that runs the restaurant,
+and he wants a lot of hot water in a pitcher,
+and some baking soda.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; Betty said, &ldquo;go on up, I&rsquo;ll take
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129' ></a>129</span>
+your place here. Dolly, get the things the
+doctor asked for.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy stripped off her cap and her apron
+and resigned her spoons and ladles to Betty
+without a word. She was still incredulous of
+what she would find at the top of the three
+flights of creaking age-worn stairs that
+separated her from the nest of rooms that
+were the storm quarters of her hostelry, now
+converted by a sudden malevolence on the part
+of fate into a temporary hospital. As she
+took the last flight she could hear Gaspard&rsquo;s
+stertorous breathing coming at the regular intervals
+of distressful slumber, and through
+that an ominous murmur of grave and low-voiced
+conference, such as one hears in the
+chambers of the dead. The convulsive application
+of a powder puff to the tip of her burning
+nose&mdash;her whole face was aflame with
+exertion and excitement&mdash;was merely a part
+of her whole subconscious effort to get herself
+in hand for the exigency. Her mind, itself, refused
+any preparation for the scene that
+awaited her.</p>
+<p>On one of the cushioned benches against the
+wall in the most decorative of the dining-rooms
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130' ></a>130</span>
+of the up-stairs suite, a little girl was
+lying stark against the brilliant blue of the
+upholstery. She was a child of some seven or
+eight, lightly built and delicate of features and
+dressed all in black. Her eyes were closed,
+but the long lashes emphasizing the shadows in
+which they were set, prepared you for the
+revelation of them. Nancy understood that
+they were Collier Pratt&rsquo;s eyes, and that they
+would open presently, and look wonderingly
+up at her. She recognized the presence of Dr.
+Sunderland, of Michael and several of the
+waitresses, and a flighty woman in blue taffeta&mdash;an
+ubiquitous patron,&mdash;but she made
+her way past them at once, and sank on her
+knees before the prostrate child.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nothing very serious, Miss Martin,&rdquo;
+the young surgeon reassured her, &ldquo;delicate
+children of this type are likely to have these
+seizures. It&rsquo;s not exactly a fainting fit. It
+belongs rather to the family of hysteria.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t it the peaches?&rdquo; Nancy asked
+fearfully. &ldquo;They&mdash;they had a little brandy in
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They may have been a contributing cause,&rdquo;
+Dr. Sunderland acknowledged, &ldquo;but the child&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131' ></a>131</span>
+condition is primarily responsible. Let her
+alone until she rouses,&mdash;then give her hot
+water with a pinch of soda in it at fifteen-minute
+intervals. Keep her feet hot and her
+head cold and don&rsquo;t try to move her until
+after dark, when it&rsquo;s cooler.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take care of
+her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here comes her poor father, now,&rdquo; the
+lady in taffeta announced with the dramatic
+commiseration of the self-invited auditor.
+&ldquo;He thought an iced towel on her head might
+make her feel better. Is the dear little thing
+an orphan&mdash;I mean a half orphan?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The assembled company seeming disinclined
+to respond, she repeated her inquiry to Collier
+Pratt himself, as with the susceptive grace
+that characterized all his movements, he
+swung the compress he was carrying sharply
+to and fro to preserve its temperature in
+transit. &ldquo;Is the poor little thing a half orphan?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The poor little thing is nine-tenths orphan,
+madam,&rdquo; said Collier Pratt, &ldquo;that is&mdash;the only
+creature to whom she can turn for protection is
+the apology for a parent that you see before
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132' ></a>132</span>
+you. Would you mind stepping aside and giving
+me a little more room to work in?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not at all.&rdquo; Irony was wasted on the indomitable
+sympathizer in blue. &ldquo;Hasn&rsquo;t she really
+anybody but you to take care of her?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt arranged the towel precisely in
+position over the little girl&rsquo;s forehead, smoothing
+with careful fingers the cloud of dusky hair
+that fell about her face.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She has not,&rdquo; he answered with some savagery.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hasn&rsquo;t she any women friends or relatives
+that would be willing to take charge of her?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, madam.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then some woman that has no child of her
+own to care for ought to adopt her, and relieve
+you of the responsibility. It&rsquo;s a shame and disgrace
+the way these New York women with no
+natural ties of their own go around crying for
+something to do, when there are sweet little
+children like this suffering for a mother&rsquo;s care.
+I&rsquo;d adopt her myself if I was able to. I certainly
+would.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m perfectly willing to give over the technical
+part of her bringing up to some one of the
+women whom you so feelingly describe,&rdquo; Collier
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133' ></a>133</span>
+Pratt said. &ldquo;The trouble is to find the woman&mdash;the
+right woman. The vicarious mother is
+not the most prevalent of our modern types,
+I regret to say.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The little girl on the couch stirred softly, and
+the hand that Nancy was holding, a pathetic,
+thin, unkempt little hand, grew warm in hers.
+The lids of the big eyes fluttered and lifted.
+Nancy looked into their clouded depths for an
+instant. Then she turned to Collier Pratt
+decisively.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take care of your little girl for you, if
+you will let me,&rdquo; she said.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134' ></a>134</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_IX_SHEILA'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Sheila</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>&ldquo;I had <i>mal de mer</i> when I was on the
+steamer,&rdquo; the child said, in her pretty,
+painstaking English&mdash;she spoke French habitually.
+&ldquo;I do not like to have it on the land.
+The gentleman in there,&rdquo; she pointed to the
+room beyond where Gaspard was again distressfully
+sleeping the sleep of the spent after a period
+of the most profound physical agitation,
+&ldquo;he does not like to have it, too,&mdash;I mean
+either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy had propped the little girl up on
+improvised pillows made of coats and wraps
+swathed in towels and covered her with some
+strips of canton flannel designed to use as
+&ldquo;hushers&rdquo; under the table covers. As soon as
+the intense discomfort and nausea that had followed
+the first period of faintness had passed,
+Nancy had slipped off the shabby satin dress,
+made like the long-sleeved kitchen apron of
+New England extraction, and attired the child
+in a craftily simulated night-gown of table
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135' ></a>135</span>
+linen. Collier Pratt had worked with her,
+deftly supplementing all her efforts for his
+little girl&rsquo;s comfort until she had fallen into the
+exhausted sleep from which she was only now
+rousing and beginning to chatter. Her father
+had left her, still sleeping soundly, in Nancy&rsquo;s
+care, and gone off to keep an appointment with
+a prospective picture buyer. He had made no
+comment on Nancy&rsquo;s sudden impulsive offer to
+take the child in charge, and neither she nor he
+had referred to the matter again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you comfortable now, Sheila?&rdquo; Nancy
+asked. She had expected the child to have a
+French name, Suzanne or Japonette or something
+equally picturesque, but she realized as
+soon as she heard it that Sheila was much more
+suitable. The cloudy blue-black hair, and steel-blue
+eyes, the slight elongation of the space
+between the upper lip and nose, the dazzling
+satin whiteness of the skin were all Irish in
+their suggestion. Was the child&rsquo;s mother&mdash;that
+other natural protector of the child, who had
+died or deserted her&mdash;Nancy tried not to wonder
+too much which it was that she had done,&mdash;an
+Irish girl, or was Collier Pratt himself of
+that romantic origin?</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136' ></a>136</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Oui</i>, Mademoiselle, I mean, yes, thank you.
+I do not think I will say to you Miss Martin.
+We only say their names like that to the people
+with whom we are not <i>intime</i>. We are <i>intime</i>
+now, aren&rsquo;t we, now that I have been so very
+sick <i>chez vous</i>? In Paris the <i>concierge</i> had a
+daughter that I called Mademoiselle Cherie, and
+we were <i>very intime</i>. I think I would like to
+call you Miss Dear in English after her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should like that very much,&rdquo; Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad the sick gentleman is called Gaspard.
+So many <i>messieurs</i>&mdash;I mean gentlemen
+in Paris are called Gaspard, and hardly any in
+the United States of America. American things
+are very different from things in Paris, don&rsquo;t
+you think so, Miss Dear?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid they are,&rdquo; Nancy acquiesced
+gravely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid they are too,&rdquo; the child said,
+&ldquo;but afraid is what I try not to be of them. My
+father says America is full of beasts and devils,
+but he does not mind because he can paint
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you live in a studio?&rdquo; Nancy asked
+after a struggle to prevent herself from asking
+the question. She felt that she had no right to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137' ></a>137</span>
+any of the facts about Collier Pratt&rsquo;s existence
+that he did not choose to volunteer for himself.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Miss Dear, but not like Paris. There
+we had a door that opened into a garden, and
+the birds sang there, and I was allowed to go
+and play. Here we have only a fire-escape,
+and the <i>concierge</i> is only a janitor and
+will not allow us to keep milk bottles on it. I
+do not like a janitor. <i>Concierges</i> have so much
+more <i>politesse</i>. Now, no one takes care of me
+when father goes out, or brings me soup or
+<i>g&acirc;teaux</i> when he forgets.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Does he forget?&rdquo; Nancy cried, horrified.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes. He forgets himself, too, very
+often except dinner. He remembers that because
+he likes to come to this Outside Inn restaurant,
+where the cooking is so good. He
+brought me here to-day because it was my birthday.
+I think the cooking is very good except
+that I was so sick of eating it, but father swore
+to-day that it was not.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Swore?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He said damn. That is not very bad swearing.
+I think <i>nom de Dieu</i> is worse, don&rsquo;t you,
+Miss Dear?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to take you up in my arms,&rdquo; said
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138' ></a>138</span>
+Nancy with sudden passion. &ldquo;I want to feel how
+thin you are, and I want to feel how you&mdash;feel.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, your eyes are wetting,&rdquo; the little girl
+exclaimed as she nestled contentedly against
+Nancy&rsquo;s breast, where Nancy had gathered her,
+converted table-cloth and all.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s your not having enough to eat,&rdquo; Nancy
+cried. &ldquo;Oh! baby child, honey. How could
+they? It&rsquo;s your calling me Miss Dear, too,&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;I&mdash;I can&rsquo;t stand the combination.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The child patted her cheek consolingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;my father cries because
+I get so hungry, when he forgets, but he
+does forget again as soon.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Would you like to come and live with me,
+Sheila?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think so, Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then you shall,&rdquo; Nancy said devoutly.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt found his child in Nancy&rsquo;s arms
+when he again mounted the stairs to the third
+floor of Outside Inn. The place was curiously
+cool to one who had been walking the sun-baked
+streets, and he gave an appreciative glance at
+the dim interior and the tableau of woman and
+child. Nancy&rsquo;s burnished head bent gravely
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139' ></a>139</span>
+over the shadowy dark one resting against her
+bosom.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right again, is she?&rdquo; he inquired with
+the slow rare smile that Nancy had not seen
+before that day.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;she&rsquo;s better. She&rsquo;s under-nourished,
+that&rsquo;s what the trouble is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suspected that,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said ruefully.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not specially talented as a parent.
+I feed her passionately for days, and then I
+stop feeding her almost entirely. Artists in my
+circumstances eat sketchily at best. The only
+reason that I am fed with any regularity is that
+I have the habit of coming to this restaurant
+of yours. By the way, is it yours? I found you
+in charge to-day to my amazement.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am in charge to-day,&rdquo; Nancy acknowledged;
+&ldquo;in fact I have taken over the management
+of it for&mdash;for a friend.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The mysterious philanthropist.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ye-es.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I will refrain from any comment on
+the lunch to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! that&mdash;that was a mistake,&rdquo; Nancy
+cried, &ldquo;an experiment. Gaspard the <i>chef</i>&mdash;was
+ill.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140' ></a>140</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;He was very ill, father, dear,&rdquo; Sheila added
+gravely, &ldquo;like crossing the Channel, much sicker
+than I was. I was only sick like crossing the
+ocean, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These fine distinctions,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said,
+&ldquo;she&rsquo;s much given to them.&rdquo; His eyes narrowed
+as they rested again on the picture
+Nancy made&mdash;the cool curve of her bent neck,
+the rise and fall of the breast in which the
+breathing had quickened perceptibly since his
+coming,&mdash;the child swathed in the long folds of
+white linen outlined against the Madonna blue
+of the dress that she was wearing. Nancy
+blushed under the intentness of his gaze, understanding,
+thanks to Caroline&rsquo;s report of his
+conversation with Betty, something of what
+was in his mind about her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Gaspard is going to be taken away in an ambulance,&rdquo;
+the child said, &ldquo;to the hospital.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then who is going to cook my dinner?&rdquo;
+Collier Pratt asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good lord, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Nancy cried,
+roused to her responsibilities.</p>
+<p>She looked at the watch on her wrist, a platinum
+bracelet affair with an octagonal face that
+Dick had persuaded her to accept for a Christmas
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141' ></a>141</span>
+present by giving one exactly like it to
+Betty and Caroline. It was twenty-five minutes
+of five. Dinner was served every night
+promptly at half past six, and there was absolutely
+no preparation made for it, not so much
+as a loaf of bread ordered. Instead of doing
+the usual marketing in the morning she had
+sent Michael out for the things that she needed
+in the preparation of luncheon, and planned to
+make up a list of things that she needed for
+dinner just as soon as her midday duties in the
+kitchen had set her free. She thought that she
+would be more like Gaspard, &ldquo;inspired to buy
+what is right&rdquo; if she waited until the success
+of her luncheon had been assured. The ensuing
+events had driven the affairs of her cuisine
+entirely out of her mind. She was constrained
+by her native tendency to concentrate on the
+business in hand to the exclusion of all other
+matters, big and little. She had dismissed
+Betty during the excitement that followed Sheila&rsquo;s
+illness, and Betty had seemed unnaturally
+willing to leave the hectic scene and go about
+her business. Michael had made several ineffectual
+attempts to speak to her, but she had
+waved him away impatiently. She knew that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142' ></a>142</span>
+neither he nor any one else on the restaurant
+staff would believe that she hadn&rsquo;t made some
+adequate and mysterious provision for the serving
+of the night meal. She had never failed
+before in the smallest detail of executive policy.
+She set the child back upon the cushion, and
+arranged her perfunctorily in position there.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know <i>what</i> you are going to have
+for dinner,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;much less who&rsquo;s going
+to cook it for you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps I had better arrange to have it
+elsewhere, since this seems to be literally the
+cook&rsquo;s day out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;ll be dinner,&rdquo; said Nancy uncertainly.</p>
+<p>Dick came up the stairs three at a time, and
+in his wake she heard the murmur of women&rsquo;s
+voices&mdash;Caroline&rsquo;s and Betty&rsquo;s.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I heard you were in difficulties,&rdquo; Dick said,
+&ldquo;so I made Sister Betty and Caroline give up
+their perfectly good trip into the country, in
+order to come around and mix in.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know Betty was going driving with
+you,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;She didn&rsquo;t say so. Oh!
+Dick, there isn&rsquo;t any dinner. I forgot all about
+it. This is Mr. Collier Pratt and his little
+daughter,&mdash;Mr. Richard Thorndyke. She&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143' ></a>143</span>
+coming to live with me soon, I hope, and let
+Hitty take care of her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The two men shook hands.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hold on a minute,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;that paragraph
+is replete with interest, but I want to
+get it assimilated. Sure, Betty was going driving
+with me. I told her to ask you if she
+thought it would be any use, but she allowed
+it wouldn&rsquo;t. I am delighted to meet Mr. Pratt,
+and pleased to know that his daughter is coming
+to live with you, but isn&rsquo;t that rather sudden?
+Also, what&rsquo;s this about there not being
+any dinner?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy was beginning, when
+she realized that Caroline and Betty, who had
+followed closely on Dick&rsquo;s footsteps, were looking
+at her with faces pale with consternation
+and alarm. She could see the anticipatory collapse
+of Outside Inn writ large on Caroline&rsquo;s
+expressive countenance. Caroline was the type
+of girl who believed that in the very nature of
+things the undertakings of her most intimate
+friends were doomed to failure. &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t
+any dinner yet,&rdquo; Nancy corrected herself, &ldquo;but
+you go up to my place, Dick, and get Hitty.
+Tell her she&rsquo;s got to cook dinner for this restaurant
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144' ></a>144</span>
+to-night. She can cook three courses
+of anything she likes, and have <i>carte blanche</i>
+in the kitchen. You have more influence with
+her than anybody, so, no matter what she says,
+make her do it. Then when she decides what
+she wants to cook, drive her around until she
+collects her ingredients. She won&rsquo;t let anybody
+do the marketing for her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do my best.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have to do more than that,&rdquo; Betty
+laughed as he started off, &ldquo;but you&rsquo;re perfectly
+capable of it. How do you do, Mr. Pratt? This
+is Miss Eustace, pale with apprehension about
+the way things are going, but still recognizable
+and answering to her name.&rdquo; Betty always enjoyed
+introducing Caroline with an audacious
+flourish, since Caroline always suffered so much
+in the process.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And this is little Miss Sheila Pratt,&rdquo; Nancy
+supplemented.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Enchant&eacute;</i>,&rdquo; the little girl said, &ldquo;I mean, I
+am very pleased to meet you. I was very sick,
+but I am better now, and I am going to live
+with Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It seems to be settled,&rdquo; her father said,
+shrugging.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145' ></a>145</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Would you mind it so very much?&rdquo; Nancy
+asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t mind it at all,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said.
+&ldquo;I think it would be a delightful arrangement,&mdash;if
+I&rsquo;m to take you seriously.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy is always to be taken seriously,&rdquo;
+Betty put in. &ldquo;What she really wants of the
+child is to use her for dietetic experiment, I&rsquo;m
+sure.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what she&rsquo;s used to, poor child,&rdquo; Collier
+Pratt said ruefully.</p>
+<p>The removal of Gaspard created a diversion.
+Nancy took Sheila in to bid him good-by, and
+the great creature was so touched by the farewell
+kiss that she imprinted on his forehead,
+and the revelation of the fact that a fellow being
+had been suffering kindred throes in the
+chamber just beyond his own that he was of
+two minds about letting himself be moved at
+all from her proximity. A group of waitresses
+collected on the second landing, and Nancy and
+her friends stood together at the head of the
+stairs while the white-coated intern from the
+hospital rolled his great bulk upon a fragile-looking
+stretcher, and with the assistance of all
+the male talent in the establishment, managed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146' ></a>146</span>
+to head him down the stairs, and so on across
+the court and into the waiting ambulance.</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s eyes filled with inexplicable tears,
+and she caught Collier Pratt regarding them
+with some amusement.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s such a dear,&rdquo; she said somewhat irrelevantly.
+&ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t care whether he was
+sick or not this morning,&mdash;but you get so fond
+of people that are around all the time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Collier Pratt,&mdash;he spoke very
+lightly, but there was something in his tone
+that made Nancy want to turn and look at him
+intently. She seemed to see for the first time a
+shade of defiant cruelty in his face,&mdash;&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo;
+he reiterated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do,&rdquo; Nancy repeated stubbornly, but as she
+met his slow smile, the slight impression of unpleasantness
+vanished.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We artists are selfish people,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+going to run away now, and leave my daughter
+to cultivate your charming friends. Will you
+come and eat your dinner at my little table to-night,
+and talk, discuss this matter of her visit
+to you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I will if there is any dinner,&rdquo; Nancy said,
+putting out a throbbing hand to him.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147' ></a>147</span></div>
+<p>There was a dinner. It was Hitty&rsquo;s conception
+of an emergency meal&mdash;the kind of thing
+that her mother before her had prepared on
+wash-day when an unexpected relative alighted
+from the noon train, and surprised her into inadvertent
+hospitality. It began with steamed
+clams and melted butter sauce. Hitty knew a
+fish market where the clams were imported direct
+from Cape Cod by the nephew of a man
+who used to go to school with her husband&rsquo;s
+brother, and he warranted every clam she
+bought of him. They were served in soup
+plates and the drawn butter in demi-tasses, but
+Hitty would have it no other way. The <i>pi&egrave;ce
+de r&eacute;sistance</i> was ham and eggs, great fragrant
+crispy slices of ham browned faintly gold across
+their pinky surface, and eggs&mdash;Hitty knew
+where to get country eggs, too&mdash;so white, so
+golden-yolked, so tempting that it was difficult
+to associate them with the prosaic process
+of frying, but fried they were. With them were
+served boiled potatoes in their jackets,&mdash;no
+wash-day cook ever removed the peeling from
+an emergency potato,&mdash;and afterward a course
+of Hitty&rsquo;s famous huckleberry dumplings, the
+lightest, most ephemeral balls of dumplings
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148' ></a>148</span>
+that were ever dipped into the blue-black deeps
+of hot huckleberry&mdash;not blueberry, but country
+huckleberry&mdash;sauce.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the coffee?&rdquo; Nancy asked Dolly
+miserably, when the humiliating meal was
+drawing to its close.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She won&rsquo;t make coffee,&rdquo; Dolly whispered;
+&ldquo;she says it will keep everybody awake, and
+they&rsquo;re much better off without it, but Miss
+Betty, she&rsquo;s watching her chance, and she&rsquo;s
+making it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt had received each course in silence,
+but had eaten heartily of the food that
+was set before him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose he was hungry enough to eat
+anything,&rdquo; Nancy thought; &ldquo;the lunch was humiliating
+enough, but this surpasses anything
+I dreamed of.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She had given up trying to estimate the calories
+that each man was likely to average in partaking
+of Hitty&rsquo;s menu. She noticed that a
+great many of her patrons had taken second
+helpings, and that threw her out in her calculation
+of quantities, while the relative digestibility
+of the protein and the fats in pork depend
+so much upon its preparation that she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149' ></a>149</span>
+could not approximate the virtue of Hitty&rsquo;s bill
+of fare without consultation with Hitty.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That was a very excellent dinner,&rdquo; Collier
+Pratt broke through her painful reverie to make
+his pronouncement. &ldquo;Astonishing, but very
+satisfactory. It reminds me of days on my
+grandfather&rsquo;s farm when I was a youngster.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should think it might,&rdquo; Nancy said, for
+the first time in her relation with her new
+friend becoming ironical on her own account.
+Then she added seriously, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Hitty, you know,
+that will have all the real care of Sheila. I&rsquo;m
+pretty busy down here, and I&mdash;&rdquo; she hesitated,
+half expecting him to threaten to remove his
+child at once from the prospective guardianship
+of a creature who reverted so readily to
+the barbarism of ham and eggs.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, if it&rsquo;s Hitty that is to have the care
+of Sheila,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said, and Nancy was
+not longer puzzled as to which element of her
+parentage Sheila owed her Irish complexion,
+&ldquo;why, more power to her!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy dreamed that night that she was married
+to Dick, and that Hitty made and served
+them <i>p&acirc;t&eacute; de foies gras</i> dumplings, while Collier
+Pratt in freckles and overalls sat in a high
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150' ></a>150</span>
+chair, and had his dinner with the family.
+Later it was discovered that Betty had poisoned
+his bread and milk, and he died in Nancy&rsquo;s arms
+in dreadful agony, swearing in a beautiful Irish
+brogue that in all his life he had never looked
+at another woman,&mdash;which even in her dream
+seemed to Nancy a somewhat irreconcilable
+statement.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151' ></a>151</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_X_THE_PORTRAIT'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER X<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>The Portrait</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>To Nancy&rsquo;s surprise Hitty welcomed the little
+girl warmly, when she was introduced
+into the family circle. She liked to be busy all
+day, and her duties in taking care of Nancy
+were not onerous enough to keep her full energy
+employed. She liked children and family life,
+and she seemed to have the feeling that if
+Nancy continued to assemble the various parts
+that go to make up a family, she would end by
+adding to it the essential masculine element,
+though it was Dick and not Collier Pratt that
+she visualized at the head of the table cutting
+up Sheila&rsquo;s meat for her. Collier Pratt
+was to her a necessary but insignificant detail
+in Nancy&rsquo;s scheme of things, a poor artist who
+had &ldquo;frittered away so much time in furrin
+parts&rdquo; that he was incapable of supporting his
+only child&mdash;&ldquo;poor little motherless lamb!&rdquo;&mdash;in
+anything like a befitting and adequate manner.
+Whenever he came to see Sheila she treated him
+with the condescension of a poor relation, and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152' ></a>152</span>
+served his tea in the second best china with the
+kitchen silver and linen, unless Nancy caught
+her at it in time to demand the best.</p>
+<p>Nancy had expected that Collier Pratt would
+try to make some business arrangement with
+her when she took Sheila in charge,&mdash;that he
+would insist on paying her at least a nominal
+sum a week for the child&rsquo;s board. She had
+lain awake nights planning the conversations
+with him in which she would overcome his delicate
+but natural scruples in the matter and persuade
+him to her own way of thinking. She had
+even fixed on the smallest sum&mdash;two dollars and
+a half a week&mdash;at which she thought she might
+induce him to compromise, if all her eloquence
+failed. She knew that he considered her the
+hard working, paid manager of Outside Inn,
+and took it for granted that she had no other
+source of income. She was a little disconcerted
+that he made no effort, beyond thanking her
+sincerely and simply for her kindness, to put
+the matter on a more concrete basis, but when
+he told her presently that he was going to do a
+portrait of her, she scourged herself for her
+New England perspective on an affair that he
+handled with so much delicacy.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153' ></a>153</span></div>
+<p>Her friends were, on the whole, pleased with
+her experiment in vicarious motherhood. Dick
+instinctively resented the fact that Nancy had
+taken Collier Pratt&rsquo;s daughter into her home
+and heart, but the child herself was a delight
+to him, and he spent hours romping with her
+and telling her stories, loading her with toys
+and sweetmeats, and taking her off for enchanting
+holiday excursions &ldquo;over the Palisades and
+far away.&rdquo; Billy was hardly less diverted with
+her, and Betty regarded her advent as a provision
+on the part of Providence against things
+becoming too commonplace. Caroline, as was
+her wont, took the child very seriously, and
+tried to interest Nancy in all the latest educational
+theories for her development, including
+posture dancing, and potato raising.</p>
+<p>Nancy herself had loved the child from the
+moment the big lustrous gray eyes opened, on
+the day of her sudden illness at Outside Inn,
+and looked confidingly up into hers. For the
+first time in her life her maternal ardor&mdash;the
+instinct which made her yearn to nourish and
+minister to a race&mdash;had concentrated on a single
+human being. Sheila, hungry for mothering,
+had turned to her with the simplicity of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154' ></a>154</span>
+people among whom she had been brought up,
+taking her sympathetic response as a matter of
+course; and the two were soon on the closest,
+most affectionate terms.</p>
+<p>Sheila and Outside Inn divided Nancy&rsquo;s time
+to the practical exclusion of all other interests.
+She had, without realizing her processes, taken
+into her life artificial responsibilities in almost
+exact proportion to the normal ones of any
+woman who makes the choice of marriage
+rather than that of a career. She was doing
+housekeeping on a large scale,&mdash;she had a child
+to care for, and she felt that she had entirely
+disproved any lingering feeling in the mind of
+any one associated with her that she ought to
+marry,&mdash;at least that she ought to marry Dick.</p>
+<p>No woman ought to marry for the sake of
+marrying, but she was growing to understand
+now that the experiences of love and marriage
+might be necessary to the true development of
+a woman like herself; that there might even be
+some tragedy in missing them. She was twenty-five,
+practically alone in the world, and the
+growing passion of her life was for a child
+that she had borrowed, and might be constrained
+to relinquish at any moment.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155' ></a>155</span></div>
+<p>She was tired. The unaccustomed confinement
+of the long hours at the Inn, the strain of
+enduring the thick, almost unalleviated heat of
+an exceptionally humid New York summer, and
+the tension engendered by her various executive
+responsibilities, all told on her physically,
+and her physical condition in its turn reacted
+on her mind, till she was conscious of a
+nostalgia,&mdash;a yearning and a hunger for something
+that she could not understand or name,
+but that was none the less irresistible. She fell
+into strange moods of brooding and lassitude;
+but there were two connections in which her
+spirit and ambition never failed her. She
+never failed of interest in the distribution of
+food values to her unconscious patrons, and incidentally
+to Collier Pratt, or in directing the
+activities and diversions of Sheila.</p>
+<p>She bathed and dressed the child with her
+own hands every morning, combed out the
+cloudy black hair, fine spun and wavy, that
+framed the delicate face, and accentuated the
+dazzling white and pink of her coloring. She
+had bought her a complete new wardrobe&mdash;she
+was spending money freely now on every one
+but herself&mdash;venturing on one dress at a time
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156' ></a>156</span>
+in fear and trepidation lest Collier Pratt should
+suddenly call her to account for her interference
+with his rights as a parent, but he seemed
+entirely oblivious of the fact that Sheila had
+changed her shabby studio black for the most
+cobwebby of muslins and linens, frocks that by
+virtue of their exquisite fineness cost Nancy
+considerably more than her own.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I say to my father, &lsquo;See the pretty new gown
+that Miss Dear bought for me,&rsquo; and my father
+says to me, &lsquo;Comb your hair straight back from
+your brow, and don&rsquo;t let your arms dangle from
+your shoulders.&rsquo;&rdquo; Sheila complained, &ldquo;He sees
+so hard the little things that nobody sees&mdash;and
+big things like a dress or a hat he does not
+notice.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Men are like that,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;Last night
+when I put on my new rose-colored gown for
+the first time, your friend Monsieur Dick told
+me he had always liked that dress best of all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Comme il est dr&ocirc;le</i>, Monsieur Dick,&rdquo; Sheila
+said; &ldquo;he asked me to grow up and marry him
+some day. He said I should sit on a cushion
+and sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries,
+sugar and cream&mdash;like the poetry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And what did you say?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157' ></a>157</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I said that I thought I should like to marry
+him if I ever got to be big enough,&mdash;but I was
+afraid I should not be bigger for a long time.
+Miss Betty said she would marry him if I was
+<i>trop petite</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What did Dick say to that?&rdquo; Nancy could
+not forbear asking.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He said she was very kind, and maybe the
+time might come when he would think seriously
+of her offer.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was a feeling in Nancy&rsquo;s breast as if
+her heart had suddenly got up and sat down
+again. Betty bore no remotest resemblance to
+the pale kind girl, practically devoid of feminine
+allure, that Nancy had visualized as the
+mate for Dick, and frequently exhorted him to
+go in search of.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Betty was only making a joke,&rdquo; she
+told Sheila sharply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We were all making jokes, Miss Dear,&rdquo;
+Sheila explained.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have never loved any one in the world
+quite so much as I love you, Sheila,&rdquo; Nancy
+cried in sudden passion as the little girl turned
+her face up to be kissed, as she always did when
+the conversation puzzled her.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158' ></a>158</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I like being loved,&rdquo; Sheila said, sighing happily.
+&ldquo;My father loves me,&mdash;when he is not
+painting or eating. He is very good to me, I
+think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your father is a very wise man, Sheila,&rdquo;
+Nancy said, &ldquo;he understands beautiful things
+that other people don&rsquo;t know anything about.
+He looks at a flower and knows all about it, and&mdash;and
+what it needs to make it flourish. He
+looks at people that way, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But he doesn&rsquo;t always have time to get the
+flower what it wants,&rdquo; Sheila said; &ldquo;my jessamine
+died in Paris because he forgot to water
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your father needs taking care of himself,
+Sheila. We must plan ways of trying to make
+him more comfortable. Don&rsquo;t you think of
+something that he needs that we could get for
+him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;More socks&mdash;he would like,&rdquo; Sheila said unexpectedly.
+&ldquo;When his socks get holes in them
+he will not wear them. He stops whatever he
+is doing to mend them, and the mends hurt him.
+He mends my stockings, too, sometimes, but I
+like better the holes especially when he mends
+them on my feet.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159' ></a>159</span></div>
+<p>Sheila could have presented no more appealing
+picture of her father to Nancy&rsquo;s vivid
+imagination. Collier Pratt with the incongruous
+sewing equipment of the unaccustomed
+male, using, more than likely, black darning
+cotton on a white sock&mdash;Nancy&rsquo;s mental pictures
+were always full of the most realistic detail&mdash;bent
+tediously over a child&rsquo;s stocking,
+while the precious sunlight was streaming unheeded
+upon the waiting canvas. She darned
+very badly herself, but the desire was not less
+strong in her to take from him all these preposterous
+and unbefitting tasks, and execute them
+with her own hands. She stared at the child
+fixedly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You buy him some socks out of your allowance,&rdquo;
+she said at last. Then she added an anxious
+and inadequate &ldquo;Oh, dear!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you happy?&rdquo; Sheila asked in unconscious
+imitation of Dick, with whom she had
+been spending most of her time for days, while
+Nancy superintended the additions and improvements
+she was making in the up-stairs
+quarters of her Inn, preparatory to moving in
+for the winter.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m happy,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m sort
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160' ></a>160</span>
+of&mdash;stirred, too. I wish you were my own little
+girl, Sheila. I think I&rsquo;ll take you with me to
+the Inn to-day. You might melt and trickle
+away if I left you alone here with Hitty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Quelle joie!</i> I mean, how nice that will be!
+Then I can talk about Paris to Gaspard, and he
+will give me some baba, with a <i>soup&ccedil;on of maraschine</i> in the sauce, if you will tell him that I
+may, Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll think about it.&rdquo; It was Nancy&rsquo;s dearest
+privilege to be asked and grant permission for
+such indulgences. &ldquo;Put on that floppy white
+hat with the yellow ribbon, and take your white
+coat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When I had only one dress to wear I suppose
+I got just as dirty,&rdquo; Sheila reflected, &ldquo;only
+it didn&rsquo;t show on black satin. Now I can tell
+just how dirty I am by looking. I make lots of
+washing, Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, thank heaven,&rdquo; Nancy said, unaccountably
+tearful of a sudden.</p>
+<p>The first part of the day at the Inn went much
+like other days. Gaspard, eager to retrieve
+the record of the week when Hitty and a Viennese
+pastry cook had divided the honors of preparing
+the daily menus between them&mdash;for
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161' ></a>161</span>
+Nancy had never again attempted the feat&mdash;never
+let a day go by without making a new
+<i>plat de jour</i> or inventing a sauce; was in the
+throes of composing a new casserole, and it was
+a pleasure to watch him deftly sifting and sorting
+his ingredients, his artist&rsquo;s eyes aglow with
+the inward fire of inspiration. Nancy called all
+the waitresses together and offered them certain
+prizes and rewards for all the buttermilk,
+and prunes and other health dishes that they
+were able to distribute among ailing patrons,&mdash;with
+the result they were over assiduous at the
+luncheon hour, and a red-headed young man
+with gold teeth made a disturbance that it took
+both Hilda and Michael, who appeared suddenly
+in his overalls from the upper regions where
+he was constructing window-boxes, to quell.
+But these incidents were not sufficiently significant
+to make the day in any way a memorable
+one to Nancy. It took a telephone message
+from Collier Pratt, requesting, nay demanding,
+her presence in his studio for the first sitting
+on her portrait, to make the day stand out
+upon her calendar.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sheila is with me. Shall I bring her?&rdquo;
+Nancy asked.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162' ></a>162</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said uncompromisingly,
+&ldquo;I am not a parent at this hour. She would
+disturb me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What shall I wear?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What have you got on?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That blue cr&ecirc;pe, made surplice,&mdash;the one
+you liked the other night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I want&mdash;Madonna blue.
+Can you get down here in fifteen minutes?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;ll send Michael up-town with Sheila.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The bare, ramshackle studio on Washington
+Square shocked her,&mdash;it was so comfortless, so
+dingy; but the canvases on the walls, set up
+against the wainscoting, stacked on every
+available chair, gave her a new and almost appalling
+impression of his personality, and the
+peculiar poignant power of him. She could not
+appraise them, or get any real sense of their
+quality apart from the astounding revelation of
+the man behind the work.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re wonderful!&rdquo; she gasped, but
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re wonderful&rdquo; were the words she stifled
+on her lips.</p>
+<p>He painted till the light failed him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s this diffused glow,&mdash;this gentle, faded
+afternoon light that I want,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I want
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163' ></a>163</span>
+you to emerge from your background as if you
+had bloomed out of it that very moment. Oh!
+I&rsquo;ve got you at your hour, you know! The
+prescient maternal&mdash;that&rsquo;s what I want. The
+conscious moment when a woman becomes
+aware that she is potentially a mother. Sheila&rsquo;s
+done that for you. She&rsquo;s brought it out in you.
+It was ready, it was waiting there before, but
+now it&rsquo;s come. It&rsquo;s wonderful!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s&mdash;it&rsquo;s come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It hasn&rsquo;t been done, you know. It&rsquo;s a modern
+conception, of course; but they all do the
+thing realized, or incipient. I want to do it
+<i>implicit</i>&mdash;that&rsquo;s what I want. I might have
+searched the whole world over and not found
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, here I am,&rdquo; said Nancy faintly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, here you are,&rdquo; Collier Pratt responded
+out of the fervor of his artist&rsquo;s absorption.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s rather a personal matter to me,&rdquo; Nancy
+ventured some seconds later.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt turned from the canvas he was
+contemplating, and looked at her, still posed as
+he had placed her, upright, yet relaxed in the
+scooped chair that held her without constraining
+her.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164' ></a>164</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Like a flower in a vase,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;to me
+you&rsquo;re a wonderful creature.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you like me,&rdquo; Nancy said, quivering
+a little. &ldquo;This is a rather uncommon experience
+to me, you know, being looked at so
+impersonally. Now please don&rsquo;t say that I&rsquo;m
+being American.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, good God! I don&rsquo;t look at you impersonally.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; Nancy meant her voice to be
+light, and she was appalled to hear the quaver
+in it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo; He glanced toward a
+dun-colored curtain evidently concealing shelves
+and dishes. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s have some tea.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stay for tea.&rdquo; Nancy felt her lips
+begin to quiver childishly, but she could not
+control their trembling. &ldquo;Oh! I had better go,&rdquo;
+she said.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt took one step toward her. Then
+he turned toward the canvas. Nancy read his
+mind like a flash.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re afraid you&rsquo;ll disturb the&mdash;what you
+want to paint,&rdquo; she said accusingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am.&rdquo;  He smiled his sweet slow smile, then
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165' ></a>165</span>
+he took her stiff interlaced hands and raised
+them, still locked together, to his lips where
+he kissed them gently, one after the other.
+&ldquo;Will you forgive me?&rdquo; he asked, and pushed
+her gently outside of his studio door.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166' ></a>166</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XI_BILLY_AND_CAROLINE'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Billy and Caroline</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>It was one night in middle October when Billy
+and Caroline met by accident on Thirty-fourth
+Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
+Caroline stood looking into a drug-store
+window where an automatic mannikin was
+shaving himself with a patent safety razor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a wax feller going to bed in an automatic
+folding settee, a little farther down the
+street,&rdquo; Billy offered gravely at her elbow; &ldquo;and
+on Forty-second Street there is a real live duck
+pond advertising the advantages of electric
+heaters in the home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;H&rsquo;lo,&rdquo; said Caroline, who was colloquial
+only in moments of real pleasure or excitement.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just written to you. I asked you to come
+and see me to-morrow evening,&rdquo; she added more
+seriously, &ldquo;to talk about something that&rsquo;s
+weighing on my mind.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going out with a blonde to-morrow,
+night,&rdquo; Billy said speciously, &ldquo;but what&rsquo;s the
+matter with to-night? I&rsquo;m free until six-fifty
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167' ></a>167</span>
+A. M. and I could spare an hour or two between
+then and breakfast time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t to-night,&rdquo; Caroline said, &ldquo;I promised
+Nancy to dine at the Inn.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That wasn&rsquo;t your line at all,&rdquo; Billy groaned.
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the blonde?&mdash;that was your cue. If
+it&rsquo;s only Nancy you&rsquo;re dining with&mdash;that can be
+fixed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I regard an engagement with Nancy as just
+as sacred as&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So do I,&rdquo; Billy cut in. &ldquo;She is the blonde.
+Well, let to-morrow night be as it may; let&rsquo;s
+you and I call up the Nancy girl now and tell
+her that we&rsquo;re going batting together; she
+won&rsquo;t care.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like doing that,&rdquo; Caroline said; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s
+a nice night for a bat, though.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I walked down Murray Hill and saw the sun
+set in a nice pinky gold setting,&rdquo; Billy said artfully.
+Caroline liked to have him get an artistic
+perspective on New York. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s walk down
+the avenue to the Caf&eacute; des Artistes and have
+Eminc&eacute; Bernard, and a long wide high, tall
+drink of&mdash;ginger ale,&rdquo; he finished lamely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;d have to telephone Nancy,&rdquo; Caroline
+hesitated.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168' ></a>168</span></div>
+<p>Billy took her by the arm and guided her
+into the interior of the drug-store to the side
+aisle where the telephones were, and stepped
+into the first empty booth that offered. Caroline
+stopped him firmly as he was about to shut
+himself inside.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather hear what you say,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>Billy slipped his nickel in the slot and took up
+the receiver.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Madison Square 3403 doesn&rsquo;t answer,&rdquo; Central
+informed him crisply after an interval.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! Nancy, dear,&rdquo; Billy replied softly into
+her astonished ear. &ldquo;Caroline and I are going
+off by ourselves to-night, you don&rsquo;t care, do
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ringing thr-r-ree-four-o-thr-r-ee, Madison
+Square.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s nice of you,&rdquo; Billy responded heartily.
+&ldquo;I thought you&rsquo;d say that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Madison Square thr-r-ree-four-o-t-h-r-r-ree
+doesn&rsquo;t answer. Hang up your receiver and I&rsquo;ll
+call you if I get the party.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I will. You&rsquo;re always so tactful
+in the way you put things, always so generous
+and kind and thoughtful. I can&rsquo;t tell you how
+much I appreciate it.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169' ></a>169</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;What did Nancy say?&rdquo; Caroline asked, as
+they turned away from the booth.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You heard my end of the conversation,&rdquo;
+Billy said blandly. &ldquo;You can deduce hers
+from it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There was something about your end of the
+conversation that sounded queer to me somehow.
+It was odd that Central should have returned
+your nickel to you after you had talked
+so long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, wasn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; Billy asked innocently.
+&ldquo;Well, I suppose mistakes will happen in the
+best regulated telephone companies.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I like you,&rdquo; Billy said contentedly, as the
+lights of the avenue strung themselves out before them.
+&ldquo;I like walking down this royal
+thoroughfare with you. You&rsquo;re a kind of a neutral
+girl, but I like you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a kind of ridiculous boy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you like me a little bit?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, a little.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What did you get engaged to me for if you
+only like me a little?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ought not to be engaged to you. That&rsquo;s one
+of the things I want to talk to you about.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you are engaged to me, and that&rsquo;s one
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170' ></a>170</span>
+of the things I don&rsquo;t care to discuss&mdash;even with
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! Billy,&rdquo; Caroline sighed, &ldquo;why can&rsquo;t we
+be just good friends and see a good deal of each
+other without this perpetual argument about
+getting married?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why we can&rsquo;t, but we can&rsquo;t,&rdquo;
+Billy said firmly. &ldquo;What was the other thing
+you wanted to talk to me about?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s affairs. The reckless&mdash;the criminal
+way she is running that restaurant, and the
+unthinkable expenditure of money involved. I
+can&rsquo;t sleep at night thinking of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And I thought this was going to be a pleasant
+evening,&rdquo; Billy cried to the stars.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish you&rsquo;d be serious about this,&rdquo; Caroline
+said. &ldquo;Nancy&rsquo;s the best friend I have in
+the world, and she doesn&rsquo;t seem to be quite right
+in her mind, Billy. Of course, I approve of a
+good part of her scheme. I believe that she
+can be of incalculable value as a pioneer in an
+enterprise of this sort. Her restaurant is
+based on a strictly scientific theory, and every
+person who patronizes it gets a balanced ration,
+if he has the good sense to eat it as it&rsquo;s served.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171' ></a>171</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;And not leave any protein on his plate,&rdquo;
+Billy murmured.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t even mind the slight extra expenditure
+and the deficit that is bound to follow
+her theory of stuffing all her subnormal
+patrons with additional nourishment. That is
+charity. I believe in devoting a certain amount
+of one&rsquo;s income to charity, but what I mind
+about the whole proceeding is the crazy way
+that Nancy is running it. She&rsquo;s not even trying
+to break even. She orders all the delicacies
+of the season&mdash;no matter what they are. She&rsquo;s
+paid an incredible amount for the new set of
+carved chairs she has bought for up-stairs.
+You&rsquo;d think she had an unlimited fortune behind
+her, instead of being in a position where
+the sheriff may walk in upon her any day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Handy men to have around the house,&mdash;sheriffs.
+I knew a deputy sheriff once that
+helped the lady of the house do a baby wash
+while he was standing around in charge of the
+place. All the servants had deserted, and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You pretend to be Nancy&rsquo;s friend, and
+you&rsquo;re the only thing remotely approaching a
+lawyer that she has, and yet you can shake with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172' ></a>172</span>
+joy at the thought of her going into bankruptcy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That isn&rsquo;t what I&rsquo;m shaking with joy
+about.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy must have spent at least twice the
+amount of her original investment.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Just about,&rdquo; Billy agreed cheerfully.</p>
+<p>Caroline turned large reproachful eyes on
+him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy, how can you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Listen to me, Caroline, honey love, it will
+be all right. Nancy isn&rsquo;t so crazy as she seems.
+She is running wild a little, I admit, but there&rsquo;s
+no danger of the sheriff or any other disaster.
+She knows what she&rsquo;s doing, and she&rsquo;s playing
+safe, though I admit it&rsquo;s an extraordinary
+game.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s unhappy,&rdquo; Caroline said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t
+suppose she&rsquo;s going to marry Dick to get out of
+the scrape, and that she&rsquo;s suffering because
+she&rsquo;s had to make that compromise.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Billy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t imagine anything more dreadful
+than to give up your career&mdash;your independence
+because you were beaten before you could demonstrate
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173' ></a>173</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go right in here,&rdquo; Billy said, guiding
+her by the arm through the door of the grill of
+the Caf&eacute; des Artistes which she was ignoring
+in her absorption.</p>
+<p>It was early but the place was already
+crowded with the assortment of upper cut Bohemians,
+Frenchmen, and other discriminating
+diners to whom the caf&eacute; owed its vogue. Billy
+and Caroline found a snowy table by the window,
+a table so small that it scarcely seemed to
+separate them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s Dick that Nancy&rsquo;s depending on,&rdquo;
+Caroline shook out her mammoth napkin vigorously,
+&ldquo;then I think the whole situation is
+dreadful.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see why,&rdquo; Billy argued; &ldquo;have him to
+fall back on&mdash;that&rsquo;s what men are for.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your opinion of women, Billy Boynton, just
+about tallies with the most conservative estimate
+of the Middle Ages.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Charmed, I&rsquo;m sure,&rdquo; he grinned, then his
+evil genius prompting, he continued. &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t
+that just about what you have me for&mdash;to fall
+back on? You&rsquo;re fond of me. You know I&rsquo;ll
+be there if the bottom drops out. You&rsquo;re sure
+of me, and you&rsquo;re holding me in reserve against
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174' ></a>174</span>
+the time when you feel like concentrating your
+attention on me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is that what you think?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure, it&rsquo;s the way it is. If I haven&rsquo;t got any
+kick coming I don&rsquo;t see why you should have
+any. You&rsquo;re worth it to me. That&rsquo;s the point.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Caroline opened her lips to speak, and then
+thought better of it. The dangerous glint in
+her pellucid hazel eyes was lost on Billy. He
+was watching the clear cool curve of her cheek,
+the smooth brown hair brushed up from the
+temple, and tucked away under the smart folds
+of a premature velvet turban.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I like those mouse-colored clothes of yours,&rdquo;
+he said contentedly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think the only reason a woman should
+marry a man is that she&mdash;she&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Likes him?&rdquo; Billy suggested.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, that she can be of more use in the
+world married than single. She can&rsquo;t be that
+unless she&rsquo;s going to marry a man who is entirely
+in sympathy with her point of view.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That I know to be unsound,&rdquo; Billy said.
+&ldquo;Caroline, my love, this is a bat. Can&rsquo;t we let
+these matters of the mind rest for a little? See,
+I&rsquo;ve ordered <i>Petite Marmite</i>, and afterward an
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175' ></a>175</span>
+artichoke, and all the nice fattening things that
+Nancy won&rsquo;t let me eat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wish you&rsquo;d tell me about Nancy,&rdquo; Caroline
+said. &ldquo;It makes a lot of difference. You
+haven&rsquo;t any idea how much difference it
+makes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;See the nice little brown pots with the soup
+in them,&rdquo; Billy implored her. &ldquo;Cheese, too, all
+grated up so fine and white. Sprinkle it in like
+little snow-flakes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But in spite of all Billy&rsquo;s efforts the evening
+went wrong after that. Caroline was wrapped
+in a mantle of sorrowful meditation the opacity
+of which she was not willing to let Billy penetrate
+for a moment. After they had dined they
+took a taxi-cab up-town and danced for an hour
+on the smooth floor of one of the quieter hotels.
+Billy&rsquo;s dancing being of that light, sure, rhythmic
+quality that should have installed him irrevocably
+in the regard of any girl who had
+ever danced with a man who performed less
+admirably. Caroline liked to dance and fell in
+step with an unexpected docility, but even in
+his arms, dipping, pivoting, swaying to the curious
+syncopation of modern dance time, she
+was as remote and cool as a snow maiden.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176' ></a>176</span></div>
+<p>At the table on the edge of the dancing platform
+where they sat between dances, Billy
+pledged her in nineteen-four <i>Chablis Mouton</i>.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is what you look like,&rdquo; he said, holding
+up his glass to the light, &ldquo;or perhaps I ought to
+say what you act like,&mdash;clear, cold stuff,&mdash;lovely,
+but not very sweet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s Dick,&rdquo;&mdash;Caroline refused to be diverted&mdash;&ldquo;Nancy
+is merely taking the easiest
+way out. Just getting married because she
+hasn&rsquo;t the courage to go through any other
+way. She and Dick have hardly a taste in common&mdash;they
+don&rsquo;t even read the same books.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What difference does that make?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t know I can&rsquo;t tell you. When
+you see somebody else in danger of following
+the same course of action that you, yourself,
+are pursuing,&rdquo; she added cryptically, &ldquo;it puts
+a new face on your own affairs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! let&rsquo;s get out of here,&rdquo; Billy said, signaling
+for his check.</p>
+<p>Caroline lived, for the summer while her
+family were away, in an elaborate Madison Avenue
+boarding-house. The one big room into
+which the entrance gave, dim and palatial in
+effect&mdash;at least in the light of the single gas-jet
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177' ></a>177</span>
+turned economically low&mdash;seemed scarcely to
+present a departure from its prototype, the
+great living hall of the private residence for
+which the house was originally designed. It was
+only on the second floor that the character of the
+establishment became unmistakable. Billy took
+Caroline&rsquo;s latchkey from her,&mdash;she usually
+opened the door for herself&mdash;and let her quietly
+into the dim interior. Then he stepped inside
+himself, and closed the door gently after him.
+Being a man he entirely failed to note the drift
+of psychological straws that indicated the sudden
+sharp turn of the wind, and the presage
+of storm in the air. He was thinking only of
+the illusive, desirable, maddening quality of the
+girl that walked beside him, filled with inexplicable
+forebodings for a friend, whom he knew
+to be invulnerable to misfortune. Certain
+phrases of Dick&rsquo;s were ringing in his ears to
+the exclusion of all more immediate conversational
+fragments.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Cave-man stuff&mdash;that&rsquo;s the answer to you
+and Caroline.... This watchful waiting&rsquo;s
+entirely the wrong idea....&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy made a great lunge toward the figure
+of his fianc&eacute;e, and caught her in his arms.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178' ></a>178</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never really kissed you before,&rdquo; he
+cried, &ldquo;now I shan&rsquo;t let you go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She struggled in his arms, but he mastered
+her. He covered her cool brow with kisses, her
+hands, the lovely curve of her neck where the
+smooth hair turned upward, and at last&mdash;her
+lips.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re mine, my girl,&rdquo; he exulted, &ldquo;and
+nothing, nothing, nothing shall ever take you
+away from me now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was a click in the latch of the door
+through which they had just entered. Another
+belated boarder was making his way into the
+domicile which he had chosen as a substitute
+for the sacred privacy of home. Caroline tore
+herself out of Billy&rsquo;s arms just in time to exchange
+greetings with the incoming guest with
+some pretense of composure. He was a fat man
+with an umbrella which clattered against the
+balusters as he ascended the carved staircase.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Caught with the goods,&rdquo; Billy tried to say
+through lips stiffened in an effort at control.</p>
+<p>Caroline turned on him, her face blazing with
+anger, the transfiguring white rage of the
+woman whose spiritual fastnesses have been
+invaded through the approach of the flesh.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179' ></a>179</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;There is no way of my ever forgiving you,&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;No way of my ever tolerating you,
+or anything you stand for again. You are utterly&mdash;utterly&mdash;utterly
+detestable in my eyes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is&mdash;is that so?&rdquo; Billy stammered, dizzied by
+the suddenness of the onslaught.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got some decent hold on my pride
+and self-respect&mdash;even if Nancy hasn&rsquo;t, and I&rsquo;m
+not going to be subjugated like a cave woman
+by mere brute force either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; said Billy weakly, his mind in
+a whirl still from the lightning-like overthrow
+of all his theories of action.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to do what Nancy is going to
+do, just out of sheer temperamental weakness,
+and&mdash;and tendency to follow the line of least
+resistance.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Billy had no idea of the significance of her
+last phrase, and let it go unheeded. Caroline
+turned and walked away from him, her head
+high.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But, good lord, Nancy isn&rsquo;t going to do it,&rdquo;
+he called after her retreating figure, but all the
+answer he got was the silken swish of her petticoat
+as she took the stairs.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180' ></a>180</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XII_MORE_CAVEMAN_STUFF'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>More Cave-Man Stuff</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>When Nancy left Collier Pratt&rsquo;s studio
+on the day of her first sitting for the
+portrait he was to do of her, she never expected
+to enter it again. She was in a panic of hurt
+pride and anger at his handling of the situation
+that had developed there, and in a passion of
+self-disgust that she had been responsible for it.</p>
+<p>It was a simple fact of her experience that
+the men she knew valued her favors, and exerted
+themselves to win them. She had always
+had plenty of suitors, or at least admirers who
+lacked only a few smiles of encouragement to
+make suitors of them, and she was accustomed
+to the consideration of the desirable woman,
+whose privilege it is to guide the conversation
+into personal channels, or gently deflect it
+therefrom. An encounter in which she could
+not find her poise was as new as it was bewildering
+to her.</p>
+<p>From the moment that she had begun to
+realize Collier Pratt&rsquo;s admiration for her she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181' ></a>181</span>
+had scarcely given a thought to any other man.
+With the insight of the artist he had seen
+straight into the heart of Nancy&rsquo;s secret&mdash;the
+secret that she scarcely knew herself until he
+translated it for her, the most obvious secret
+that a prescient universe ever throbbed with,&mdash;that
+a woman is not fulfilled until she is a mate
+and a mother. The nebulous urge of her spirit
+had been formulated. In Nancy&rsquo;s world there
+was no abstract sentimentality&mdash;if this man indulged
+himself in emotional regret for her frustrated
+womanhood&mdash;she called it that to herself&mdash;it
+must in some way concern him. She had
+never in her life been troubled by a condition
+that she was not eager to ameliorate, and she
+could not conceive of an emotional interest in
+an individual disassociated from a certain responsibility
+for that individual&rsquo;s welfare. She
+took Collier Pratt&rsquo;s growing tenderness for her
+for granted, and dreamed exultant dreams of
+their romantic association.</p>
+<p>The scene in the studio had shocked her only
+because he put his art first. He had taken a
+lover&rsquo;s step toward her, and then glancing at
+the crudely splotched canvas from which his
+ideal of her was presently to emerge, he had
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182' ></a>182</span>
+thought better of it, soothing her with caresses
+as if she were a child, and like a child dismissing
+her. She felt that she never wanted to see
+again the man who could so confuse and humiliate
+her. But this mood did not last. As
+the days went on, and she feverishly recapitulated
+the circumstances of the episode, she began
+to feel that it was she who had failed to respond
+to the beautiful opportunity of that hour.
+She had inspired the soul of an artist with a
+great concept of womanhood, and had, in effect,
+demanded an immediate personal tribute from
+him. He had been wise to deflect the emotion
+that had sprung up within them both. After
+the picture was done&mdash;. She became eager to
+show him that she understood and wanted to
+help him conserve the impression of her from
+which his inspiration had come, and when he
+asked her to go to the studio again the following
+week she rejoiced that she had another chance
+to prove to him how simply she could behave in
+the matter.</p>
+<p>She looked in the mirror gravely every night
+after she had done her hair in the prescribed
+pig-tails to try to determine whether or not the
+look he had discovered in her face was still
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183' ></a>183</span>
+there,&mdash;the look of implicit maternity that she
+had been fortunate enough to reflect and symbolize
+for him,&mdash;but she was unable to come to
+any decision about it. Her face looked to her
+much as it had always looked&mdash;except that her
+brow and temples seemed to have become more
+transparent and the blue veins there seemed to
+be outlined with an even bluer brush than usual.</p>
+<p>She was busier than she had ever been in her
+life. The volume of her business was swelling.
+With the return of the native to the city of his
+adoption&mdash;there is no native New Yorker in the
+strict sense of the word&mdash;Outside Inn was besieged
+by clamorous patrons. Gaspard, with the
+adaptability of his race, had evolved what was
+practically a perfect system of presenting the
+balanced ration to an unconscious populace, and
+the populace was responding warmly to his
+treatment. It had taken him a little time to
+gauge the situation exactly, to adapt the supply
+to the idiosyncrasies of the composite demand,
+but once he had mastered his problem he dealt
+with it inspiredly. His southern inheritance
+made it possible for him to apprehend if he
+could not actually comprehend the taste of a
+people who did not want the flavor of nutmeg
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184' ></a>184</span>
+in their cauliflower, and who preferred cocoanut
+in their custard pie, and he realized that
+their education required all the diplomacy and
+skill at his command.</p>
+<p>Nancy found him unexpectedly intelligent
+about the use of her tables. He grasped the essential
+fact that the values of food changed in
+the process of cooking, and that it was necessary
+to Nancy&rsquo;s peace of mind to calculate the
+amount of water absorbed in preparing certain
+vegetables, and that the amount of butter and
+cream introduced in their preparation was an
+important factor in her analysis. He also
+nodded his head with evident appreciation when
+she discoursed to him of the optimum amount
+of protein as opposed to the actual requirements
+in calories of the average man, but she never
+quite knew whether the matter interested him,
+or his native politeness constrained him to listen
+to her smilingly as long as she might choose
+to claim his attention. But the fact remained
+that there was no such cooking in any restaurant
+in New York of high or low degree, as that
+which Gaspard provided, and as time went on,
+and he realized that expense was not a factor
+in Nancy&rsquo;s conception of a successfully conducted
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185' ></a>185</span>
+restaurant, the reputation of Outside
+Inn increased by leaps and bounds.</p>
+<p>To Nancy&rsquo;s friends&mdash;with the exception, of
+course, of Billy, who was in her confidence&mdash;the
+whole business became more and more puzzling.
+Caroline, her susceptibility to vicarious distress
+being augmented by the sensitiveness of her
+own emotional state, yearned and prayed over
+her alternately. Betty, avid of excitement,
+spent her days in the pleasurable anticipation
+of a dramatic bankruptcy. It was on Dick,
+however, that the actual strain came. He saw
+Nancy growing paler and more ethereal each
+day, on her feet from morning till night manipulating
+the affairs of an enterprise that seemed
+to be assuming more preposterous proportions
+every hour of its existence. He made surreptitious
+estimates of expenditures and suffered
+accordingly, approximating the economic unsoundness
+of the Inn by a very close figure, and
+still Nancy kept him at arm&rsquo;s length and flouted
+all his suggestions for easing, what seemed to
+him now, her desperate situation.</p>
+<p>He managed to pick her up in his car one day
+with Sheila, and persuaded her to a couple of
+hours in the open. She was on her way home
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186' ></a>186</span>
+from the Inn, and had meant to spend that time
+resting and dressing before she went back to
+consult with Gaspard concerning the night meal.
+She had no complaint to make now of the usurpation
+of her authority or the lack of actual
+executive service that was required of her.
+With the increase in the amount of business
+that the Inn was carrying she found that every
+particle of her energy was necessary to get
+through the work of the day.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m worried about you,&rdquo; Dick said, as they
+took the long ribbon of road that unfurled in
+the direction of Yonkers, and Nancy removed
+her hat to let the breeze cool her distracted
+brow. His man Williams, was driving.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, don&rsquo;t tell me so,&rdquo; she answered a trifle
+ungraciously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Dear is cross to-day,&rdquo; Sheila explained.
+&ldquo;The milk did not come for Gaspard to make
+the poor people&rsquo;s custard, <i>cr&ecirc;me renvers&eacute;</i>, he
+makes&mdash;deliciously good, and we give it to the
+clerking girls.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The buttermilk cultures were bad,&rdquo; Nancy
+said. &ldquo;And I wasn&rsquo;t able to get any of the preparations
+of it, that I can trust. There are one
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187' ></a>187</span>
+or two people that ought to have it every day
+and their complexions show it if they don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose so,&rdquo; Dick said, with a grimace.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;These people who have worked in New York
+all summer have run pretty close to their margin
+of energy. You&rsquo;ve no idea what a difference
+a few calories make to them, or how
+closely I have to watch them, and when I have
+to substitute an article of diet for the thing
+they&rsquo;ve been used to, it&rsquo;s awfully hard to get
+them to take it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should think it might be,&rdquo; Dick said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+true about people who have worked in New
+York all summer, though. I have&mdash;and you
+have.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;m all right,&rdquo; Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So am I,&rdquo; Sheila said, &ldquo;and so is Monsieur
+Dick, <i>n&rsquo;est-ce pas</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Vraiment, Mademoiselle.&rdquo;</i></p>
+<p>&ldquo;Father isn&rsquo;t very right, though. Even when
+Miss Dear has all the beautiful things in the
+most beautiful colors in the world cooked for
+him and sent to him, he won&rsquo;t eat them unless
+she comes and sits beside him and begs him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s very fond of <i>sauce verte</i>,&rdquo; Nancy said
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188' ></a>188</span>
+hastily, &ldquo;and <i>apricot mousse</i> and <i>c&egrave;pes et pimentos</i>,
+things that Gaspard can&rsquo;t make for the
+regular menu,&mdash;bright colored things that
+Sheila loves to look at.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He likes <i>petit pois avec laitue</i> too and <i>haricot
+coup&eacute;</i>, and <i>artichaut mousselaine</i>. Sometimes
+when he does not want them Miss Dear
+eats them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad they are diverted to some good
+use,&rdquo; Dick said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been looking into the living conditions
+of my waitresses.&rdquo; Nancy changed the subject
+hastily. &ldquo;Did you realize, Dick, that the
+waitresses have about the unfairest deal of any
+of the day laborers? They&rsquo;re not organized,
+you know. Their hours are interminable, the
+work intolerably hard, and the compensation
+entirely inadequate. Moreover, they don&rsquo;t last
+out for any length of time. I&rsquo;m trying out a
+new scheme of very short shifts. Also, I&rsquo;m
+having a certain sum of money paid over to
+them every month from my bank. If they don&rsquo;t
+know where it comes from it can&rsquo;t do them any
+harm. That is, I am not establishing a precedent
+for wages that they won&rsquo;t be able to earn
+elsewhere. I consider it immoral to do that.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189' ></a>189</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;You are paying them an additional sum of
+money out of your own pocket? You told me
+you paid them the maximum wage, anyhow, and
+they get lots of tips.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! but that&rsquo;s not nearly enough.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy,&rdquo; Dick said dramatically, &ldquo;where do
+you get the money?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;it comes
+along. The restaurant makes some.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Very little.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I could make it pay any time that I wanted
+to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sometimes I wonder if you are in full possession
+of your senses.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Caroline is affected that way, too. I feel
+that she is likely to get an alienist in at any
+time. She is so earnest in anything she undertakes.
+She and Billy have had a scrap, did you
+know it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy wants to marry her, and he has
+shocked her delicate feelings by suggesting it
+to her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I imagine you have a good deal to do with
+her feelings on the subject,&rdquo; Dick said gloomily.
+&ldquo;I suppose at heart you don&rsquo;t believe in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190' ></a>190</span>
+marriage, or think you don&rsquo;t and you&rsquo;ve communicated
+the poison to Caroline.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done nothing of the kind,&rdquo; Nancy insisted
+warmly. &ldquo;I do believe in marriage with
+all my heart. I think the greatest service any
+woman can render her kind in this mix-up
+age is to marry one man and make that marriage
+work by taking proper scientific care of
+him and his children.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is news to me,&rdquo; Dick said. &ldquo;I thought
+that <i>you</i> thought that the greatest service a
+woman could do was to run Outside Inn, and
+stuff all the derelicts with calories.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a service, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They were out beyond the stately decay of the
+up-town drive, with its crumbling mansions and
+the disheveled lawns surrounding them, beyond
+the view of the most picturesque river in the
+world, though, comparatively speaking, the
+least regarded, covering the prosaic stretch of
+dusty road between Van Courtland Park and
+the town of Yonkers.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I like the <i>Bois</i> better,&rdquo; Sheila said, &ldquo;but I
+like Central Park better than the <i>Champs Elyse&eacute;s</i>.
+In Paris the children are not so gay as
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191' ></a>191</span>
+the grown-up people. Here it is the grown-up
+people who are without smiles on the streets.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why is that, Dick?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s always true of the maturer races, the
+gaiety of the French is appreciative enthusiasm,&mdash;if
+I may invent a phrase. The children
+haven&rsquo;t developed it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I would like to have my hand held, Monsieur
+Dick,&rdquo; Sheila announced. &ldquo;I always feel
+homesick when I think about Paris. I was so
+contente and so <i>malheureuse</i> there.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why were you unhappy, sweetest?&rdquo; Nancy
+asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My father says I am never to speak of those
+things, and so I don&rsquo;t&mdash;even to Miss Dear, my
+<i>bien aim&eacute;e</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick lifted Sheila into his lap, he took the
+hand that still clung to Nancy&rsquo;s in his warm
+palm, and held them both there caressingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My <i>bien aim&eacute;e</i>,&rdquo; he said softly.</p>
+<p>Beyond the town a more gracious and magnificent
+country revealed itself; lovely homes
+set high on sweeping terraces, private parks
+and gardens and luxuriant estates, all in a blaze
+of October radiance with the glorious pigments
+of the season.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192' ></a>192</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it time to go back?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; Dick said. &ldquo;I want to show you
+something. There&rsquo;s an old place here I want
+you to see. That colonial house set way back
+in the trees there.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Williams is driving in,&rdquo; Nancy said as they
+approached it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been here before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are we going to get out?&rdquo; Sheila asked.</p>
+<p>Dick was already opening the door of the
+tonneau and assisting Nancy out of the car.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to leave Sheila with Williams, and
+take you over the house, Nancy. She&rsquo;ll be more
+interested in the grounds than she would in the
+interior. I want you to see the inside.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He took a key out of his pocket, and unlocked
+the stately door. Everything about the place
+was gigantic, stately,&mdash;the huge columns that
+supported the roof of the porch, the big elms
+that flanked it, and the great entrance hall, as
+they stepped into its majestic enclosure.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a biggish sort of place, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; Nancy
+said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s rather lovely, don&rsquo;t you think so?&rdquo;
+Dick asked anxiously. &ldquo;These old places are
+getting increasingly hard to find,&mdash;real old
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193' ></a>193</span>
+homes, dignified and beautiful, within a reasonable
+distance from town.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is lovely,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;it could be made
+perfectly wonderful to live in. I can see this
+big hall&mdash;furnished in mahogany or even
+carved oak that was old enough. Thank heaven,
+we&rsquo;re no longer slaves to a <i>period</i> in our decorating;
+we can use anything that&rsquo;s beautiful
+and suitable and not intrinsically incongruous
+with a clear conscience.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Come up-stairs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy lingered on the landing of the fine old
+staircase, white banistered with a mahogany
+hand-rail, that turned only once before it led
+into the region up-stairs.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather see the kitchen,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The kitchen isn&rsquo;t the thing that I&rsquo;m proudest
+of. Its plumbing is early English, or Scottish,
+I&rsquo;m afraid. I think this arrangement up
+here is delightful. See these front suites, one
+on either side of the hall. Bedroom, dressing-room,
+sitting-room. Which do you like best? I
+thought perhaps I might take the one that overlooks
+the orchard.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy stopped still on her way from window
+to window.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194' ></a>194</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Dick Thorndyke, whose house <i>is</i> this?&rdquo; she
+demanded.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yours&mdash;have you bought it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I put the deed in my safe deposit vault
+yesterday. Come in here. Isn&rsquo;t this a cunning
+little guest chamber nested in the trees? Be
+becoming to Betty&rsquo;s style of beauty, wouldn&rsquo;t
+it?&rdquo; He held the door open for her ingratiatingly,
+and she passed under his arm perfunctorily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What on earth did you buy a house like
+this for?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought you might like it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;what have I to do with it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick turned the rusty key in the lock deliberately,
+and put it in his pocket, thus closing
+them into the little musty room which had no
+other exit. A branch of flaming maple leaves
+tapped lightly on the window.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve a whole lot to do with it, Nancy,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s yours, and I&rsquo;m yours, and I want to
+know how much longer you&rsquo;re going to hedge.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not hedging,&rdquo; Nancy blazed. &ldquo;Take that
+key out of your pocket. This is moving-picture
+stuff.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195' ></a>195</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I know it is. I can&rsquo;t get you to talk to me
+any other way, so I thought I&rsquo;d try main force
+for a change.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it is a change,&rdquo; she agreed. &ldquo;Shall I
+begin to scream now, or do you intend to give
+me some other provocation?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be coarse, darling.&rdquo; There is a certain
+disadvantage in having known the woman
+who is the object of your tenderest emotions all
+your life, and to be on terms of the most familiar
+badinage with her. Dick was feeling this
+disadvantage acutely at the moment. He took
+a step toward her, and put a heavy hand on her
+shoulder. &ldquo;Nancy, don&rsquo;t you love me?&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;don&rsquo;t you really?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Nancy said deliberately, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t, and
+you know very well I don&rsquo;t. Unlock that door,
+and let&rsquo;s be sensible.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you know, dear, or care that you&rsquo;re
+hurting me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;You say so, and I
+hear you, but I don&rsquo;t really believe it. If I
+did&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you did&mdash;what?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;d be sorrier.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t sorry at all, as it stands.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196' ></a>196</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I find it&rsquo;s awfully hard to be sorry for you,
+Dick, in any connection. There&rsquo;s really nothing
+pathetic about you, no matter how tragic you
+think you are being. You&rsquo;re rich and lucky and
+healthy. You have everything you want&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not everything.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you live the way you want to, and eat
+the food you want to&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The ruling passion.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And make the jokes you want to.&rdquo; Nancy
+literally stuck up a saucy nose at him. &ldquo;There
+is really nothing that I could contribute to your
+happiness. I mean nothing important. You
+are not a poor man whom I could help to work
+his way up to the top, or a genius that needs
+fostering, or a&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dyspeptic that needs putting on a special
+diet,&mdash;but for all that I do need a mother&rsquo;s love,
+Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe you do,&rdquo; Nancy said, a trifle
+absently. &ldquo;Unlock the door, Dick. I don&rsquo;t think
+Sheila put on that sweater when I told her to,
+and I&rsquo;m afraid she&rsquo;ll get cold.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Kiss me, Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Will you unlock the door if I do?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&rsquo;um.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197' ></a>197</span></div>
+<p>Nancy put up cool fragrant lips to meet a
+brother&rsquo;s kiss, and for the moment was threatened
+with a second salute that was very much
+less fraternal, but the danger passed. Dick unlocked
+the door and let her pass him without
+protest.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you had been any other girl,&rdquo; he mused,
+as they went down the stairs together companionably,
+&ldquo;you wouldn&rsquo;t have got away with
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;With what?&rdquo; Nancy asked innocently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t tell
+you. If you&rsquo;d been any other girl I should have
+thrown that key out of the window when you
+began to sass me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And then?&rdquo; Nancy inquired politely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And then,&rdquo; Dick replied finally and firmly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are there any other girls?&rdquo; Nancy asked,
+faintly curious, as they stood on the deep steps
+of the porch waiting for Sheila and Williams
+who were emerging from the middle entrance.</p>
+<p>Dick met her glance a little solemnly, and
+hesitated for a perceptible instant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are there, Dick?&rdquo; she insisted.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, dear,&rdquo; he said.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198' ></a>198</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XIII_THE_HAPPIEST_DAY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>The Happiest Day</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>It was thoroughly characteristic of Nancy to
+turn her back on the most significant facts
+of her experience, and occupy herself exclusively
+with its by-products. She refused to
+consider herself as an heiress entitled to spend
+money lavishly for her own uses, but she squandered
+it on her pet enterprise. She dismissed
+the idea that Dick, whom she neglected to discourage
+as decisively as her growing interest in
+another man would seem to warrant, had
+bought a country estate for the sole purpose of
+ensconcing her there as mistress. She dreamed
+of Collier Pratt and his ideal of her, and presented
+herself punctually at his studio as a
+model for that ideal, while ignoring absolutely
+the fact that he was nearly a hundred dollars
+in debt to her for meals served at Outside Inn.
+She had sufficient logic and common sense to
+apply to these matters, and sufficient imagination
+to handle them sympathetically, had she
+chosen to consider them at all, but she did not
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199' ></a>199</span>
+choose. She was deep in the adventure of her
+existence as differentiated from its practical
+working out.</p>
+<p>The day Collier Pratt finished his portrait of
+her she was not alone in the studio with him.
+Sheila, in a fluffy white dress with a floppy
+black satin hat framing her poignant little face,
+was omnipresent at the interview which succeeded
+the actual two hours of absorption when
+he put in the last telling strokes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s done,&rdquo; he said, as he set aside pigments
+and brushes, and divested himself of his painting
+apron. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to look at it now. I&rsquo;ve
+got it, but I can&rsquo;t stand the strain of contemplating
+it till my brain cools a trifle. Let&rsquo;s go
+out and celebrate.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where shall we go?&rdquo; Nancy said. This was
+the moment she had dreamed of for weeks, the
+hour of fruition when the work was done, and
+they could face each other, man and woman
+again with no strip of canvas between them.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The place I always go when I&rsquo;ve finished a
+picture is a little caf&eacute; under the shadow of
+<i>Notre Dame</i>, where I get cakes and beer and an
+excellent perspective on all my favorite gargoyles.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200' ></a>200</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;And the little birds flutter in the sun, and
+eat my crumbs and the great music swells out
+while you ask the <i>gar&ccedil;on</i> for another <i>bock</i>. Do
+you remember, father dear, the day that <i>she</i>
+found us there?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I remember only that you made yourself ill
+eating <i>Madelaines</i> and had to be taken home
+<i>en voiture</i>,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said quickly. &ldquo;We
+will go and have some coffee at the Caf&eacute; des
+Artistes, and discuss ships and shoes and sealing
+wax&mdash;anything but the art of painting.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And cabbages and kings,&rdquo; Sheila contributed
+ecstatically. &ldquo;I used to think when I was a very
+little girl and couldn&rsquo;t read English very well
+that it was really Heaven where Alice went,
+and it made me sad to think she was dead and
+I didn&rsquo;t understand it, but now Miss Dear has
+explained to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Dear has made a good many things
+clear to us both,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said, but he
+said no more that might be even remotely construed
+as referring to the issue between them,
+and Nancy finished out her day with dragging
+limbs and an aching empty heart that a word
+of tenderness would have filled to running over.</p>
+<p>But after her work for the day was done, and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201' ></a>201</span>
+she was back in her own apartment with Sheila
+tucked snugly in bed, and Hitty out for the
+night with a sick friend, there came the touch
+on her bell that she knew was Collier Pratt&rsquo;s;
+and she opened the door to find him standing
+on her threshold.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I knew you&rsquo;d come,&rdquo; she said, as women
+always say to the man they have that hour
+given up looking for.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t sure I would,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said,
+&ldquo;but I did, you see.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why weren&rsquo;t you sure?&rdquo; She stood beside
+him in her little rectangular hall while he
+divested himself of his cape, and placed his hat,
+stick and gloves in orderly sequence on the
+oak settee beside it. She liked to watch the
+precision with which he always arranged these
+things.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why should I be sure?&rdquo; He turned and
+faced her. &ldquo;Miss Dear,&rdquo; he said to himself
+softly, &ldquo;Miss Dear,&rdquo; and she saw that in his eyes
+which made the moment simpler for her to
+bear.</p>
+<p>She led the way into her drawing-room.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Light the candles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this firelight
+is too good to drown in a flood of electric light!&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202' ></a>202</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Is that better?&rdquo; she asked.</p>
+<p>They were standing before the fireplace; the
+embers had burned to a gentle glowing radiance.
+Of the four candles she had lighted, the wick
+of only one had taken fire and was burning.
+Nancy&rsquo;s breath caught in her throat, and she
+could not steady it. Collier Pratt took a step
+forward and held out his arms.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, this is better,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought there was some place in the world
+where I could be&mdash;comfortable,&rdquo; Nancy said,
+when she finally lifted her head from the
+shoulder of the shabby, immaculate black suit,
+&ldquo;but I wasn&rsquo;t quite sure.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Are you sure now, you little wonder
+woman?&rdquo; He held her at the length of his
+arm for a moment and gazed curiously into
+her face. Then he drew her slowly toward
+him again. She met his kiss bravely, so bravely
+that he understood the quality of her courage.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t realize that this would be the first
+time,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There couldn&rsquo;t have been any other time,&rdquo;
+Nancy breathed, &ldquo;you know that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said thoughtfully.
+&ldquo;Oh! you little American girls, with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203' ></a>203</span>
+your strange, straight-laced little bodies and
+your fearless souls!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty told you something,&rdquo; Nancy cried,
+scarcely hearing him, &ldquo;but it wasn&rsquo;t true.
+There never has been anybody else.&rdquo; She put
+her head down on his shoulder again. &ldquo;It is
+comfortable here,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;where I belong.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She felt the sudden passion sweep through
+him,&mdash;the high avid wave of tenderness and
+desire,&mdash;and she exulted as all purely innocent
+women exult when that madness surges first
+through the veins of the man they love. He
+put his hands on her shoulders and pressed her
+into the armchair by the fire, and there she took
+his head on her breast and understood for all
+time what it means for a woman to be called
+the mother of men.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You wonder woman,&rdquo; he murmured again.</p>
+<p>She brushed the dark hair back from his
+forehead and kissed his eyes. &ldquo;You dear,&rdquo; she
+said, &ldquo;you boy, you little boy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Suddenly through the darkness came the
+sound of a shrill cry, and the thud of a fall in
+some room down the corridor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s Sheila,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;she has those
+little nightmares and falls out of bed.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204' ></a>204</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I know she does,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said, &ldquo;but
+she picks herself up again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not always,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t you want
+to come in and help me put her back?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do not,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said with unnecessary
+emphasis.</p>
+<p>Nancy was of two minds about picking the
+child up in her little white night-gown and
+bringing her out to her father, flushed and lovely
+with sleep as she was. It was Collier Pratt&rsquo;s
+baby she had in her arms; her charge, the child
+she loved, and the child of the man she loved,
+a part of the miracle that was slowly revealing
+itself to her; but a sudden sharp instinct
+warned her that her impulse was ill-timed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I had forgotten the child was here,&rdquo; Collier
+Pratt said when she returned to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said happily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose she has to be somewhere, poor
+little wretch,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s an extraordinarily
+picturesque baby, isn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy crept nearer to him. He stood leaning
+against the mantel and frowning slightly, but
+he made no move toward her again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She doesn&rsquo;t have nightmares often now,&rdquo;
+Nancy said with stiffening lips. &ldquo;She used to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205' ></a>205</span>
+have them almost every night, but by watching
+her diet carefully we have practically eliminated
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The Hitty person doesn&rsquo;t like me,&rdquo; Collier
+Pratt said. &ldquo;<i>Pas du tout</i>. She treats me as if I
+were a book agent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She loves Sheila, she&mdash;she&rsquo;d do anything for
+her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The women who do not find me attractive
+are likely to find me quite conspicuously otherwise,
+I am afraid.&rdquo; He had been carefully
+avoiding Nancy&rsquo;s eyes, but her little cry at this
+drew his gaze. She was standing before him,
+slowly blanching as if he had struck her, absolutely
+still except for the trembling of her lips.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What am I,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to hold out against
+all the forces of the Universe? Do you love me,
+Nancy, do you love me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know,&rdquo; she whispered, once more in the
+shelter of the shabby shoulder.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is madness,&rdquo; he swore as he kissed her;
+&ldquo;we&rsquo;re both out of our senses, Nancy; don&rsquo;t you
+know it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The picture is done, anyhow,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t know how I can ever bear to look it in the
+face, but I shall have to.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206' ></a>206</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the best work I&rsquo;ve ever done,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t look like it now, do I?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He held her off to see.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, by jove, you don&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s gone, now&mdash;just
+that thing I painted.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do I look now?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Much more commonplace from the point of
+view from which I painted you. Much more
+beautiful though,&mdash;much more beautiful.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I might paint you again,&mdash;like this. No,
+I swear I won&rsquo;t. I got the thing itself down on
+canvas. I&rsquo;ll never try to paint you again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is&mdash;that flattering?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Supremely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When am I going to have my picture?&rdquo; she
+asked after another interlude. &ldquo;Do you want
+me to send for it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t give you the picture,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+intended to if I had done merely a portrait, but
+I can&rsquo;t part with this. It has got to make my
+fame and fortune.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought I was to have it,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+then she felt she was being ungenerous,
+unworthy, &ldquo;but I couldn&rsquo;t take it, of course,
+it&rsquo;s too valuable.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207' ></a>207</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Please God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It would be wonderful, wouldn&rsquo;t it, if my
+picture did make you famous!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m nothing but a grubby little working girl,
+and you&rsquo;re a great artist,&mdash;and you love me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re not a grubby little working girl to
+me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re a glorious creature&mdash;a
+wonder woman. I ought to go down on my
+knees to you for what you&rsquo;ve given me in that
+picture.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In the picture?&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I love you.
+I love you. That wasn&rsquo;t in the picture&mdash;I kept
+it out.&rdquo;</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t marry him until he is ready for me,&rdquo;
+she said to herself at one time during the night.
+She lay perfectly quiet till morning, her hands
+folded upon her breast, and her little girl pig-tails
+pulled down on either side of the coverlet,
+wide-eyed and tranquil. She could not bear to
+sleep and forget for a moment the beautiful
+thing that had happened to her between dawn
+and dawn. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take care of him and Sheila,
+and nourish him, and help him to sell my
+picture. It isn&rsquo;t every woman who would understand
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208' ></a>208</span>
+his kind of loving, but I understand
+it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At eight o&rsquo;clock Hitty came in to her, and
+roused her from the light drowse into which
+she had fallen at last.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You was crying in your sleep again,&rdquo; she
+said, &ldquo;your cheeks is all wet. I heard you the
+minute I put my key into the latch. You&rsquo;re as
+bad as Sheila, only I expect she suffers from
+something laying hard on her stummick. It&rsquo;s
+always something on your mind that starts you
+in.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing on my mind, Hitty,&rdquo; Nancy
+said, sitting up in bed, &ldquo;nothing but happiness,
+I mean. In some ways, Hitty dear, this is the
+happiest day that I&rsquo;ve ever waked up to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then, there&rsquo;s other ways that it isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo;
+Hitty said, opening the door to stalk out
+majestically.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209' ></a>209</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XIV_BETTY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Betty</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lady waiting to see you, sir,&rdquo;
+Dick&rsquo;s man servant informed him on
+his arrival at his apartment one evening when
+he had been dining at his club, and was putting
+in a leisurely appearance at his own place after
+his coffee and cigar.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A lady?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, sir, she has been here since nine. She
+says it&rsquo;s not important, but she insisted on
+waiting.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The deuce she did.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick&rsquo;s quarters were not, strictly speaking,
+of the bachelor variety. That is, he had a suite
+in one of the older apartment houses in the
+fifties, a building that domiciled more families
+and middle-aged married couples than sprightly
+young single gentlemen. Dick had fallen heir
+to the establishment of an elderly uncle, who
+had furnished the place some time in the nineties
+and when he grew too decrepit to keep his
+foothold in New York had retired to the country,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210' ></a>210</span>
+leaving Dick in possession. Even if Dick
+had been a conspicuously rakish young gentleman,
+which he was not, the traditional dignity
+of his surroundings would have certainly protected
+him from incongruous indiscretion in
+their vicinity.</p>
+<p>Betty rose composedly from the pompous
+red velour couch that ran along the wall under
+a portrait of a gentleman that looked like a
+Philip of Spain, but was really Dick&rsquo;s maternal
+great grandfather.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Betty,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;this isn&rsquo;t
+<i>convenable</i> unless you have a chaperon somewhere
+concealed. We don&rsquo;t do things like this.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I do,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;I wanted to see you,
+so I came. In these emancipated days ladies
+call upon their men friends if they like. It&rsquo;s
+archaic to prattle of chaperons.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Still we were all brought up in the fear of
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mine were brought up in the fear of me. I
+like this place, Dicky. Why don&rsquo;t you give us
+more parties in it? You haven&rsquo;t had a crowd
+here for months.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Everybody&rsquo;s so busy,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;we don&rsquo;t
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211' ></a>211</span>
+seem to get together any more. I&rsquo;m willing to
+play host any time that the rest want to come.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You mean Nancy is so busy with her old
+Outside Inn.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You are busy there, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not so busy that I wouldn&rsquo;t come here
+when I was asked, Dicky.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Or even when you weren&rsquo;t?&rdquo; Dick&rsquo;s smile
+took the edge off his obviously inhospitable suggestion.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Or even when I wasn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Betty said impudently.
+&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you sit down, Mr. Thorndyke?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t I call you a cab, Miss Pope?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t wish to go away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty, be reasonable,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s after
+ten o&rsquo;clock. It is not usual for me to receive
+young ladies alone here, and it looks badly.
+I don&rsquo;t care for myself, of course, but for you
+it looks badly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s only for me&mdash;I don&rsquo;t care how it
+looks. Come and sit down beside me, and talk
+to me, Dicky, and I&rsquo;ll tell you really why I
+came.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick folded his arms and looked down at her.
+Betty&rsquo;s piquant little face, olive tinted, and pure
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212' ></a>212</span>
+oval in contour, was turned up to him confidently;
+under the close seal turban the soft
+brown hair framed the childish face, while the
+big dark eyes danced with mischief. She patted
+the couch by her side invitingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go away in fifteen minutes, Dicky dear.
+It certainly wouldn&rsquo;t look well if you put me out
+immediately, after all your establishment knowing
+that I waited here an hour for you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick took out his watch.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Fifteen minutes, then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s
+your trouble, Betty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s a long sad story,&rdquo; she temporized.
+&ldquo;Perhaps I had better not begin on it now that
+our time is so short. You wouldn&rsquo;t like to hold
+my hand, would you, Dicky?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to, at any rate.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought you&rsquo;d say that,&rdquo; she sighed.
+&ldquo;Have you seen Nancy lately?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yesterday.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s looking better, don&rsquo;t you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Preston Eustace is back.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is that so? I didn&rsquo;t know he was here yet.
+I knew he was coming.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213' ></a>213</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s to be here six months, or so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Have you seen him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, Caroline told me.&rdquo; Her voice was carefully
+steadied but Dick noticed for the first
+time the shadows etched under the big brown
+eyes, and the flush of excitement splotched
+high on her cheek-bones. She had been engaged
+to Preston Eustace for three months succeeding
+her twentieth birthday.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On second thoughts I think I will hold your
+hand, Betty,&rdquo; he said, covering that childlike
+member with his own rather brawny one. &ldquo;You
+are not a very big little girl, are you, Betty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My mother used to tell me that I was a very
+destructive child.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if you were that yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let&rsquo;s talk about me. Let&rsquo;s talk about
+you, Dicky.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;About me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, please. I think you&rsquo;re a very interesting
+subject.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Having arrived at some conclusion concerning
+this unprecedented attack upon his privacy,
+Dick was disposed to be kind to his unexpected
+visitor. The fact that Preston Eustace was in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214' ></a>214</span>
+town and Betty had not seen him shed an entirely
+new light on her recklessness. Like every
+other incident in Betty&rsquo;s history her love-affair
+had been very conspicuously featured.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The interesting things about me just at present
+are&mdash;&rdquo; he was just about to say &ldquo;six shirts
+of imported gingham&rdquo; but he bethought himself
+that she would be certain to demand to see
+them, so he finished lamely with&mdash;&ldquo;my game of
+golf, and my new dogs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What kind of dogs?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Belgian police dogs.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where do you keep them?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t taken them over yet.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I heard that you had bought a place up in
+Westchester, but I asked Nancy, and she said
+she didn&rsquo;t know. I don&rsquo;t think Nancy appreciates
+you, Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That so often happens.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I mean that seriously.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a serious matter&mdash;being appreciated.
+The only person who I ever thought really
+appreciated me was Billy&rsquo;s old aunt. Every
+time she saw me she used to say to me, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re
+such a clean-looking young man I can&rsquo;t take my
+eyes off you.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215' ></a>215</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;You <i>are</i> clean-looking, and awfully good-looking
+too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mind if I smoke, Betty?&rdquo; Dick carefully
+disengaged his hand from her clinging
+fingers, and a look of something like intelligence
+passed between them, before Betty
+turned her ingenuous child&rsquo;s stare on him
+again.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not if you&rsquo;ll give me a cigarette, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick fumbled through his pockets.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s awfully stupid, but I haven&rsquo;t any about
+me,&rdquo; he said, fingering what he knew that she
+knew to be the well filled case he always carried
+in his inner pocket. He did not approve of
+women smoking.</p>
+<p>But &ldquo;Poor Dicky!&rdquo; was all she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your fifteen minutes are up, Betty,&rdquo; he said
+presently, taking out his watch.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I suppose I&rsquo;ll have to go then.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick rose politely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You really don&rsquo;t care whether I go or stay,
+do you?&rdquo; she sighed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I would rather have you go, Betty,&rdquo; he said
+gravely.</p>
+<p>Betty&rsquo;s eyes filled with sudden tears, that
+Dick to his surprise realized were genuine.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216' ></a>216</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I wanted you to want me to stay,&rdquo; she said
+incoherently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;re just a miserable little thing
+that doesn&rsquo;t want to be alone,&rdquo; he concluded.
+&ldquo;Come, I&rsquo;ll take you home.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The telephone bell on the table beside him
+rang sharply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just going out,&rdquo; he said to Billy, on the
+wire. &ldquo;Betty is here with a fit of the blues.
+I&rsquo;m going to take her home. Ride up with us,
+will you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll meet us down-stairs in ten minutes,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll order a taxi.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to see Billy,&rdquo; Betty said rebelliously.
+She rose suddenly, pulling on her
+gloves, and took a step forward as if about to
+brush by him petulantly, but as she did so she
+staggered, put her hand to her eyes, and fell
+forward against his breast.</p>
+<p>Dick picked up the limp little body, and made
+his way to the couch where he deposited it
+gently among the stiff red pillows there. Then
+he began to chafe her hands, to push back the
+tumbled hair from which the fur hat had been
+displaced, and finally fallen off, and to call out
+her name remorsefully.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217' ></a>217</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty, dear, dearest,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t
+know, I didn&rsquo;t dream,&mdash;I thought you were just
+trying it on. I&rsquo;m so sorry, dear, I am so sorry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She moaned softly, and he bent over her again
+more closely. Then he gathered her up in his
+arms.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty, dear, Betty,&rdquo; he said again.</p>
+<p>She opened her eyes. Her two soft arms stole
+up around his neck, and she lifted her lips.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You little devil,&rdquo; Dick cried, almost at the
+same instant that he kissed her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She deserves to be spanked,&rdquo; he told Billy
+grimly at the door. &ldquo;She got in my apartment
+when I was out, and insisted on staying there
+till I came in, to make me a visit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t understand me,&rdquo; Betty complained,
+as she cuddled confidingly in the corner of
+the taxi-cab, &ldquo;when I&rsquo;m serious he doesn&rsquo;t
+realize or appreciate it, and he doesn&rsquo;t understand
+the nature of my practical jokes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like&mdash;practical jokes,&rdquo; Dick said.
+&ldquo;Have you seen Preston Eustace, Billy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t seen Caroline,&rdquo; Billy said, as if
+that disposed of all the interrogatory remarks
+that might be addressed to him in the present
+or the future.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218' ></a>218</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nice-looking river,&rdquo; Betty said, looking
+out at the softly gleaming surface of the
+Hudson, as their cab took the drive. &ldquo;It looks
+strange to-night, though, laden with all kinds
+of queer little boats. I wonder how it would
+feel to be drifting down it, or up it, on a barque
+or a barkentine&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what a barkentine
+is&mdash;all dead like Elaine or Ophelia,&mdash;with
+your hands neatly folded across your breast?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For heaven sake&rsquo;s, Betty,&rdquo; Billy cried, &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t like your style of conversation. I&rsquo;m in a
+state of gloom myself, to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say I was in a state of gloom,&rdquo;
+Betty said. They rode the rest of the way in
+silence, but when Dick got out of the cab to
+open her door for her, she whispered to him,
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m awfully ashamed, Dick,&rdquo; before she fled
+up-stairs through the darkened hallway of her
+own home.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Queer little thing,&mdash;Betty,&rdquo; Billy said as
+Dick stepped back to the cab again, &ldquo;you never
+know where you have her. Full of the deuce as
+she can stick. Unscrupulous little rascal, too,
+but made of good stuff.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think so?&rdquo; Billy inquired presently
+as Dick did not answer.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219' ></a>219</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Think what?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That Betty&rsquo;s a queer sort of girl.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick took his pipe out of his pocket and began
+stuffing it full of tobacco. When this was satisfactorily
+accomplished, he struck a match on
+his boot heel, and lit the mixture, drawing at it
+critically meanwhile.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Damn&rsquo; queer,&rdquo; he admitted, between puffs.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220' ></a>220</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XV_CLOUDS_OF_GLORY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Clouds of Glory</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Nancy, trailing clouds of glory, took up the
+management of her Inn with renewed
+vigor. She had found her touchstone. The
+flower of love, which she had scarcely understood
+to be indigenous to the soil of her own
+practical little garden, had suddenly lifted up
+its head there in fragrant, radiant bloom. She
+was so happy that she was impatient of all the
+inadequate, inefficient manipulation of affairs in
+the whole world. She felt strong and wise to
+put everything right in a neglected universe.</p>
+<p>She loved. She was satisfied to live in that
+love for the present, with no imagination of the
+future except as her lover should construct it
+for her; and in him she had absolute faith.
+The things that he had said or left unsaid had
+no significance to her. Before she had dreamed
+of a personal relation with him he had singled
+her out as a creature made for the consummation
+and fulfilment of the greatest passion
+of all. The merest suspicion that there had
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221' ></a>221</span>
+been a man in the world who could have frustrated
+this beautiful potentiality in her had
+moved him profoundly. There was nothing in
+her experience to help her to differentiate
+between the sensibility of the artistic temperament
+and the manifestations of the more reliable
+emotions. The presence in the human
+breast of a fire that gave out light and not heat
+was a condition undreamed of in her philosophy.
+To doubt Collier Pratt&rsquo;s love for her in
+the face of his tacit pursuit of her, and the
+acceptance of the obligation she had chosen to
+put him under, would have seemed to her the
+rankest kind of heresy.</p>
+<p>She had been brought up on terms of comradely
+equality with boys and men, and she
+understood the rules of all the pretty games of
+fluffing and light flirtation that young men and
+women play with each other, but serious love-making&mdash;that
+was a thing apart. In the world
+of honor and fair dealing a man took a woman&rsquo;s
+kiss of surrender for one reason and one reason
+only&mdash;&mdash;that she was his woman, and he so held
+her in his heart.</p>
+<p>Now that she was in this sort committed to
+her love for Collier Pratt, her one ambition was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222' ></a>222</span>
+to put her life in order for him,&mdash;to pick up the
+raveling threads of her achievement and prove
+to him and to herself that she was the kind of
+woman who accomplishes that which she
+attempts. In the light of his indefatigable
+patience in all matters that pertained to his
+art&mdash;his clean-cut workmanship&mdash;his skill in
+handling his material&mdash;she blushed for the
+amateur spirit that animated all her undertakings,
+and for the first time recognized it
+for what it was.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Gaspard,&rdquo; she said one morning soon after
+her miracle had been achieved, &ldquo;where do you
+think the greatest leak is? We spend a great
+deal too much money in running this place.
+As you know, that is not the most important
+matter to me. Getting my customers properly
+nourished with invitingly prepared food is the
+essential thing, but if there was a way to adjust
+the economical end of it, I should feel a great
+deal more comfortable in my mind.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But certainly, mademoiselle, I should like
+myself to try the pretty little economies. The
+Frenchman he likes to spend his money when it
+is there, but it hurts him in the heart to waste
+this money without cause.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223' ></a>223</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Am I wasting money without cause, Gaspard,
+in your opinion?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What else?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How can I stop it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By calculation of the tall cost of living,
+and by buying what is good instead of what is
+expensive.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you mean, Gaspard?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Gaspard contemplated her for a moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We have had this week&mdash;squab chicken,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;racks of little unseasonable lambs, sweetbreads,
+guinea fowl and <i>filet du boeuf</i>. We
+have with them mushrooms, fresh string bean,
+cooked endive, and new, not very good peas
+grown in glass. We have the salted nuts, the
+radish, the olive, the celery, the <i>bon bon</i>, all
+extra without pay. Then you make in addition
+to this the health foods, and your bills are
+sky high up. Is it not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid it is, Gaspard. I had no idea I
+was as reckless as all that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But yes, and more of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What would you do if you were running
+this restaurant, Gaspard?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I would give <i>rago&ucirc;t</i>, and rabbits&mdash;so cheap
+and so good too&mdash;stewed in red wine, and the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224' ></a>224</span>
+good pot roast with vegetables all in the delicious
+sauce, and carrots with parsley and the
+peas out of the can, cooked with onion and lettuce,
+and mac&eacute;doine of all the other things left
+over. Lentils and flageolet I should buy dried
+up, and soak them out.&mdash;All those things which
+you have said were needless.&mdash;In my way they
+would be so excellent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You make my mouth water, Gaspard. I
+don&rsquo;t know whether it&rsquo;s a Gallic eloquence, or
+whether that food really would work. They
+might like it for a change anyhow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I have many personal patrons now,&rdquo; Gaspard
+said with some pride; &ldquo;all day they send
+me messages, and very good tips. I think what
+I would serve them they would eat.&mdash;But there
+is one thing&mdash;&rdquo; he paused and hesitated dejectedly,
+&ldquo;that, what you say, takes the heart out
+of the beautiful cooking.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What thing is that, Gaspard?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Those calories.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Gaspard, surely you&rsquo;re used to working
+with tables now. It must be almost second
+nature to you. My whole end and aim has been
+to serve a balanced ration.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know, but the ration when he is right,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225' ></a>225</span>
+he balances himself. These tables they are like
+the steps in dancing&mdash;to learn and to forget.
+I figure all day all night to get those calories,
+and then I find I have eight&mdash;and eight are so
+little&mdash;lesser than I would have had without the
+figuring, and if our customer he has taken himself
+one piece of sweetmeat outside, he has
+more than made it up.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I always have worried about what they eat
+between meals,&rdquo; Nancy said,&mdash;&ldquo;but that, of
+course, we can&rsquo;t regulate.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Could I perhaps go to it, as you say, and
+cook like the <i>bourgeoisie</i> for a week or two of
+trials?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I think you could, Gaspard,&rdquo; Nancy
+said thoughtfully. &ldquo;Go to it, as we say, and I
+won&rsquo;t interfere in any way. Maybe they&rsquo;d
+like it. Perhaps our food is getting to be too
+much like hotel food, anyway.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She knew in her heart that the gradually
+increasing scale of luxury on which she had
+been running her cuisine had been largely due
+to her desire to provide Collier Pratt with all
+the delicacies he loved, without making the
+fact too conspicuous. The specially prepared
+dishes sent out to his table had become a matter
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226' ></a>226</span>
+of so much comment among the members of the
+staff, and the target of so much piquant satire
+from Betty that she had become sensitive on the
+subject, especially since Betty had access to the
+books, and knew in actual dollars and cents
+how much this favoritism was costing her.
+Now that matters had been settled between
+herself and her lover, she felt vaguely ashamed
+of this elaboration of method. It was so simple
+a thing to love a man and give him all you had,
+with the eyes of the world upon you, if necessary.
+She felt that she handled the matter
+rather unworthily.</p>
+<p>She had also a consultation with Molly and
+Dolly about the economic problem, and discovered
+that they agreed with Gaspard about the
+unnecessary extravagance of her management.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Them health foods,&rdquo; Dolly said,&mdash;she was
+not the more grammatical of the twins, &ldquo;the
+ones that gets them regular gets so tired of
+them, or else they gets where they don&rsquo;t need
+them any more. There&rsquo;s one girl that crumbs
+up her health muffins and puts them on the
+window-sill every day when I ain&rsquo;t looking, so&rsquo;s
+not to hurt my feelings.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227' ></a>227</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;That accounts for all those chittering sparrows,&rdquo;
+Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And some of those buttermilk men threatens
+not to come any more if I don&rsquo;t stop serving
+it to them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you say to them, Dolly, when they
+object to it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, sometimes I say one thing, and sometimes
+another. Sometimes I say it&rsquo;s orders to
+serve it; and sometimes I say will they please
+to let it stand by their plate not to get me in
+trouble with the management; and sometimes
+I coax them to take it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;By an appeal to their better nature,&rdquo; Nancy
+said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad Dick can&rsquo;t hear all this,&mdash;he&rsquo;d
+think it was funny.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have so much trouble with the
+broths,&rdquo; Molly said, &ldquo;but so many people would
+rather have the cream soups Gaspard makes,
+that we waste a good deal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It sours on us,&rdquo; Dolly elucidated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you think would be the best way
+out of that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think to charge for the invalid things,&rdquo;
+Dolly said; &ldquo;people would think more of them
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_228' ></a>228</span>
+if they was specials, and had to be paid good
+money for. Health bread, if you didn&rsquo;t call
+it that, would go good, if it cost five cents
+extra.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What would you call it?&rdquo; Nancy asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;California fruit nut bread, or something
+like that, and call the custards cr&ecirc;me renvers&eacute;,
+and the ice-cream, French ice-cream.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear!&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;that isn&rsquo;t the way
+I want to do things at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We can slip the ones that needs them a few
+things from time to time, can&rsquo;t we, Molly?&rdquo;
+Dolly said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll do it,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I hate the way
+that the most uninspired ways of doing things
+turn out to be the best policy after all. I don&rsquo;t
+believe in stereotyped philanthropy, but I did
+think I had found a way around this problem of
+feeding up people who needed it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They get fed up pretty good if they do pay
+a regular price for it,&rdquo; Dolly said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t
+get something for nothing in this world, and
+most everybody knows it by now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m managing my restaurant a little differently,&rdquo;
+she told Collier Pratt a few days later,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229' ></a>229</span>
+as she took her place at the little table beside
+him, where she habitually ate her dinner. &ldquo;If
+you don&rsquo;t like it you are to tell me, and I&rsquo;ll see
+that you have things you will like.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This dinner is good,&rdquo; he said reflectively,
+&ldquo;like French home cooking. I haven&rsquo;t had a
+real <i>rago&ucirc;t</i> of lamb since I left the pension of
+Madame Pellissier. Has your mysterious
+patroness got tired of furnishing <i>diners de
+luxe</i> to the populace?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not exactly that,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but she&mdash;she
+wants me to try out another way of doing
+things.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought that would come. That&rsquo;s the
+trouble with patronage of any kind. It is so
+uncertain. There is no immediate danger of
+your being ousted, is there?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;there&mdash;there is no danger
+of that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like that cutting you down,&rdquo; he said,
+frowning. &ldquo;It would be rather a bad outlook
+for us all if she threw you over, now wouldn&rsquo;t
+it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&mdash;she won&rsquo;t, there&rsquo;s nothing to worry
+about, really.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230' ></a>230</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It would be like my luck to have the only
+caf&eacute; in America turn me out-of-doors.&mdash;I should
+never eat again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I promise it won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;can&rsquo;t you
+trust me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I never have trusted any woman&mdash;but you,&rdquo;
+he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You can trust me,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;The truth
+is, she couldn&rsquo;t put me out even if she wanted
+to. I&mdash;she is under a kind of obligation to me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thank God for that. I only hope you are
+in a position to threaten her with blackmail.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I could if anybody could,&rdquo; Nancy said. She
+put out of her mind as disloyal, the faintly
+unpleasant suggestion of his words. He owed
+her mythical patron a substantial sum of money
+by this time. He was not even able to pay
+Michael the cash for the nightly teapot full of
+Chianti that Nancy herself now sent out for
+him regularly. For the first time since her
+association with him she was tempted to compare
+him to Dick, and that not very favorably;
+but at the next instant she was reproaching
+herself with her littleness of vision. He was
+too great a man to gauge by the ordinary standards
+of life. Money meant nothing to him
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231' ></a>231</span>
+except that it was the insignificant means to the
+end of that Art, which was to him consecrated.</p>
+<p>They were placed a little to the left of the
+glowing fire&mdash;Nancy had restored the fireplace
+in the big central dining-room&mdash;and the light
+took the brass of the andirons, and all the
+polished surface of copper and pewter and silver
+candelabra that gave the room its quality
+of picturesqueness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some of those branching candlesticks are
+very beautiful,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the impression here
+is a little like that of a Catholic altar just before
+the mass. I&rsquo;ve always thought I&rsquo;d like to have
+my meals served in church, <i>Saint-Germain-des-Pr&eacute;s</i>
+for instance.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is rather dim religious light.&rdquo; Nancy had
+no wish to utter this banality, but it was forced
+from her by her desire to seem sympathetic.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can we go to your place for a little while
+to-night?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>These were the words she had spent her days
+and nights hungering for; yet now she hesitated
+for a perceptible instant.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, we can, of course. There is a friend
+of mine&mdash;Billy Boynton, up there this evening.
+He is not feeling very fit, and phoned to ask
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232' ></a>232</span>
+if he could go up and sprawl before my fire, so,
+of course, I said he could.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! yes, Sheila&rsquo;s friend. Can&rsquo;t he be disposed
+of?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think so. We could try.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But at Nancy&rsquo;s apartment they found not
+only Billy, but Caroline, and the atmosphere
+was like that of the glacial regions, both literally
+and figuratively.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hitty had the windows open, and the fire
+went out, and I forgot to turn on the heat,&rdquo;
+Billy explained from his position on the hearth
+where he was trying to build an unscientific
+fire with the morning paper, and the remains of
+a soap box. There was a long smudge across
+his forehead.</p>
+<p>Caroline drew Nancy into the seclusion of her
+bedroom and clutched her violently by the arm.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stand the strain any longer,&rdquo; she
+cried, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve got to tell me. Are you or are
+you not going to marry Dick Thorndyke for his
+money, and is Billy Boynton putting you up to
+it&mdash;out of cowardice?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not and he isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter with you and Billy anyway?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233' ></a>233</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t seen him for weeks before. I just
+happened to be in this neighborhood to-night,
+and ran in here, and there he was.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you take him home with you?&rdquo;
+Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want him to go home with me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you love him?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know. That isn&rsquo;t the point.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is the point,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;there isn&rsquo;t
+any other point to the whole of existence.
+There&rsquo;s nothing else in the world, but love, the
+great, big, beautiful, all-giving-up kind of love,
+and bearing children for the man you love; and
+if you don&rsquo;t know that yet, Caroline, go down
+on your bended knees and pray to your God
+that He will teach it to you before it is too
+late.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t know you felt like that,&rdquo; Caroline
+gasped.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I do,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;and I think that
+any woman who doesn&rsquo;t is just confusing issues,
+and taking refuge in sophistry. I wouldn&rsquo;t give
+<i>that</i>&rdquo;&mdash;she snapped an energetic forefinger,
+&ldquo;for all your silly, smug little ideas of economic
+independence and service to the race, and
+all that tommy-rot. There is only one service
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234' ></a>234</span>
+a woman can do to her race, and that is to
+take hold of the problems of love and marriage,&mdash;and
+the problems of life, birth and death that
+are involved in them&mdash;and work them out to
+the best of her ability. They <i>will</i> work out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&mdash;you&rsquo;re a sort of a pragmatist, aren&rsquo;t
+you?&rdquo; Caroline gasped.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Billy loves you, and you love Billy. Billy
+needs you. He is the most miserable object
+lately, that ever walked the face of the earth.
+I&rsquo;m going to call a taxi-cab, and send you both
+home in it, and when you get inside of it I want
+you to put you arms around Billy&rsquo;s neck, and
+make up your quarrel.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t do that,&rdquo; said Caroline, &ldquo;but&mdash;but
+somehow or other you&rsquo;ve cleared up something
+for me. Something that was worrying me a
+good deal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shall I call the taxi?&rdquo; Nancy said inexorably.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, yes&mdash;if&mdash;if you want to,&rdquo; Caroline
+said.</p>
+<p>The fire was crackling merrily in the drawing-room
+when she stepped into it again after
+speeding her departing guests. Collier Pratt
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235' ></a>235</span>
+was walking up and down impatiently with his
+hands clasped behind his back.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You got rid of them at last,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+was afraid they would decide to remain with
+us indefinitely.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t have as much trouble as I anticipated,&rdquo;
+admitted Nancy cryptically.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt made a round of the rose-shaded
+lamps in the room&mdash;there were three including
+a Japanese candle lamp,&mdash;and turned them all
+deliberately low. Then he held out his arms
+to Nancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll snatch at the few moments of joy the
+gods will vouchsafe us,&rdquo; he said.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236' ></a>236</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XVI_CHRISTMAS_SHOPPING'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Christmas Shopping</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Sheila and Nancy were doing their Christmas
+shopping. The weather, which had
+been like mid-May&mdash;even to betraying a bewildered
+Jersey apple tree into unseasonable bloom
+that gave it considerable newspaper notoriety,&mdash;had
+suddenly turned sharp and frosty.
+Sheila, all in gray fur to the beginning of her
+gray gaiters, and Nancy in blue, a smart blue
+tailor suit with black furs and a big black
+satin hat&mdash;she was dressing better than she had
+ever dressed in her life&mdash;were in that state of
+physical exhilaration that follows the spur of
+the frost.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We mustn&rsquo;t dance down the avenue, Sheila,&rdquo;
+Nancy said, &ldquo;it isn&rsquo;t done, in the circles in
+which we move.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is you who are almost very nearly dancing,
+Miss Dear,&rdquo; Sheila said, &ldquo;I was only walking
+on my toetips.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! don&rsquo;t you feel good, Sheila?&rdquo; Nancy
+cried.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237' ></a>237</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you, Miss Dear?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel almost too good,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;as if
+in another minute the top of the world might
+come off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The top of the world is screwed on very
+tight, I think,&rdquo; said Sheila. &ldquo;I used to think
+when I was a little girl that it was made out of
+blue plush, but now I know better than that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It might be,&rdquo; Nancy argued, &ldquo;blue plush
+and bridal veils. There&rsquo;s a great deal of filmy
+white about it, to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a long way off from Fifth Avenue,&rdquo;
+Sheila sighed, &ldquo;too far. I am not going to
+think about it any more. I am going to think
+hard about what to give my father. Michael
+said to get a smoking set, but I don&rsquo;t know
+what a smoking set is. Hitty said some hand
+knit woolen stockings, but I am afraid he would
+be scratched by them. Gaspard said a big bottle
+of <i>Cointreau</i>, but I do not know what that is
+either.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t we give him a beautiful brocaded
+dressing-gown and a Swiss watch, thin as a
+wafer, and some handkerchiefs cobwebby fine,
+and a dozen bottles of <i>Cointreau</i>, and&mdash;then get
+the other things as we think of them?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238' ></a>238</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Are we rich enough to do <i>that</i>?&rdquo; Sheila
+asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Rich enough to buy anything we want,
+Sheila,&rdquo; Nancy cried. &ldquo;I had no idea it was going
+to be such a heavenly feeling. When you
+say your prayers to-night, Sheila, I hope you
+will ask God to bless somebody you&rsquo;ve never
+heard of before. <i>Elijah Peebles Martin</i>, do you
+think you could remember that long name,
+Sheila?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, Miss Dear,&mdash;do you remember him in
+your prayers every night?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I haven&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but I intend
+to from now on. Do you think Collier&mdash;father&mdash;would
+like to have a new pipe?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Shelia said; &ldquo;wouldn&rsquo;t Uncle
+Dick like to have one?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whether Uncle Dick is going to
+want a Christmas present from me or not,
+Sheila.&rdquo; Nancy answered seriously. &ldquo;There
+may be&mdash;reasons why he won&rsquo;t come to see us
+for a while when he knows them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear,&rdquo; Sheila said, &ldquo;but I can buy him a
+Christmas present myself, can&rsquo;t I? I don&rsquo;t
+want it to be Christmas if I can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239' ></a>239</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, dear. What shall we buy Aunt
+Caroline and Uncle Billy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some pink and blue housekeeping dishes, I
+think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to have trouble buying Caroline
+<i>anything</i>,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s so sure I can&rsquo;t
+afford it. If I give a silver chest I&rsquo;ll have to
+make Billy say it came from his maiden aunt.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What shall we give Aunt Betty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know exactly why,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but
+someway I feel more like giving her a good
+shaking than anything else.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For a little surprise,&rdquo; Sheila said presently,
+&ldquo;do you think we could go down to see my father
+in his studio, after we have shopped? I
+feel like seeing my father to-day. Sometimes I
+wake up in the morning and I think of Hitty
+and my breakfast, and the canary bird, and of
+you, Miss Dear, fast asleep where I can hear
+you breathing in your room&mdash;if I listen to it&mdash;and
+then other mornings I wake up thinking
+only of my father, and how he looks in his
+shirt-sleeves and necktie. I was thinking of
+him this morning like that. So now I should
+like to see him.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240' ></a>240</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;You shall, dear. I want him to see you in
+your new clothes. He&rsquo;ll think you look like a
+little gray bird with a scarlet breast.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I must open the front of my coat when
+I go in so he shall see my vest at once, mustn&rsquo;t
+I?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you know how much I love you, Sheila?&rdquo;
+Nancy cried suddenly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is it a great deal, Miss Dear?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s more than I&rsquo;ve ever loved anybody in
+this world but one person, and if I should ever
+be separated from you I think it would break
+my heart&mdash;so that you could hear it crack with
+a loud report, Sheila.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The little girl slipped her gray gloved hand
+into Nancy&rsquo;s and held it there silently for a
+moment.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then we won&rsquo;t ever be separated, Miss
+Dear,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>The shops were crowded with the usual conglomerate
+Christmas throng, and their progress
+was somewhat retarded by Sheila&rsquo;s desire to
+make the acquaintance of every department-store
+and Salvation Army Santa Claus that
+they met in their peregrinations. In the toy
+department of one of the Thirty-fourth Street
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241' ></a>241</span>
+shops there was a live Kris Kringle with animated
+reindeers on rollers, who made a short
+trip across an open space in one end of the department
+for a consideration, and presented
+each child who rode with him a lovely present,
+tied up in tissue and marked &ldquo;Not to be opened
+until Christmas.&rdquo; Sheila refused a second trip
+with him on the ground that it would not be
+polite to take more than one turn.</p>
+<p>Nancy was able to discover the little girl&rsquo;s
+preferences by a tactful question here and there
+when they were making the rounds of the different
+counters. She wanted, it developed, a
+golden-haired doll with a white fur coat, a pair
+of roller skates, an Indian costume, a beaded
+pocketbook, with a blue cat embroidered on it, a
+parchesi board to play parchesi with her Uncle
+Dick, some doll&rsquo;s dinner dishes, a boy&rsquo;s bicycle,
+some parlor golf sticks, a red leather writing
+set, a doll&rsquo;s manicure set, a sailor-boy paper
+doll, a dozen small suede animals in a box, a
+drawing book and crayon pencils and several
+other trifles of a like nature. The things she
+did not want she rejected unerringly. It
+pleased Nancy to realize that she knew exactly
+what she did want, even though her range of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242' ></a>242</span>
+taste was so extensive. Nancy had a sheaf of
+her own cards with her address on them in her
+pocketbook, and each time Sheila saw the thing
+her heart coveted Nancy nodded to the saleswoman
+and whispered to her to send it to the
+address given and charge to her account.</p>
+<p>They took their lunch in a famous confectionary
+shop, full of candy animals and alluring
+striped candy sticks and baskets. Here
+Sheila&rsquo;s eye was taken by a basket of spun
+sugar flowers, which she insisted on buying for
+Gaspard. By the time they were ready to resume
+their shopping tour, Sheila began to show
+signs of fag, so they bought only brooches for
+the waitresses, and the watch as thin and exquisite
+of workmanship as a man&rsquo;s pocket watch
+could be, for Collier Pratt.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think we had better give it to him now,
+Miss Dear,&rdquo; Sheila decided. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how
+he can wait till Christmas for it&mdash;it is so beautiful.
+He has not had a gold watch since that
+time in Paris when we had all that trouble.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What trouble, Sheila dear?&rdquo; Nancy said.
+She had tucked the child in a hansom, and they
+were driving slowly through the lower end of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243' ></a>243</span>
+Central Park to restore Sheila&rsquo;s roses before
+she was exhibited to her parent.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When we lost all our money, and my father
+and some one I must not speak of, had those
+dreadful quarrelings, and we ran away. I do
+not like to think of it. My father does not like
+to think of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then, you mustn&rsquo;t, dear,&rdquo; Nancy said,
+&ldquo;but just be glad it is all over now. I don&rsquo;t
+like to realize that so many hard things happened
+to you and him before I knew you, but
+I do like to think that I can perhaps prevent
+them ever happening to you again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She closed resolutely that department of her
+mind that had begun to occupy itself with conjectures
+concerning the past of the man to
+whom she had given her heart. The child&rsquo;s
+words conjured up nightmare scenes of unknown
+panic and dread. It was terrible to her
+to know that Collier Pratt had the memory of
+so much bitterness and distress of mind and
+body locked away in the secret chambers of his
+soul. &ldquo;Some one of whom I must not speak,&rdquo;
+Sheila had said, &ldquo;and some one of whom I must
+not think,&rdquo; Nancy added to herself. It was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244' ></a>244</span>
+probably some one with whom he had quarreled
+and struggled passionately maybe, with disastrous
+results. He could not have injured or
+killed anybody, else how could he be free and
+honorably considered in a free and honorable
+country? She laughed at her own melodramatic
+misgivings. It was only, she realized, that
+she so detested the connotation of the words
+&ldquo;ran away.&rdquo; Nancy had never run away from
+anything or anybody in her life, and she could
+not understand that any one who was close to
+her should ever have the instinct of flight.</p>
+<p>The most conscientious objector to New
+York&rsquo;s traffic regulations can not claim that
+they fail to regulate. The progress of their
+cab down the avenue was so scrupulously regulated
+by the benignant guardians of the semaphores
+that twilight was deepening into early
+December evening before they reached their
+objective point,&mdash;the ramshackle studio building
+on the south side of Washington Square
+where the man she loved lived, moved and had
+his being, with the gallant ease and grace which
+made him so romantic a figure to Nancy&rsquo;s imagination.</p>
+<p>She had never been to his studio before without
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245' ></a>245</span>
+an appointment, and her heart beat a little
+harder as, Sheila&rsquo;s hand in hers, they tiptoed
+up the worn and creaking stairs, through the
+ill-kept, airless corridors of the dingy structure,
+till they reached the top, and stood breathless
+from their impetuous ascent, within a few
+feet of Collier Pratt&rsquo;s battered door.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel a little scared, Miss Dear,&rdquo; Sheila
+whispered. &ldquo;I thought it was going to be so
+much fun and now I don&rsquo;t think so at all. Do
+you think he will be very angry at my coming?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think he will be angry at all,&rdquo; Nancy
+said. &ldquo;I think he will be very much surprised
+and pleased to see both of us. Turn around,
+dear, and let me be sure that you&rsquo;re neat.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Sheila turned obediently. Nancy fumbled
+with her pocket mirror, and then thought better
+of it, but passed a precautionary hand over the
+back of her hair to reassure herself as to its
+arrangement, and straightened her hat.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now we&rsquo;re ready,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>But Sheila put out her hand, and clutched at
+Nancy&rsquo;s sleeve.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s some one in there,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;somebody
+crying. Oh! don&rsquo;t let&rsquo;s go in, Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>From behind the closed door there issued suddenly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246' ></a>246</span>
+the confused murmur of voices, one&mdash;a
+woman&rsquo;s&mdash;rising and falling in the cadence of
+distress, the other low pitched in exasperated
+expostulation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s Collier,&rdquo; Nancy said mechanically, &ldquo;and
+some woman with him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Sheila shrank closer into the protecting shelter
+of her arms.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let&rsquo;s go in, Miss Dear,&rdquo; she repeated.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It may be just some model,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll wait a minute here and see if she doesn&rsquo;t
+come out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I don&rsquo;t want to see who comes out,&rdquo; the
+child said, her face suddenly distorted.</p>
+<p>There was a sharp sound of something falling
+within, then Collier Pratt&rsquo;s voice raised
+loud in anger.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better go now,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;before you
+do any more damage. I don&rsquo;t want you here.
+Once and for all I tell you that there is no place
+for you in my life. Weeping and wailing won&rsquo;t
+do you any good. The only thing for you to do
+is to get out and stay out.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>This was answered by an indistinguishable
+outburst.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t tell you where the child is,&rdquo; Collier
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247' ></a>247</span>
+Pratt said steadily. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s well taken care of.
+God knows you never took care of her. There&rsquo;s
+nothing you can do, you know. You might sue
+for a restitution of conjugal rights, I suppose,
+but if you drag this thing into the courts I&rsquo;ll
+fight it out to the end. I swear I will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You brute,&mdash;you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>At the first clear sound of the woman&rsquo;s voice
+the child at Nancy&rsquo;s side broke into sobs of
+convulsive terror.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Take me away, Miss Dear. Oh! take me
+away from here, quickly, quickly, I&rsquo;m so frightened.
+I&rsquo;m so afraid she&rsquo;ll come out and get me.
+It&rsquo;s my <i>mother</i>,&rdquo; she moaned.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248' ></a>248</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XVII_GOODBY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Good-By</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Nancy had no memory of her actions during
+the time that elapsed between leaving
+the studio building and her arrival at her own
+apartment. She knew that she must have
+guided Sheila to the beginning of the bus route
+at the lower end of the square, and as perfunctorily
+signaled the conductor to let her off at
+the corner of Fifth Avenue and her own street,
+but she could never remember having done so.
+Her first conscious recollection was of the few
+minutes in Sheila&rsquo;s room, while she was slipping
+off the child&rsquo;s gaiters, in the interval before
+she gave her over to Hitty for the night.
+The little girl was still sobbing beneath her
+breath, though her emotion was by this time
+purely reflexive.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t understand that your mother was
+living, Sheila,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She isn&rsquo;t very nice,&rdquo; the little girl said miserably.
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t tell any one. She always
+cries and screams and makes us trouble?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249' ></a>249</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Did she live with you in Paris?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Only sometimes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Does she do&mdash;something that she should not
+do, Sheila?&rdquo; Nancy asked, with her mind on inebriety,
+or drug addiction.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She just isn&rsquo;t very nice,&rdquo; Sheila repeated.
+&ldquo;She is <i>hist&eacute;rique</i>; she pounded me with her
+hands, and hurt me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy telephoned to the Inn that she had a
+headache, and shut herself into her room, without
+food, to gather her scattered forces. She
+lay wide-awake all the night through, her mind
+trying to work its way through the lethargy of
+shock it had received. She remembered falling
+down the cellar stairs, when she was a little
+girl, and lying for hours on the hard stone floor,
+perfectly serene and calm, without pain, until
+she tried to do so much as move a little finger
+or lift an eyelid, when the intolerable nausea
+would begin. She was calm now, until she
+made the attempt to think what it was that had
+so prostrated her, and then the anguish spread
+through her being and convulsed her with unimaginable
+distress of mind and body.</p>
+<p>By morning she had herself in hand again,&mdash;at
+least to the extent of dealing with the unthinkable
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250' ></a>250</span>
+fact that Collier Pratt, her lover, the
+man to whom she had given the lover&rsquo;s right to
+hold her in his arms and cover her upturned
+face with kisses, had a living wife, and that he
+was not free to make honorable love to any
+woman.</p>
+<p>Her life had been too sound, too sweet, to
+give her any perspective on a situation of the
+kind. It was inconceivable to her that a married
+man should make advances to an unmarried
+woman,&mdash;but gradually she began to make
+excuses for this one man whose circumstances
+had been so exceptional. Tied to an insane
+creature, who beat his child, who made him
+strange hectic scenes, and followed him all over
+the world to threaten his security, and menace
+that beautiful and inexplicable creative instinct
+that animated him like a holy fire, and set him
+apart from his kind; she began to see how it
+might be with him. She was still the woman he
+loved,&mdash;she believed that; he was weaker than
+she had thought,&mdash;that was all, weaker and not
+so wise. This being true, she must put aside
+her own pain and bewilderment, her own devastating
+disillusionment, and comfort him, and
+help him. She rose from her bed that morning
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251' ></a>251</span>
+firmly resolved to see him before the day was
+through.</p>
+<p>She breakfasted with Sheila, and made a
+brave attempt to get through the morning on
+her usual schedule, but once at the Inn she collapsed,
+and Michael and Betty had to put her
+in a cab and send her home again, where Hitty
+ministered to her grimly,&mdash;and she slept the
+sleep of exhaustion until well on into the evening,
+and into the night again.</p>
+<p>On the day following she was quite herself;
+but she still hesitated to bring about the momentous
+interview that she so dreaded, and yet
+longed for. She intended to take her place at
+the table beside Collier Pratt when he came for
+his dinner that night, but when the time came
+she could not bring herself to do it, and fled
+incontinently. Later in the evening he telephoned
+that he wanted to see her, and she told
+him that he might come.</p>
+<p>She faced him with the facts, breathlessly,
+and in spite of herself accusingly,&mdash;and then
+waited for the explanation that would extenuate
+the apparent ugliness of his attitude toward
+her, and set all the world right for her again.
+As she looked into his face she felt that it must
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252' ></a>252</span>
+come. She noted compassionately how the
+shadows under the dark eyes had deepened;
+how weary the pose of the fine head; and for the
+moment she longed only to rest it on her breast
+again. Even as she spoke of the thing that had
+so tortured her it seemed insignificant in
+light of the fact that he was there beside her,
+within reach of her arms whenever she chose
+to hold them out to him.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I regret that the revelation of my private
+embarrassments should have been thrust upon
+you so suddenly,&rdquo; he said, when she had poured
+out the story to him. &ldquo;My marriage has proved
+the most uncomfortable indiscretion that I ever
+committed; and unfortunately my indiscretions
+have been numberless as the well-known leaves
+of Vallombrosa.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You always said that Sheila was motherless,&rdquo;
+Nancy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It is simpler than stating that she is worse
+than motherless.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me you were married?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt smiled at her&mdash;kindly it seemed
+to Nancy.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It hadn&rsquo;t anything to do with <i>us</i>,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I should never want to marry again&mdash;even if
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253' ></a>253</span>
+I were free. The thought is horrible to me.
+You mean a great deal to me. <i>Think</i>, if you
+doubt that and think again. I have had in this
+little front room of yours the only real moments
+of peace and happiness that I have had
+for years. I value them&mdash;you can not dream or
+imagine how much&mdash;but surely it is understood
+between us that our relation can not be anything
+but transitory. I am an artist with a way
+to make for my art: you are a working woman
+with a career, odd as it is,&rdquo; he smiled whimsically,
+&ldquo;that you have chosen, and that you will
+pursue faithfully until some stalwart young
+man dissuades you from it, when you will take
+your place in your niche as wife and mother,
+and leave me one more beautiful memory.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;you know it isn&rsquo;t&mdash;like
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is it like then?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy felt every sane premise, every eager
+hope and delicate ideal slipping beyond her
+reach as she faced his mocking, tender eyes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It can&rsquo;t be that you believe you have been&mdash;fair
+with me,&rdquo; she faltered.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I have been unfair,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;I have made no protestations, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254' ></a>254</span></div>
+<p>Nancy shut her eyes. Curious scraps of her
+early religious education came back to her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You have partaken of my bread and wine,&rdquo;
+she said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t exactly consecrated.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think it was,&rdquo; she said faintly. &ldquo;Oh!
+don&rsquo;t you understand that that isn&rsquo;t a way for
+a man to think or to feel about a woman like
+me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Little American girl,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said,
+&ldquo;little American girl, don&rsquo;t you understand that
+there is only one way for a woman to think or
+feel about a <i>man</i> like <i>me</i>? I have had my life,
+and I haven&rsquo;t liked it much. I&rsquo;m to be loved
+warmly and lightly till the flesh and blood
+prince comes along, but I&rsquo;m never to be mistaken
+for him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe you&rsquo;re sincere,&rdquo; Nancy cried;
+&ldquo;women must have loved you deeply, tragically,
+and have suffered all the torture there is, at
+losing you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That may be. Sincerity is a matter of so
+many connotations. You haven&rsquo;t known many
+artists, my dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Nancy. &ldquo;No, but I thought they
+were the same as other men, only worthier.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255' ></a>255</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;How should they be? He who perceives a
+merit is not necessarily he who achieves it.
+Else the world would be a little more one-sided
+than it is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t believe those things,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;I want to believe in you. You <i>must</i> care for
+me, and what becomes of me. You have known
+so long what I was like, and what I was made
+for. All this seems like a terrible nightmare.
+I want you to tell me what it is you want of me,
+and let me give it to you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am proving some faint shadow of worthiness
+at least, when I say to you that I want
+absolutely nothing of you. I love, but I
+refrain.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You love,&rdquo; Nancy cried, &ldquo;you <i>love</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Not as you understand loving, I am afraid.
+In my own way I love you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like your way, then,&rdquo; Nancy said
+wearily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re both so poor, little girl,&mdash;that&rsquo;s one
+thing. If I were free and could overcome my
+prejudice against matrimony, and could be a
+little surer of my own heart and its constancy,&mdash;even
+then, don&rsquo;t you see, practical considerations
+would and ought to stand in our way. I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256' ></a>256</span>
+couldn&rsquo;t support you, you couldn&rsquo;t possibly support
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Nancy. &ldquo;Would you marry me
+If I were rich?&rdquo; she said slowly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I already have one wife,&rdquo; Collier Pratt
+smiled. Nancy remembered afterward that he
+smiled oftener during this interview than at
+any other. &ldquo;But if somebody died, and left you
+a million, she might possibly be disposed of.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>For one moment, perhaps, his fate hung in
+the balance. Then he took a step forward.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Kiss me good night, dear,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and let
+us end this bitter and fruitless discussion.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Kiss you good night,&rdquo; Nancy cried. &ldquo;Kiss
+you good night. Oh! how dare you!&mdash;How dare
+you?&rdquo; And she struck him twice across his
+mouth. &ldquo;I wish I could kill you,&rdquo; she blazed.
+&ldquo;Oh! how dare you,&mdash;how dare you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! very well,&rdquo; said Collier Pratt calmly,
+wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. &ldquo;If
+that&rsquo;s the way you feel&mdash;then our pleasant little
+acquaintanceship is ended. I&rsquo;ll take my hat and
+stick and my child&mdash;and go.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your child?&rdquo; Nancy cried aghast. &ldquo;You
+wouldn&rsquo;t take Sheila away from me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel exactly tempted to leave her with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257' ></a>257</span>
+you,&rdquo; he said deliberately. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind a
+woman striking me&mdash;I&rsquo;m used to that; it is one
+of my charming wife&rsquo;s ways of expressing herself
+in moments of stress&mdash;but I do object to
+any but the most purely formal relations with
+her afterward. There is a certain degree of intimacy
+involved in your having charge of my
+child. I think I will take the little girl away
+with me now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Please, please, please don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;I love her. I couldn&rsquo;t bear it now. You can&rsquo;t
+be so cruel.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Better get it over,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said. &ldquo;Will
+you call Hitty, or shall I?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sheila is in bed,&rdquo; Nancy cried. &ldquo;You
+wouldn&rsquo;t take her out of her warm bed to-night.
+I&rsquo;ll send her to you to-morrow at whatever hour
+you ask.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I ask for her now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was no fight left in Nancy. She called
+Hitty and superintended the dressing of the little
+girl to its last detail. She could not touch
+her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you kiss me good night, Miss Dear?&rdquo;
+Sheila said, drowsily, as she took her father&rsquo;s
+hand at the door.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258' ></a>258</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Not to-night,&rdquo; Nancy said hoarsely. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+a bad throat, dear, I wouldn&rsquo;t want you to
+catch it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know where I&rsquo;m going,&rdquo; the little
+girl said, &ldquo;but I suppose my father knows. I&rsquo;ll
+come back as soon as I can.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, dear,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;Good-by.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt turned at the door and made an
+exaggerated gesture of farewell.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We part more in anger than in sorrow,&rdquo; he
+said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! Go,&rdquo; Nancy cried.</p>
+<p>As the door closed upon the two Nancy sank
+to her knees, and thence to a crumpled heap on
+the floor, but remembering that Hitty would
+find her there shortly, and being entirely unable
+to regain her feet unaided, she started to
+crawl in the direction of her own room, and
+presently arrived there, and pushed the door to
+behind her with her heel.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259' ></a>259</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XVIII_TAME_SKELETONS'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Tame Skeletons</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>It was Sunday night, and New Year&rsquo;s Eve.
+Gaspard was preparing, and Molly and Dolly
+were serving a special dinner for Preston Eustace,
+planned weeks before on his first arrival
+in New York.</p>
+<p>Before the great logs&mdash;imported by Michael
+for the occasion&mdash;that blazed in the fireplace, a
+round table was set, decorously draped in the
+most immaculate of fine linen, and crowned
+with a wreath of holly and mistletoe, from
+which extended red satin trailers with a present
+from Nancy for each guest, on the end of each.
+All the impedimenta of the restaurant was
+cleared away, and a couch and several easy
+chairs that Nancy kept in reserve for such occasions
+were placed comfortably about the
+room. Only the innumerable starry candles
+and branching candelabra were reminiscent of
+the room&rsquo;s more professional aspect.</p>
+<p>Billy and Caroline were the first to arrive,&mdash;Caroline
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260' ></a>260</span>
+in pale floating green tulle, which accentuated
+the pure olive of her coloring, and
+transported Billy from his chronic state of
+adoration to that of an almost agonizing worship.
+Dick and Betty were next. He had realized
+the possible awkwardness of the situation
+for her, and had been thoughtful enough to offer
+to call for her. She was in defiant scarlet
+from top to toe, and had never looked more
+entrancing. Preston Eustace was to come in
+from Long Island where he was spending the
+holidays with a married sister. Michael received
+the guests and did the honors beamingly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Nancy?&rdquo; Dick asked, as, divested
+of his outer garments, he appeared without
+warning in the presence of the lovers. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+bother to drop her hand, Billy. I don&rsquo;t see how
+you have the heart to, she&rsquo;s so lovely to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know where Nancy is,&rdquo; Caroline
+answered for him. &ldquo;It seems to be all right,
+though. She&rsquo;s expected, Michael says.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Nancy?&rdquo; Betty asked, in her turn,
+appearing on the threshold with every hair most
+amazingly in place.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Coming,&rdquo; Dick reassured her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Has anybody heard from her?&rdquo; Betty asked.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261' ></a>261</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Michael has, I think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t worried about her, are you?&rdquo;
+Caroline asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I am,&rdquo; Betty said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought you and Nancy were rather on the
+outs,&rdquo; Caroline suggested. &ldquo;It seems odd to
+have you worrying about her like her maiden
+aunt.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You wait till you see her, you&rsquo;ll be worried
+about her, too.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s wrong?&rdquo; Dick asked quickly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s lost Sheila for one thing. That unspeakable
+Collier Pratt&mdash;I hope he chokes on
+his dinner to-night, and I hope it&rsquo;s a rotten dinner&mdash;has
+taken the child away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The devil he has.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>There was a step on the rickety stair.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hush! There she is now,&rdquo; Caroline cried.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Betty said quietly, listening. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+not Nancy. That&rsquo;s your brother, Caroline.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t heard his step for such a long time
+I&rsquo;ve forgotten it,&rdquo; Billy said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t heard it for a long time either,&rdquo;
+Betty said, her face draining of its last bit of
+color.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Promises to be one of those merry little
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262' ></a>262</span>
+meals when everybody present is attended by a
+tame skeleton,&rdquo; Billy whispered, &ldquo;except us,
+Caroline.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel that we have any right to be so
+happy with the whole continent of Europe in
+the state it&rsquo;s in,&rdquo; Caroline whispered in reply.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I feel better about the continent of Europe
+than I did a while back,&rdquo; Billy said, contentedly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Hello, everybody,&rdquo; Preston Eustace said as
+Michael held the door for him. &ldquo;How&rsquo;s everything,
+Caroline?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; Caroline said. Then she added
+unnecessarily, &ldquo;You&mdash;you know Betty, don&rsquo;t
+you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I used to know Betty,&rdquo; he said slowly.</p>
+<p>The two looked at each other, with that look
+of incredulity with which lovers sometimes
+greet each other after absence and estrangement.
+&ldquo;This can&rsquo;t be you,&rdquo; their eyes seem to
+be saying, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve disposed of you long since, God
+help me!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How do you do, Preston?&rdquo; Betty said, giving
+him her hand. Then she smiled faintly, and
+added with a caricature of her usual manner:
+&ldquo;Lovely weather we&rsquo;re having for this time of
+year, aren&rsquo;t we?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263' ></a>263</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very fond of you, Betty,&rdquo;&mdash;Dick smiled
+as she sank into the chair beside him and Preston
+turned to his sister. &ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re a little
+sport.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how you can, Dicky,&rdquo; she
+smiled at him forlornly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a bad black
+heart, and I play the wrong kind of games.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I see through them, so it&rsquo;s all right.
+What&rsquo;s this about Nancy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you later,&rdquo; Betty said; &ldquo;there she
+comes now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy, stimulated by massage and steam, her
+hair dressed by a professional; powdered, and
+for the first time in her life rouged to hide the
+tell-tale absence of her natural quickening color,
+came forward to meet her guests in supreme
+unconsciousness of the pathos of the effect she
+had achieved. She was dressed in snowy white
+like a bride,&mdash;the only gown she had that was
+in keeping with the holiday decorations, and
+she moved a little clumsily, as if her brain had
+found itself suddenly in charge of an unfamiliar
+set of reflexes. Her lids drooped over burning
+eyes that had known no sleep for many nights,
+and every line and lineament of her face was
+stamped with pain.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264' ></a>264</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m so sorry to have kept you waiting,&rdquo; she
+said. Her voice, curiously, was the only natural
+thing about her. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been scouring off every
+vestige of my work-a-day self, and that takes
+time. Thank you for the roses, Dick, but the
+only flowers I could have worn with this color
+scheme would have been geraniums.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll send you some geraniums to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;How do you do, Preston?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She gave him a cold hand, and he stared at
+her almost as he had stared at Betty. He was
+a tall grave-looking youth, with Caroline&rsquo;s
+straight features and olive coloring, and a shock
+of heavy blond hair.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I hope you&rsquo;ll like your party,&rdquo; Nancy hurried
+on. &ldquo;Gaspard is bursting with pride in it.
+I think it would be a nice thing to have him in
+and drink his health after the coffee. He would
+never forget the honor.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My God!&rdquo; Dick said in an undertone to
+Betty, &ldquo;how long has she been like this?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you later,&rdquo; she promised him again.</p>
+<p>With the serving of the first course of dinner&mdash;Gaspard&rsquo;s
+wonderful <i>Pur&eacute;e Mongol</i>&mdash;an artist&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265' ></a>265</span>
+dream of all the most delicate vegetables in
+the world mingled together as the clouds are
+mingled, the tensity in the air seemed to break
+and shatter about them in showers of brilliant,
+artificial mirth, which presently, because they
+were all young and fond of one another and
+their group had the habit of intimacy, became
+less and less strained and unreal.</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s tired eyes lost something of their
+unnatural glitter, and Betty seemed more of a
+woman than a scarlet sprite, while Caroline&rsquo;s
+smile began to reflect something of the real
+gladness that possessed her soul. Dick and
+Billy took up the burden of the entertainment
+of the party, and gave at least an excellent imitation
+of inspirational gaiety.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This <i>filet of sole</i>,&rdquo; Billy observed as he sampled
+his second course appreciatively, &ldquo;is common
+or barnyard flounder,&mdash;and the shrimp
+and the oyster crab, and that mushroom of the
+sea, and the other little creature in the corner
+of my plate who shall be nameless, because I
+have no idea what his name is,&mdash;are all put in
+to make it harder.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Gaspard is using some of the simpler native
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266' ></a>266</span>
+products now instead of the high-priced imported
+ones,&rdquo; Nancy said eagerly, &ldquo;and he is
+getting wonderful results, I think.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Flounder <i>a la Fran&ccedil;aise</i> is all right,&rdquo; Dick
+said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Our restaurant has reformed,&rdquo; Betty said.
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re running it on a strictly business basis.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And making money?&rdquo; Dick asked quickly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not losing much,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
+a great improvement.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Some of those little girls from the publishing
+houses look paler to me than they did,&rdquo;
+Nancy said. &ldquo;I wish I could give them hypodermics
+of protein and carbohydrates.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Give me the name and address of any of
+your customers that worry you,&rdquo; Dick said,
+&ldquo;and I&rsquo;ll buy &rsquo;em a cow or a sugar plum tree
+or a flivver or anything else they seem to be in
+need of.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t those things tend to pauperize the
+poor?&rdquo; Caroline&rsquo;s brother put in gravely.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure they do,&rdquo; Billy agreed, &ldquo;only Nancy
+has kind of given up her struggle not to pauperize them.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I started in with some very high ideals about
+scientific service,&rdquo; Nancy explained. &ldquo;I was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267' ></a>267</span>
+never going to give anybody anything they
+hadn&rsquo;t actually earned in some way, except to
+bring up the average of normality by feeding
+my patrons surreptitious calories. I had it all
+figured out that the only legitimate charity was
+putting flesh on the bones of the human race,&mdash;that
+increasing the general efficiency that way
+wasn&rsquo;t really charity at all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t believe that now?&rdquo; Preston Eustace
+asked.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I believe now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What is scientific charity, anyhow?&rdquo; Dick
+looked about inquiringly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There ain&rsquo;t no such animal,&rdquo; Billy contributed.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s substituting the cool human intellect for
+the warm human heart, I guess,&rdquo; Betty said
+dreamily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But that so often works,&rdquo; Caroline said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I was never going to make any mistakes,&rdquo;
+Nancy said. &ldquo;I was going to keep my fists scientifically
+shut, and my heart beatifically open.&rdquo;
+She hesitated. &ldquo;I&mdash;I was going to swing my
+life, and my undertakings&mdash;right.&rdquo; It became
+increasingly hard for her to speak, and a little
+gasp went round the table. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve&mdash;I&rsquo;ve made
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268' ></a>268</span>
+nothing&mdash;nothing but mistakes,&rdquo; she finished
+piteously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But you&rsquo;ve rectified them,&rdquo; Betty put in vigorously.
+&ldquo;Nancy, dear, I&rsquo;ve never known you
+to make a mistake that you haven&rsquo;t rectified,
+and that is more than I can say of any other
+person in the world.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sirloin and carrots,&rdquo; Caroline said, as the
+next course came in. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll wager you&rsquo;ve cut
+the price of this dinner in two by judicious
+ordering.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing else but field salad,&rdquo; Nancy
+said, still piteously, &ldquo;and raspberry <i>mousse</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy, you&rsquo;ll break my heart,&rdquo; Betty said,
+wiping her eyes frankly, but Nancy only looked
+at her wonderingly, wistfully, preoccupied and
+remote, while Preston Eustace gazed at Betty
+as if he too would find a welcome relief in shedding
+a heavy tear or two.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Collier Pratt has broken her heart, Dick,&rdquo;
+Betty told him in the limousine on the way
+home. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been going on ever since the first
+time she saw him. Down at the restaurant
+we&rsquo;ve all known it. She&rsquo;s been eating at his
+table every night for months, and Gaspard and
+everybody else in the place, in fact, has been a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269' ></a>269</span>
+slave to his lightest whim. I&rsquo;ve always disliked
+him intensely, myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me before, Betty?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t my business to tell you. I thought
+it was coming off, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What was coming off?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Their affair. I thought it was past my
+meddling.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mean to say that you thought Nancy
+was going to marry Collier Pratt&mdash;<i>Nancy</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, yes, if I hadn&rsquo;t I&mdash;I wouldn&rsquo;t have
+acted up the way I did in your rooms that
+night.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But Dick neither heard nor understood her.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mean to say that you think Collier
+Pratt has been making love to her?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But the damned scoundrel is married.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; Betty cried. &ldquo;<i>Oh!</i>&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t know
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve known it&mdash;I&rsquo;ve always known it,&rdquo; Dick
+said. &ldquo;I never dreamed that Nancy had any
+special interest in him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, she had. She&rsquo;s going through everything,
+Dick, even Sheila&mdash;you know how she
+loved Sheila?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270' ></a>270</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; Dick said grimly. &ldquo;Do you mind
+going on home alone, Betty? You&rsquo;ll be perfectly
+safe with Williams, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course not. What are you going to do,
+Dick? Are you going to Nancy?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not going to Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Betty, looking at him more closely, realized
+for the first time that she was sitting beside a
+man in whom the rage of the primitive animal
+was gaining its ascendency. His breath was
+coming in short stertorous gasps, his hands
+were clinched, the purplish color was mounting
+to his brows, but he still went through the motions
+of a courteous leave-taking.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where are you going, Dick?&rdquo; she asked
+again, as he stood on the curb where he had
+signaled Williams to leave him, with the door
+of the car in his hand, staring down at it, and
+for the moment forgetting to close it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to find Collier Pratt,&rdquo; he said
+thickly. Then with a slam that splintered the
+hinge of the door he was holding he crashed it
+in toward the car.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271' ></a>271</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XIX_OTHER_PEOPLES_TROUBLES'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Other People&rsquo;s Troubles</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Nancy was trying conscientiously to interest
+herself in other people&rsquo;s troubles.
+After the first great shock of pain following
+her loss at a blow of her lover and Sheila, she
+began automatically to try to work her way
+through her suffering. The habit of application
+to the daily task combined with her instinct for
+taking immediate action in a crisis stood her in
+good stead in her hour of need. She decided
+what to occupy herself with, and then devoted
+herself faithfully to the prescribed occupation.</p>
+<p>The Inn did not need her. With Betty to
+guide him economically Gaspard was able to
+superintend all the details of the establishment
+adequately and artistically. Sheila was gone.
+She packed up several trunks of dresses and
+toys and other childish belongings and sent
+them to Washington Square, but even without
+these constant reminders of her, the hunger
+for the child&rsquo;s presence did not abate. The little
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272' ></a>272</span>
+girl was curiously dissociated from her father
+in Nancy&rsquo;s mind. She had seen so little
+of the two together that they seemed to belong
+to entirely different compartments of her consciousness.
+It was only the anguish of losing
+them that linked them together.</p>
+<p>Nancy decided to devote a certain proportion
+of her days and nights to remedying such evils
+as lay under her immediate observation;&mdash;to
+helping the individuals with whom she came
+into daily contact&mdash;the dependents and tradespeople
+with whom she dealt. She had always
+been convinced that the people who ministered
+to her daily comfort in New York should occupy
+some part in her scheme of existence. It was
+one of her favorite arguments that a little more
+energy and imagination on the part of New
+York citizens would develop the communal
+spirit which was so painfully lacking in the
+soul of the average Manhattanite.</p>
+<p>So the milkman and the corner grocer, the
+newspaper man, and Hitty&rsquo;s small brood of
+grand nieces and nephews, to say nothing of the
+Italian fruit man&rsquo;s family, and her laundress&rsquo;s
+invalid daughter, were all occupying a considerable
+place in Nancy&rsquo;s daily schedule. In a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273' ></a>273</span>
+very short interval she had the welfare of more
+than half a dozen families on her hands, and
+was involved in all manner of enterprises of a
+domestic nature,&mdash;from the designing of confirmation
+gowns to the purchase of rubber-tired
+rolling chairs, and heterogeneous woolen garments
+and other intimate necessities.</p>
+<p>She was a little ashamed of her new line of
+activities, and still hurt enough to shun the
+scrutiny of her friends, and thereby succeeded
+in mystifying and alarming Billy and Dick and
+Betty and Caroline almost beyond the limit of
+their endurance by resolutely keeping them at
+arm&rsquo;s length. She was supremely unconscious
+of anything at all remarkable in her behavior,
+and believed that they accepted her excuses and
+apologies at their face value. She had no conception
+of the fact that her tortured face, with
+tragedy looking newly out of her eyes, kept
+them from their rest at night.</p>
+<p>Sheila wrote to thank her for sending the
+trunks.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>&ldquo;My dear, <i>ma ch&egrave;re</i>, Miss Dear,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;<i>Merci beaucoup pour</i> my clothes and other
+beautiful things. I like them. <i>Je t&rsquo;aime&mdash;je
+t&rsquo;aime toujours</i>. My father will not permit me
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274' ></a>274</span>
+to go back. <i>Comme</i>&mdash;how I desire to see you!
+My father has been sick. He fell down or was
+hurt in the street. There was blood&mdash;a great
+deal. Are they well&mdash;the others? Tell Monsieur
+Dick I give him <i>tout mon coeur</i>. Come to
+see me if it is <i>permit</i>. No more. You could
+write <i>peut-&ecirc;tre</i>. <i>Je t&rsquo;aime</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p class='ralign'>&ldquo;Yours,<span class='rindent8'>&nbsp;</span><br />
+&ldquo;<span class='smcap'>Sheila.</span>&rdquo;<span class='rindent2'>&nbsp;</span></p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>Nancy read this letter, in the quaint childish
+hand, with a great wave of dumb sickness
+creeping over her&mdash;a devastating, disintegrating
+nausea of soul and body. The most significant
+fact in it, however, that Collier Pratt had
+fallen down &ldquo;or been hurt in the street,&rdquo; of
+course escaped her entirely, except to stir her
+with a kind of dim pity for his distress.</p>
+<p>In one of her long night vigils Preston Eustace&rsquo;s
+face came back to her oddly. She remembered
+suddenly the strange sad way he had
+stared at Betty on the evening of her party at
+the Inn. She reconstructed Betty&rsquo;s love-story,
+and its sudden breaking off, three years before,
+and with her new insight into the human heart,
+decided that these two loved each other still,
+and must be helped to the consummation of
+their happiness. She telephoned to them both
+the next day that they could be of service to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275' ></a>275</span>
+her; and made an appointment to meet them at
+a given hour the next evening at her apartment.</p>
+<p>She expected and intended to be there herself
+to give the meeting the semblance of coincidence,
+and to offer them the hospitality of her
+house before she was inspired with the excuse
+that would permit her an exit that left them
+alone together; but she found herself in the
+slums of Harlem by an Italian baby&rsquo;s bedside at
+that hour, and decided that even to telephone
+would be superfluous, as once finding each other
+the lovers would be oblivious to all other considerations.</p>
+<p>What actually happened was that Preston
+Eustace, exactly on time as was his habit, had
+been waiting some ten minutes on Nancy&rsquo;s
+hearth-rug when Betty, delayed by the eccentricities
+of a casual motor-bus engine, and frantic
+with anxiety for her friend, burst in upon
+him. So full was she of the most hectic speculations
+concerning Nancy&rsquo;s sudden appeal to
+her that she scarcely noticed who was waiting
+there to greet her, and when she did notice,
+scarcely heeded that recognition.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Nancy?&rdquo; she demanded breathlessly.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_276' ></a>276</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, Betty,&rdquo; Preston Eustace said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t Hitty know?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She says she doesn&rsquo;t!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How did you happen to be here?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She sent for me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s probably sent for everybody else,&rdquo;
+Betty said. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s killed herself, I know she
+has.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What makes you think so?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Her heart is broken, she&rsquo;s been suffering
+terribly.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think she would have sent for me
+if she had been going to kill herself,&rdquo; Preston
+Eustace said, a little as if he would have added,
+&ldquo;We are not on those terms.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose she would,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;But
+oh, Preston, I&rsquo;m so worried about her. I don&rsquo;t
+know where she is or anything. I tell you her
+heart is broken.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know you believed in hearts&mdash;broken
+or otherwise, Betty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I believe in Nancy&rsquo;s heart.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You never believed in mine.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You never gave me much reason to, Preston.
+You&mdash;you let me give you back your ring the
+first time I threatened to.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_277' ></a>277</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I did.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You never came near me again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You let three years go by without a word.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Of course&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If you say &lsquo;of course I did&rsquo; again I&rsquo;ll fly
+straight up through this roof. If you&rsquo;d ever
+loved me you wouldn&rsquo;t have gone away and
+left me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I hadn&rsquo;t loved you I wouldn&rsquo;t have gone
+away.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear,&rdquo; Betty sighed. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how
+you can stand there and think about yourself
+with Nancy out in the night&mdash;we don&rsquo;t know
+where.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Ourselves, Betty&mdash;did you ever really love
+me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t make any difference whether I
+did or not,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;I hate men.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;d better be going,&rdquo; Preston Eustace
+said, his face dark with pain. He was
+rather a literal-minded young man, as Caroline&rsquo;s
+brother would have been likely to be.</p>
+<p>Betty buried her face in her hands.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;My head aches,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I was never
+in my life so mad and so miserable. I can&rsquo;t
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_278' ></a>278</span>
+understand why everything and everybody
+should behave so&mdash;devilishly. You and every
+one else, I mean. I just simply can&rsquo;t bear to
+have Nancy suffer so. My head aches and my
+heart aches and my soul aches.&rdquo; She lifted her
+head defiantly.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I think I had better be going,&rdquo; Preston Eustace
+repeated, looking down at her sorrowfully.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! don&rsquo;t be going,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;What in
+the name of sense do you want to be going for?&rdquo;
+Then without warning or premeditation she
+hurled herself at his breast. &ldquo;Oh! Preston, if
+there is anything comforting in this world,&rdquo;
+she said, &ldquo;tell it to me, now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Preston Eustace gathered her to his breast
+with infinite tenderness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I love you,&rdquo; he said with his lips on her
+brow. &ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t that comfort you a little?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she admitted, &ldquo;yes,&rdquo; winding her arms
+about his neck, &ldquo;but you have no idea what a
+little devil I am, Preston.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to have any idea,&rdquo; he said, still
+holding her hungrily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t think you do,&rdquo; Betty said. &ldquo;Oh!
+kiss me again, dear, and tell me you won&rsquo;t ever
+let me go now.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_279' ></a>279</span></div>
+<p>When Nancy came in she found the lovers so
+oblivious to the sound of her key in the latch or
+her footstep in the corridor that she decided to
+slip into bed without disturbing them, and did
+so, without their ever realizing that for the latter
+part of the evening at least, they had a
+hostess within range of the sound of their voices&mdash;indeed,
+she was obliged to stuff the pillow
+into her ears to prevent herself from actually
+hearing what they were saying.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>At first her freedom&mdash;her release from the
+monotonous constraint of her daily confinement
+at the Inn&mdash;the unaccustomed independence of
+her new activities which justified her most
+untoward goings and comings&mdash;was very soothing
+to her. She liked the feeling of slipping out
+of the house at night, accountable to no one
+except the redoubtable Hitty to whom she presented
+any explanation that happened to occur
+to her,&mdash;however wide its departure from the
+actual facts&mdash;and losing herself in the resurgent
+town. But after a while her liberty lost its
+savor. She began to feel uncared for and neglected.
+The unaccountable anguish in her
+breast was neither assuaged nor mitigated by
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_280' ></a>280</span>
+the geographical latitude she permitted herself.
+She kept doggedly on with her personally conducted
+philanthropies, but she began to feel a
+little frightened about her capacity for endurance.
+Her body and brain began to show
+strange signs of fatigue. She was afraid that
+one or the other might suddenly refuse to
+function.</p>
+<p>One night, on coming out into the heterogeneous
+human stream on Avenue A, after a visit
+to a Polish family in the model tenements on
+Seventy-ninth Street, she ran into Dick.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Dick,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;what an extraordinary
+place to find you!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My business often
+brings me up this way.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Your business? What business?&rdquo; she asked
+incredulously.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know exactly what business it is.
+The ministering business, I guess.&rdquo; He motioned
+toward the basket on her arm: &ldquo;Let me
+carry that, and you, too, if you&rsquo;ll let me, Nancy.
+You look tired.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I am tired, Dick,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Have you got
+a car anywhere around?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can phone for it in two shakes,&rdquo; he said.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_281' ></a>281</span>
+&ldquo;Here in this ice-cream parlor. Can I buy you
+a cone while you&rsquo;re waiting?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Buy cones for that crowd of children and I&rsquo;ll
+watch them eat them. Doesn&rsquo;t that little girl
+in the pink dress look like Sheila, Dick?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She sank down on a stool in the interior of
+the candy shop and rested her elbows on the
+damp marble table in front of her, splotched
+and streaked still with the refreshment of the
+last customer who occupied the seat there and
+watched the horde of dirty clamorous street
+children devouring ice-cream cones and cheap
+sweets to the limit of their capacity.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know you believed in this promiscuous
+feeding of children between meals,&rdquo; Dick
+said, when she was settled comfortably at last
+among the cushions of his car, which had arrived
+on the scene with an amazing, not to say,
+suspicious promptness.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;in the least; but I
+don&rsquo;t <i>really</i> believe in the things I believe in
+any more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Nancy!&rdquo; Dick said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had some trouble, Dick. I&rsquo;m shaken all
+out of my poise. I can&rsquo;t seem to get my universe
+straight again.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_282' ></a>282</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry for that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Anything I
+can do?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Stand by; that&rsquo;s all, I guess.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You couldn&rsquo;t tell me a little more about it,
+could you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I couldn&rsquo;t, Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not even to guess?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You couldn&rsquo;t guess. It&rsquo;s the kind of thing
+that&rsquo;s entirely outside of&mdash;of the probabilities.
+I think it&rsquo;s outside of the range of your understanding,
+Dick. I don&rsquo;t think you know that
+there is exactly that kind of trouble in the
+world.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And you think you&rsquo;d better not enlighten
+me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t, Dick, even if I wanted to. Funny
+you happened to be in this part of town to-night
+just when I really needed you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>He smiled. Every night of his life he followed her,
+watching over her, dodging down
+dark alley ways, waiting at squalid entrances
+until she came out. To-night he had ventured
+to speak to her only because he knew her to be
+in need of actual physical assistance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Awfully glad to be anywhere around when
+you need me,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;still I hope you don&rsquo;t
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283' ></a>283</span>
+mind my suggesting that this is a Gehenna of a
+place for either of us to be in.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you any feeling for the downtrodden?&rdquo;
+Nancy asked, with a faint reflection of
+what Billy referred to as her &ldquo;older and better
+manner.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m downtrodden myself, Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She smiled in her turn.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t look very downtrodden to me,&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;<i>You&rsquo;ve</i> got everything to live for.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Everything?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, money and freedom and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Money is the only thing I&rsquo;ve got that you
+haven&rsquo;t, and that doesn&rsquo;t mean much unless you
+can share it with the person you love.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, it doesn&rsquo;t, does it?&rdquo; Nancy said unexpectedly.
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that scar on your forehead?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a scratch I got.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;How?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Shaving or fighting, or something like that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Was</i> it fighting, Dick?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Who were you fighting with?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t fighting. I was assaulting and
+battering.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_284' ></a>284</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Dick!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s any satisfaction to you to know it I
+made one grand job of it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why should it be any satisfaction to me?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Dick!&rdquo; Nancy said again. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t
+know you had any of that kind of brutality in
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What happens to a man when he&mdash;does a
+thing like that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He gets jugged.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did he get jugged?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, that wasn&rsquo;t the part that interested
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>An odd picture presented itself to Nancy&rsquo;s
+mind of the men of the world engaged in one
+grand m&ecirc;l&eacute;e of brawling; struggling, belaying
+one another with their bare fists, drawing
+blood; brutes turned on brutes.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Men are queer things,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+<p>Dick&rsquo;s face was turned away from her. It
+was not at the moment a face she would have
+recognized. The eyes were contracted: the
+nostrils quivering: the teeth set.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m always at your service, Nancy,&rdquo; he said
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285' ></a>285</span>
+presently. &ldquo;Is there anything in the world you
+want that I can get for you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The only thing I want is something you
+can&rsquo;t get?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And that is?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sheila.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Dick said. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t get Sheila for you.
+I&rsquo;m sorry. I suppose that&rsquo;s the whole answer
+to you,&rdquo; he went on musingly. &ldquo;You want
+something, somebody to mother&mdash;to minister
+to. It doesn&rsquo;t make so much difference what
+else it is, so long as it&rsquo;s&mdash;downtrodden. That&rsquo;s
+why I&rsquo;ve never made more of a hit with you.
+I&rsquo;ve never been downtrodden enough. I didn&rsquo;t
+need feeding or nursing. I&rsquo;ve always sort of
+cherished the feeling that I liked to be the one
+creature you didn&rsquo;t have to carry on your back.
+I thought that to stand behind <i>you</i> was a pretty
+good stunt, but you&rsquo;ve never needed anything
+yet to fall back on.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I ever shall,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;Not,&mdash;not in the way you mean, Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;So be it,&rdquo; he said, folding his arms. &ldquo;But
+there&rsquo;s still one thing you&rsquo;ll take from me, and
+that&rsquo;s the thing I&rsquo;ve got that you haven&rsquo;t&mdash;money.
+I never have cared much about it
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_286' ></a>286</span>
+before, but now that there are so many things
+I can&rsquo;t put right for you, I know you won&rsquo;t be
+selfish enough to deny this one satisfaction.
+Let me make over to you all the money you need
+to get you out of your difficulties with the Inn.
+Let me hand out a good round sum for all these
+charities of yours. If you knew how everything
+else in connection with you had conspired
+to hurt me,&mdash;how this being discounted and losing
+out all around has cut into me, you wouldn&rsquo;t
+deny me this one privilege. You don&rsquo;t want
+<i>me</i>, you wouldn&rsquo;t take me, but for God&rsquo;s sake,
+Nancy, take this one thing that I can give you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>They had just swung into the lower entrance
+of the Park, and the big car was speeding silently
+into the deepening night, low hung with
+silver stars, and jeweled with soft lights.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re awfully good to me, Dick,&rdquo; Nancy
+said, &ldquo;and I appreciate every word you&rsquo;ve been
+saying. I&rsquo;d take your money, not for myself,
+but for the things I&rsquo;m doing, if I needed it, but
+I don&rsquo;t, you know.&rdquo; She looked out into the
+coolness of the evening, lulled by the transition
+to a region of so much airiness and space,
+soothed by the soft motion, and the presence of
+a friend who loved her. The conversation in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287' ></a>287</span>
+which she was engaged suddenly became trivial
+and unimportant to her. She was very tired,
+and she found herself beginning to rest and
+relax. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t need it,&rdquo; she repeated vaguely.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got plenty of money of my own. Over a
+million, Billy says now. Uncle Elijah left it to
+me. I didn&rsquo;t want him to, but perhaps it was
+all for the best.&rdquo; She put her head back against
+the cushions and shut her eyes. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m terribly
+sleepy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and as for the Inn&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+making money, too, you know. Last month we
+cleared more than two hundred dollars.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And Dick saying nothing, but continuing to
+stare into space&mdash;the panoramic space fleeting
+rhythmically by the car window,&mdash;she let herself
+gradually slip into the depths of sudden
+drowsiness that had overtaken her.</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_288' ></a>288</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XX_HITTY'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Hitty</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Hitty put on her bonnet&mdash;she had worn
+widow&rsquo;s weeds for twenty-five years&mdash;and
+went out into the morning. She finally
+succeeded in boarding a south-bound Sixth
+Avenue car,&mdash;though since it was her habit to
+ignore the near side stop regulation, she always
+had considerable trouble in getting on any car,&mdash;and
+in seating herself bolt upright on the
+lengthwise seat, her black gloved hands folded
+indomitably before her.</p>
+<p>At Fourth Street she descended and made
+her way east to the square, and thence to the
+top floor of the studio building to which Collier
+Pratt had taken his little daughter on the memorable
+occasion when he had plucked her from
+her warm nest of blankets and led her, sleepy
+and shivering, into the cold of the night. She
+had been at some pains to secure the address
+without taking Nancy into her confidence.</p>
+<p>She took each creaking stair with a snort of
+disgust, and reaching the battered door with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_289' ></a>289</span>
+Collier Pratt&rsquo;s visiting card tacked on the
+smeary panel on a level with her eye, she
+knocked sharply, and scorning to wait for a reply,
+turned the knob and walked in.</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt was making coffee on a small
+spirit lamp, set on the wash-stand, which was
+decorously concealed during the more formal
+hours of the day behind a soft colored Japanese
+screen. He was wearing a smutty painter&rsquo;s
+smock, and though his face was shining with
+soap and water, his hair was standing about
+his face in a disorder eloquent of at least a
+dozen hours&rsquo; neglect. Sheila, in a mussy gingham
+dress, was trying to pry off the pasteboard
+covering of a pint bottle of milk with a pair of
+scissors, and succeeding only indifferently. They
+both turned on Hitty&rsquo;s entrance, and the milk
+bottle went crashing to the floor when the little
+girl recognized her friend, but after one terrified
+look at her father she made no move at all
+in Hitty&rsquo;s direction.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And to what,&rdquo; Collier Pratt ejaculated
+slowly and disagreeably, as is any man&rsquo;s wont
+before he has had his draught of breakfast
+coffee, &ldquo;am I to attribute the pleasure of this
+visit?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290' ></a>290</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It ain&rsquo;t no pleasure to me,&rdquo; Hitty said, advancing,
+a figure of menace, into the center of
+the dusty workshop, strangely uncouth and unprepossessing
+in the cold morning light,&mdash;&ldquo;and
+if it&rsquo;s any pleasure to you, that&rsquo;s an effect that
+I ain&rsquo;t calculated to produce. I&rsquo;ve come here on
+business&mdash;the business of collecting that poor
+neglected child there, and taking her back
+where she belongs, where there&rsquo;s folks that
+knows enough to treat her right.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Another of Miss Martin&rsquo;s friends and well-wishers,
+I take it. These American girls are
+given to surrounding themselves with groups
+of warm and impulsive associates. Do you by
+any chance happen to know a young lawyer by
+the name of Boynton, Hitty? A collection
+lawyer?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll thank you to call me Mrs. Spinney, if you
+please, or if you don&rsquo;t please. Mrs. Spinney is
+the name I go by when I&rsquo;m spoken to by them
+that knows their manners. If Billy Boynton
+thinks he can collect blood out of a stone he&rsquo;s
+welcome to try, but I should think he was too
+long headed to waste his time.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I gave him my I. O. U.,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said
+wearily. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t mind, Hitty,&mdash;I really
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291' ></a>291</span>
+must be excused from your inexcusable surname&mdash;I
+am going to drink a cup of coffee before
+we continue this interesting discussion&mdash;<i>caf&eacute;
+noir</i>, our late unfortunate accident depriving
+me of <i>caf&eacute; au lait</i> as usual. Sheila, get the
+cups.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t mean to say that you feed that
+peaked child with full strength coffee, do you?
+It&rsquo;ll stunt her growth; ain&rsquo;t you got the sense
+to know that?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like <i>big</i> women,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said.
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s very fond of coffee.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well! I&rsquo;ve come to get her and take her
+away where you won&rsquo;t be in a position to stunt
+her growth, whatever your ideas on the subject
+is.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Collier Pratt seated himself at the deal table
+that Sheila had set with the coffee-cups and a
+big loaf of French bread, and began slowly
+consuming a bowl of inky fluid, strong of chicory,
+into which from time to time he dipped a
+portion of the loaf. Sheila imitated his processes
+with less daintiness and precision, since
+she was shaken with excitement at Hitty&rsquo;s
+appearance.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I should spread a newspaper down if I was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292' ></a>292</span>
+you,&rdquo; Hitty said, &ldquo;before I et my vittles off a
+table that way. If a table ain&rsquo;t scrubbed as
+often as twice a day it ain&rsquo;t fit to be et off.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know your breed,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;d be capable of taking your breakfast off
+<i>The Evening Telegram</i> if no more appropriately
+colored sheet were at hand. Tell me, did Miss
+Martin send you here this morning, or was the
+inspiration to come entirely your own?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nobody had to send me. Wild horses
+wouldn&rsquo;t have kept me away from here.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nor drag you away from here, I suppose,
+until your gruesome visit is accomplished.
+What makes you think that I would give up
+Sheila to you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t <i>think</i> you would. I know you&rsquo;re
+a-goin&rsquo; to.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Indeed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We want the child. You don&rsquo;t want her,
+and you can&rsquo;t pretend to me that you do. Even
+if you did want her you can&rsquo;t take care of her
+in no way that&rsquo;s decent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a great deal in what you say, Hitty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What you&rsquo;re going to do is to sign a paper
+giving up your claim to her, and then Nancy
+can adopt her when she sees fitting to do so.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_293' ></a>293</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;What would you suggest my doing about the
+child&rsquo;s mother? She has a mother living, you
+know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I didn&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Hitty said, &ldquo;but now
+I do know I guess I ain&rsquo;t going to have so much
+trouble as I thought I was. You&rsquo;re just a plain
+low-down yellow cur that any likely man I know
+would come down here and lick the lights out
+of.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, don&rsquo;t send any more of them, Hitty,&rdquo;
+Collier Pratt protested. &ldquo;My work won&rsquo;t
+stand it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You &rsquo;tend to the child&rsquo;s mother then, and
+I&rsquo;ll &rsquo;tend to you. You&rsquo;d better let Sheila come
+away peaceable without any more trouble.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What do you propose doing to me if I don&rsquo;t?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s so many different things I could
+use,&rdquo; Hitty said thoughtfully, &ldquo;that I don&rsquo;t
+know which one to hold over your head first.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how you could use anything
+you&rsquo;ve got.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d just as soon use something I hadn&rsquo;t got,&rdquo;
+Hitty said grimly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d sue you for breach o&rsquo;
+promise myself ruther than lose what I come
+after.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t doubt you&rsquo;re capable of it,&rdquo; Collier
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_294' ></a>294</span>
+Pratt said, surveying her ruefully. &ldquo;That certainly
+would ruin my reputation. But seriously,
+supposing I were to give my consent to
+Sheila&rsquo;s going back to Miss Martin&mdash;Sheila&rsquo;s
+fond of her, and I should be very glad to do
+Miss Martin a service&mdash;little as you may be inclined
+to believe it of me. I&rsquo;m fond enough of
+the child, but she is a considerable embarrassment
+to a man situated as I am. Supposing I
+should consent to giving her up as you suggest,
+how can a woman situated as Miss Martin is
+situated undertake such a charge permanently?
+How could she afford it? What kind of a future
+should I be surrendering my little girl to?
+One has to think of those things. Miss Martin is
+a poor girl&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lucky thing that you didn&rsquo;t know it
+before,&rdquo; Hitty said deliberately. &ldquo;What you
+don&rsquo;t know that a woman&rsquo;s got, you wouldn&rsquo;t be
+trying to get away from her. Nancy&rsquo;s Uncle
+Elijah that died last year left her a million
+dollars in his will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;The devil he did&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I guess if anybody&rsquo;s going to talk about
+devils it had better be me,&rdquo; Hitty said dryly.
+&ldquo;Does the child go or stay?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295' ></a>295</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! she goes,&rdquo; Collier Pratt said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+sorry you didn&rsquo;t come after me too, Hitty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nobody from up our way is ever coming
+after you. You can put that in your pipe and
+smoke it. Put on your bonnet, Sheila.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;In some ways that is more of a relief than
+you know, Hitty. Some of the young men from
+up your way are so violent.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;It ain&rsquo;t generally known yet,&rdquo; Hitty said as
+a parting shot when, Sheila&rsquo;s hand in hers, she
+stood at the door preparatory to taking her
+triumphal departure. &ldquo;But Nancy is going to
+marry considerable money in addition to what
+she&rsquo;s inherited.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy finding it impossible to spend an hour
+of her time idly and with no appointments before
+noon that day, was engaged in darning a
+basket full of slum socks that she had brought
+home from the tenements to occupy Hitty&rsquo;s leisure
+moments. She was not very expert at
+this particular task, and the holes were so huge,
+and their method of behaving under scientific
+management so peculiar&mdash;it is hardly necessary
+to say that Nancy knew the theory of
+darning perfectly&mdash;that she was becoming more
+and more dissatisfied with her progress. Hitty&rsquo;s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_296' ></a>296</span>
+unprecedented and taciturn donning of her best
+bonnet in the early morning hours, followed by
+her abrupt departure without explanation or
+apology, was also a little disconcerting to any
+one acquainted with her habits. Nancy was relieved
+to hear her key in the lock again, and put
+down her work to greet her.</p>
+<p>The door opened and Sheila stood on the
+threshold. Hitty was close behind her, but
+Nancy had eyes only for the child.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry, Miss Dear,&rdquo; Sheila said, in her
+arms. &ldquo;I cried hard every night when I was
+gone from you, but now I have come back. My
+father does not want me, and he says that you
+can have me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He signed a paper,&rdquo; Hitty said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got
+it in my bag with my specs. If ever he shows
+his face around here we can have the law on
+him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Can I really have Sheila?&rdquo; Nancy cried. &ldquo;I
+can&rsquo;t believe that&mdash;her father would let her go.
+I can&rsquo;t understand it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a kind of a poor soul,&rdquo; Hitty said. &ldquo;He
+ain&rsquo;t got no real contrivance. He&rsquo;s glad enough
+to get rid of her.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did he say so?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297' ></a>297</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, nearabout. He has a high-falutin way
+of talking but that was the amount of it. He
+knows which side his bread is buttered. He
+ain&rsquo;t nobody&rsquo;s fool. I&rsquo;ll say that for him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say that you make him out a very
+pleasant character,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s an
+artist, Hitty. Artists don&rsquo;t react to the same
+set of laws that we do. They&rsquo;re different somehow.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They ain&rsquo;t so different, when it comes to
+that,&rdquo; Hitty said dryly. &ldquo;They won&rsquo;t take a
+hint, but the harder you kick &rsquo;em the better for
+all concerned. Don&rsquo;t you go sticking up for
+that low-down loon. He ain&rsquo;t worth it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose he isn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;he&rsquo;s a
+pretty poor apology for a man as we understand
+men, Hitty, but there&rsquo;s something about him,&mdash;a
+power and a charm that you can&rsquo;t altogether
+discount, even though you have lost every particle
+of your respect for him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He has a kind of way,&rdquo; Hitty conceded, &ldquo;but
+I ain&rsquo;t one o&rsquo; them kind o&rsquo; women that hankers
+much for the society of a man that&rsquo;s once shown
+himself to be more of a sneak than the average.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that I am, either,&rdquo; Nancy said
+gravely.</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298' ></a>298</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;I want to be your little girl always,&rdquo; Sheila
+announced, &ldquo;if I may talk now, may I? And
+Monsieur Dick&rsquo;s, too, and sit on a cushion and
+sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries,
+sugar and cream. I want to see Monsieur Dick.
+Where is he?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been sick,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;but he&rsquo;s getting
+better now, I think. I haven&rsquo;t seen him
+for some time, myself.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you love him very much and aren&rsquo;t
+you very sorry?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He probably isn&rsquo;t very sick,&rdquo; Nancy said.
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think he could be&mdash;but if he were I
+should be sorry, of course.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want him to be sick,&rdquo; Sheila said,
+making herself a nest in Nancy&rsquo;s lap, and curling
+around in it like a kitten. &ldquo;If he was I
+should be very, very unhappy, and I am tired
+of being unhappy, Miss Dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy&rsquo;s arms closed tight about her little
+body, which was lighter in her arms than she
+had ever known it. &ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;m going to make
+such a strong well, little girl of you,&rdquo; she cried,
+&ldquo;and we&rsquo;re going to have so many pleasant
+times together. I&rsquo;m tired of being unhappy,
+too, Sheila, dear.&rdquo;</p></div>
+<hr class='pb' />
+<div class='chsp'>
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_299' ></a>299</span>
+<a  id='CHAPTER_XXI_LOHENGRIN_AND_WHITE_SATIN'></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI<br /><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='smcap'>Lohengrin and White Satin</span></span></h2>
+</div>
+<div class='text'><p class='ni'>Dick, having la grippe, and doing his
+bewildered best to get pneumonia and gastritis
+by creeping out of bed when his temperature
+was highest, and indulging in untrammelled
+orgies of food and drink and exposure to
+draughts, had finally succeeded in making himself
+physically very miserable indeed. His
+mind had been out of joint for weeks. He
+reached the phase presently of refusing all
+nourishment and spiritual consolation, indiscriminately,
+and finding himself unbenefited by
+these heroic methods, decided in his own mind
+that all was over with him.</p>
+<p>He knew nothing about sickness, having led
+a charmed life in that respect since the measles
+period, and the persistent misery in his interior,
+attacking lung and liver impartially,&mdash;to
+say nothing of the top of his head and the back
+of his neck, and as his weakness increased, his
+cardiac region where there was a perpetual palpitation,
+and the calves of his legs which set
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300' ></a>300</span>
+up an ache like that of a recalcitrant tooth,&mdash;persuaded
+him that such suffering as his must
+be a certain indication of the approaching end.
+He had dismissed his doctor after the first visit,
+and denying himself to visitors, found himself
+alone and apparently in a desperate condition,
+with no one to minister to him but paid dependents.
+It was then that the loss of Nancy
+began to assume spectral proportions. He had
+been so long accustomed to think of himself as
+the strong silent lover, equipped with the patience
+and understanding that would outlast all
+the vagaries of Nancy&rsquo;s adventurous tendencies,
+that it was difficult to readjust himself to a new
+conception of her as a woman that another and
+even less worthy man had so nearly won,&mdash;under
+his nose.</p>
+<p>He had never thought much of his money
+until it began to acquire the virtue of an alkahest
+in his mind, an universal solvent that
+would transmute all the baser metals in Nancy&rsquo;s
+life and the lives of the people in whom Nancy
+was interested, into the pure gold of luxury and
+ease. He knew that the conventional fairy gifts
+would mean very little to her, but he had dreamed,
+when she was ready, of working out with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_301' ></a>301</span>
+her some practicable and gracious scheme of
+beneficence. There was one power she coveted
+that he could put in her hands,&mdash;one way that
+he could befriend and relieve her even before
+she conceded him that prerogative. When he
+learned that she had a fortune of her own his
+hopes came tumbling about his head, and he lay
+disconsolate among the ruins. His creeping
+physical disability seemed significant of the
+cataclysmic overthrow of all his dreams and
+desires. From having secretly and in some
+terror arrived at the conclusion that death was
+imminent, he began to look upon such a solution
+of his misery with some favor.</p>
+<p>It was a very gaunt and hollow-eyed caricature
+of the Dick she had known that confronted
+Nancy, when instigated by Betty, who
+had his illness heavily on her mind, she forced
+her way unannounced into the curious Georgian
+living-room of the suite wherein he was incarcerated.
+He had been stretched in an attitude
+of abandon on the couch when she opened the
+oak paneled door, but he jumped to his feet in
+a spasm of rage and alarm when he discovered
+that he had a visitor.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Go away,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am not able to see
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_302' ></a>302</span>
+anybody. There&rsquo;s a mistake. I gave strict
+orders that nobody at all was to be admitted.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I know, Dick,&rdquo; Nancy said gently, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t
+blame your faithful servitors. I thought I
+should have to use a gun on them, but I explained
+to them that you must be looked after.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to be looked after. I&rsquo;m all
+right, thank you. Are you alone?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, Hitty&rsquo;s outside. Betty simply insisted
+on my bringing her,&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know why, but
+she said you&rsquo;d be kinder to me if I did. I
+don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;re very kind.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A flicker of a smile crossed Dick&rsquo;s face, which
+seemed to say that if anything could bring back
+a momentary relish of existence the mention of
+Betty&rsquo;s name would be that thing. Nancy saw
+the expression and misinterpreted it.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to see anybody,&rdquo; Dick repeated
+firmly. &ldquo;Will you be good enough to go away
+and leave me to my misery?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, I won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Nancy said, &ldquo;I never left anybody
+to their misery yet, and I&rsquo;m not going to
+begin on you. Of course, if you&rsquo;d rather see
+Betty, I&rsquo;ll send for her. She seems to know a
+good deal about your habits and customs. You
+look like a monk in that bathrobe. I&rsquo;m glad
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_303' ></a>303</span>
+you&rsquo;re not a fat man, Dick. It&rsquo;s so very hard to
+calculate just how much to cut down on starches
+and sweets without injury to the health. What
+are you feeding up on?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You know very well that I&rsquo;m not feeding
+up on anything, but if you think you can come
+around here, and dope out one of your darned
+health menus for me, and sit around watching
+me eat it, you are jolly well mistaken. I wish
+you&rsquo;d go home, Nancy. I don&rsquo;t like you to-day.
+I don&rsquo;t like myself or anybody in this whole
+universe. I&rsquo;m not fit for human society&mdash;don&rsquo;t
+you see I&rsquo;m not?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re awful cross, dear.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t call me dear. I&rsquo;m not Sheila or one
+of your sick waitresses, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sheila&rsquo;s back.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is she?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you care?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I suppose so.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She loves you.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;She&rsquo;s unique.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You told me once there were other girls,
+Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re all over it by now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dick, can&rsquo;t I do something for you?&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_304' ></a>304</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, leave me alone.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen you like this before.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No, thank God.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know you were ever anything but
+sort of smug and superior.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Grand description.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to be in bed, dear&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t mean
+to call you dear, it slipped out, Dicky,&mdash;and taking
+nourishment every hour or so. What does
+the doctor say?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing, he&rsquo;s given me up as a bad job.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Given you up?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, there&rsquo;s nothing he can do for me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Dick, my dear, what is it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! lungs or liver or something. I don&rsquo;t
+know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are you taking, Dick?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you I can&rsquo;t take anything,&rdquo; he said,
+misunderstanding her. &ldquo;It makes me sick to
+eat. Every time I try to eat anything I feel a
+lot worse for it.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;When did you try last?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yesterday some time. Now what in the
+name of sense makes a woman shed tears at a
+simple statement like that? I&rsquo;m not in shape
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305' ></a>305</span>
+to stand this. Once and for all, Nancy, will
+you get out and leave me? I tell you I never
+wanted to see you less in my life. I&rsquo;ll write
+you a letter and apologize if you&rsquo;ll only go,
+now.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ll go,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t really
+believe that you wanted me to,&mdash;that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>She started for the door&mdash;but Dick, weakened
+by lack of food, tortured beyond his endurance
+by the sudden assault on his nerves made by
+Nancy&rsquo;s appearance, gave way to his relief at
+her going an instant too soon. Like a small
+boy in pain he crooked his elbow and covered
+his face with his arm.</p>
+<p>Nancy ran to him and knelt at his side, taking
+his head on her breast.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you do want me. We want
+each other. You love me, Dicky, and I am going
+to love you&mdash;if you&rsquo;ll only let me look after
+you and nurse you back to health again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to be nursed,&rdquo; Dick blubbered,
+his head buried in her bosom, &ldquo;I want to look
+out for you, and take care of you, and&mdash;and
+now look at me. You&rsquo;ll never love me after this,
+Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_306' ></a>306</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I shall, dear,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always
+loved you somehow. It&rsquo;ll&mdash;it&rsquo;ll be the saving
+of me, Dick.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then I do want to be nursed. I&mdash;I
+haven&rsquo;t cried before since I had the measles,
+Nancy.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you cried, now, then,&rdquo; Nancy said.</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;ll want to be married in the
+courtyard of the Inn,&rdquo; Dick said some weeks
+later, when they were conventionally ensconced
+in Nancy&rsquo;s own drawing-room; Hitty happily
+rattling silverware in the butler&rsquo;s pantry in the
+rear, &ldquo;with old Triton blowing his wreathed
+horn above us, and all the nymphs and gargoyles
+and Hercules as interested spectators.
+Well, go as far as you like. I haven&rsquo;t any
+objection. I&rsquo;ll be married in a Roman bath if
+you want me to, and eat bran biscuit and hygienic
+apple sauce for my wedding breakfast.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Betty and Preston are going to be married
+at the Inn,&rdquo; Nancy said; &ldquo;you know her
+mother&rsquo;s an invalid, and they can&rsquo;t have it at
+home. Do you know what I&rsquo;d like to give them
+as a wedding present?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_307' ></a>307</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you know, Preston&rsquo;s firm has gone out
+of existence. The war simply killed it. They
+haven&rsquo;t much money ahead, and he may have
+a harder time than he thinks getting located
+again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I thought I&rsquo;d like to give them Outside
+Inn for a wedding present. Besides, I don&rsquo;t
+see what else there is to do with it. It&rsquo;s making
+several hundred a month, now, and promises
+to make more.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Good idea,&rdquo; Dick said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t seem exceedingly interested.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I am,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m more interested in
+our wedding than Betty&rsquo;s wedding present, but
+that doesn&rsquo;t imply a lack of merit in your idea.
+<i>You&rsquo;ll</i> want to be married at the Inn, I take
+it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;d let me, wouldn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Sure I&rsquo;d let you. When a man marries a
+modern girl with all the trappings and the
+suits of modernity, he ought to be prepared to
+take the consequences cheerfully.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;m going to surprise you. I don&rsquo;t
+want anything modern at all about my wedding.
+I want it in church with a huge bridal bouquet
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308' ></a>308</span>
+and <i>Lohengrin</i> and white satin; Caroline
+for my matron of honor and Betty for my
+bridesmaid, and Sheila for flower girl. I want
+a wedding breakfast at the Ritz and rice and
+old shoes&mdash;just all the old traditional things.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Gee whiz,&rdquo; Dick ejaculated, &ldquo;is this
+straight, or are you only making it up to sound
+good to me? You can have it anyway you like
+it, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way I like it,&rdquo; Nancy said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+good to be a modern girl, but I really prefer to
+be an old-fashioned wife&mdash;with reservations,&rdquo;
+she added hastily.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what we all come to in the end,&rdquo;
+Dick said, &ldquo;no matter how we feel or think
+we feel about it&mdash;being modern with reservations.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I saw Collier Pratt to-day,&rdquo; Nancy said
+suddenly, as she watched a log split apart in the
+fireplace and scatter its tiny shower of sparks,
+&ldquo;on the avenue.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Dick carefully stamped out two smoldering
+places on the rug before he answered.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Did you?&rdquo; he said.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;He had a cheap little creature with him,
+dark haired in messy cerise.&rdquo;</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_309' ></a>309</span></div>
+<p>&ldquo;It may have been his wife. I hear that she&rsquo;s
+living with him again.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Is she?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Nancy,&rdquo; Dick said with an effort, after a
+few minutes of silence, &ldquo;are you all over that?
+Is it really fair and right of me to take you?
+I&rsquo;ve been puzzling over that lately. I want you
+on any terms, you know, as far as I am concerned,
+but I&rsquo;m a sort of monogamist. If a
+woman has once cared for a person, no matter
+who or what that person is, can she ever care
+again in the same way for any one? Isn&rsquo;t it
+pity you feel for me, after all?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;No it isn&rsquo;t pity,&rdquo; Nancy said slowly. &ldquo;I
+cared for that man until I found that he was
+the shadow and not the substance. He isn&rsquo;t
+fit to black your shoes, Dick.&mdash;Besides&mdash;if&mdash;if
+it was pity,&rdquo; she added irrelevantly, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s the
+way to get me started, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;If I only have got you started&mdash;really.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Nancy crossed the two feet of space between
+them and sank at his feet, leaning her head
+back against his knee while he stroked her
+hair silently.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s one way of proving,&rdquo; she said presently,
+&ldquo;if&mdash;if you&rsquo;ve made a woman really care
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_310' ></a>310</span>
+for you. I should think you&rsquo;d know that. I
+told you how you&rsquo;d made me feel about the bridal
+bouquet and <i>Lohengrin</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Does that prove something?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose it does. You mean it proves
+that a woman truly loves a man if he&rsquo;s made
+her feel that she wants to be an old-fashioned
+wife&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;And mother, Dick,&rdquo; Nancy finished for him
+bravely.</p>
+<p style='text-align:center; margin-top:2em;'>THE END</p></div>
+
+<!-- generated by ppg.rb version: 3.20 with eppg.rb version 0.01 -->
+<!-- timestamp: Sun Nov 15 19:28:16 -0700 2009 -->
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Outside Inn, by Ethel M. Kelley
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Outside Inn, by Ethel M. Kelley
+
+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: Outside Inn
+
+Author: Ethel M. Kelley
+
+Illustrator: W. B. King
+
+Release Date: November 16, 2009 [EBook #30483]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTSIDE INN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+OUTSIDE INN
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "If--if you've made a woman really care"]
+
+
+
+
+OUTSIDE INN
+
+By
+
+ETHEL M. KELLEY
+
+Author of
+
+Over Here, Turn About Eleanor, Etc.
+
+With Frontispiece by
+
+W. B. KING
+
+INDIANAPOLIS
+
+THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright 1920
+
+The Bobbs-Merrill Company
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO.
+
+BOOK MANUFACTURERS
+
+BROOKLYN, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE
+        I A GOOD LITTLE DREAM                                        1
+       II APPLICANTS FOR BLUE CHAMBRAY                              19
+      III INAUGURATION                                              33
+       IV CINDERELLA                                                49
+        V SCIENCE                                                   69
+       VI AN ELEEMOSYNARY INSTITUTION                               84
+      VII CAVE-MAN STUFF                                            93
+     VIII SCIENCE APPLIED                                          113
+       IX SHEILA                                                   134
+        X THE PORTRAIT                                             151
+       XI BILLY AND CAROLINE                                       166
+      XII MORE CAVE-MAN STUFF                                      180
+     XIII THE HAPPIEST DAY                                         198
+      XIV BETTY                                                    209
+       XV CLOUDS OF GLORY                                          220
+      XVI CHRISTMAS SHOPPING                                       236
+     XVII GOOD-BY                                                  248
+    XVIII TAME SKELETONS                                           259
+      XIX OTHER PEOPLE'S TROUBLES                                  271
+       XX HITTY                                                    288
+      XXI LOHENGRIN AND WHITE SATIN                                299
+
+
+
+
+OUTSIDE INN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GOOD LITTLE DREAM
+
+
+"I Elijah Peebles Martin, of the city and county of Harrison, in the
+state of Rhode Island, being of sound and disposing mind and memory,
+do make and declare the following, as and for, my last will and
+testament.' ... I wish you'd take your head out of that barrel, Nancy,
+and listen to the document that is going to make you rich beyond the
+dreams of avarice."
+
+"I was beyond them anyway." The young woman in blue serge made one
+last effectual dive into the depths of excelsior, the topmost billows
+of which were surging untidily over the edge of a big crate in the
+middle of the basement floor, and secured a nest of blue and rose
+colored teacups, which she proceeded to unwrap lovingly and display on
+a convenient packing box. "Not one single thing broken in this whole
+lot, Billy.... What is a disposing mind and memory, anyhow?"
+
+"You don't deserve to know," the blond young man in the Norfolk jacket
+assured her, adjusting himself more firmly to the idiosyncrasies of
+the rackety step-ladder he was striding. "You're not human about this.
+Here you are suddenly in possession of a fortune. Money enough to make
+you independently wealthy for the rest of your life--money you didn't
+know the existence of, two weeks ago--fed to you by a gratuitous
+providence. A legacy is a legacy, and deserves to be treated as such,
+and I propose to see that it gets what it deserves, without any more
+shilly-shallying."
+
+"I'm a busy woman," Nancy groaned, "and I've hammered my finger to a
+pulp, trying to open this crate, while you perch on a broken
+step-ladder and prate to me of legacies. The saucers to these cups may
+be in here, and I can't wait to find out. I'm perfectly crazy about
+this ware. It's English--Wedgewood, you know."
+
+"I didn't know." Billy resignedly let himself to the floor, and
+appropriated the screwdriver. "I thought Wedgewood was dove color, and
+consisted chiefly of ladies in deshabille, doing the tango on a parlor
+ornament. I smashed one in my youth, so I know. There, it's open now.
+I may as well unpack what's here. These seem to be demi-tasses.
+
+    'You may tempt your upper classes,
+    With your villainous demi-tasses.
+    But Heaven will protect the working girl,'"
+
+he finished lugubriously, in a wailing baritone, taking an imaginary
+encore by bowing a head picturesquely adorned with a crop of excelsior
+curls, accumulated during his activities in and about the barrel.
+
+"The trouble with the average tea-room, or Arts and Crafts table
+d'hote," Nancy said, sinking into the depths of a broken armchair in
+the corner of the dim, overcrowded interior, "is that when the pinch
+comes, quantity is sacrificed to quality. Smaller portions of food,
+and chipped chinaware. People who can't keep a place up, let it run
+down genteelly. They won't compromise on quality. I should never be
+like that. I should go to the ten-cent stores and replenish my whole
+establishment, if I couldn't make it pay with imported ware and
+Colonial silver. I'd never go to the other extreme. I'd never be so
+perceptibly second-rate, but in the matter of furnishings as well as
+food values, I'd find my perfect balance between quality and quantity,
+and keep it."
+
+"I believe you would. You are a thorough child, when you set about a
+thing. I'll bet you know the restaurant business from A to Z."
+
+"I do. You know, I studied the organization of every well-run
+restaurant in New York, when I was doing field work from Teachers'
+College. I've read every book on the subject of Diet and Nutrition and
+Domestic Economy that I could get my hands on. I'm just ready now for
+the practical application of all my theories."
+
+"Nancy Calory Martin is your real name. I don't blame you for
+hating to give up this tea-room idea. You've dug so deep into the
+possibilities of it, that you want to go through. I get that."
+
+Nancy's eyes widened in satiric admiration.
+
+"You could understand almost anything, couldn't you, Billy?" she
+mocked.
+
+"All I want now," Billy continued imperturbably, "is a chance to make
+_you_ understand something." He smote the document in his left hand.
+"Of course, your uncle's lawyer has explained all the details in his
+letters to you, but if you won't read the letters or familiarize
+yourself with the contents of this will, somebody has got to explain
+it to you in words of one syllable. My legal training, slight as it
+is--"
+
+"Sketchy is the better word, don't you think so, Billy?"
+
+"Slight as it is"--except for a prodigious frown, Billy ignored the
+interruption, though he took advantage of her suddenly upright
+position to encircle her neatly with a barrel hoop, as if she were the
+iron peg in a game of quoits--"enables me to put the fact before you
+in a few short, sharp, well-chosen sentences. I won't again attempt to
+read the document--"
+
+"You'd better not," Nancy interrupted witheringly, "your delivery is
+poor. Besides, I don't want to know what is in that will. If I had, it
+stands to reason that I would have found out long before this. I've
+had it three days."
+
+"You've had it three days and never once looked into it?" Billy
+groaned. "Who started all this scandal about the curiosity of women,
+anyway?"
+
+"I don't want to know what's in it," Nancy insisted. "As long as I'm
+not in possession of any definite facts, I can ignore it. I've got the
+kind of mind that must deal with concrete facts concretely."
+
+Billy grinned. "I'd hate the job of trying to subpoena you," he said,
+"but you'd make a corking good witness, on the stand. Of course, you
+can proceed for a certain length of time on the theory that what you
+don't know can't hurt you, but take it from me, little girl, what you
+ought to know and don't know is the thing that's bound to hurt you
+most tremendously in the long run. What are you afraid of, anyway,
+Nancy?"
+
+"I'm not _afraid_ of anything," Nancy corrected him, with some heat.
+"I just plain don't want to be interrupted at this stage of my career.
+I consider it an impertinence of Uncle Elijah, to make me his heir. I
+never saw him but once, and I had no desire to see him that time. It
+was about ten years ago, and I caught a grippe germ from him. He told
+me between sneezes that I was too big a girl to wear a mess of hair
+streaming down my back like a baby. I stuck out my tongue at him, but
+he was too near-sighted to see it. Why couldn't he have left his money
+to an eye and ear infirmary? Or the Sailors' Snug Retreat? Or--or--"
+
+"If you really don't want the money," Billy said, "it's your privilege
+to endow some institution--"
+
+"You know very well that I can't get rid of money that way," Nancy
+cried hotly. "I am at least a responsible person. I don't believe in
+these promiscuous, eleemosynary institutions. It would be against
+all my principles to contribute money to any such philanthropy. I know
+too much about them--but he didn't. He could have disposed of his
+money to any one of a dozen of these mid-Victorian charities, but
+no--he was just one of those old parties that want to shift their
+responsibilities on to young shoulders, and so he chose mine."
+
+"You don't speak very kindly of your dear dead relative."
+
+"I don't feel very kindly toward him. He was a meddling old creature.
+He never gave any member of the family a cent when they wanted it and
+needed it. Now that I've just got my life in shape, and know what I
+want to do with it without being beholden to anybody on earth, he
+leaves me a whole lot of superfluous money."
+
+"If I weren't engaged to Caroline, who is a jealous woman, though I
+say it as shouldn't, I'd be tempted to undertake the management of
+your fortune myself," Billy said reflectively; "as it is--honor--"
+
+"I know what I want to do with my life," Nancy continued, as if he had
+not spoken. "I want to run an efficiency tea-room and serve dinner and
+breakfast and tea to my fellow men and women. I want the perfectly
+balanced ration, perfectly served, to be my contribution to the cause
+of humanity."
+
+She looked about her ruefully. The sun, through the barred dusty
+windows, struck in long slant rays, athwart the confusion of the
+cellar, illuminating piles upon piles of gay, blue latticed
+chinaware,--cups set out methodically in rows on the lids and bottoms
+of packing boxes; assorted sizes of plates and saucers, graded
+pyramidically, rising from the floor. There were also individual
+copper casseroles and serving dishes, and a heterogeneous assortment
+of Japanese basketry tangled in excelsior and tissue. A wandering
+sunbeam took her hair, displaying its amber, translucent quality.
+
+"I've just got capital enough to get it going right; to swing it for
+the first year, even if I don't make a cent on it. It's my one big
+chance to do my share in the world, and to work out my own salvation.
+This legacy is a menace to all my dreams and plans."
+
+"I see that," Billy said. "What I don't see is what you gain by
+refusing to let it catch up with you."
+
+"You're not it till you're tagged. That's all. If I don't know whether
+my income is going to be five thousand dollars or twenty-five thousand
+a year, I can go on unpacking teacups with--"
+
+Billy whistled.
+
+"Five thousand or twenty-five--my darling Nancy! You'll have fifty
+thousand a year at the very lowest estimate. The actual money is more
+than five hundred thousand dollars. The stock in the Union Rubber
+Company will amount to as much again, maybe twice as much. You're a
+real heiress, my dear, with wads of real money to show for it. That's
+what I'm trying to tell you."
+
+"Fifty thousand a year!" Nancy turned a shocked face, from which the
+color slowly drained, leaving it blue-white. "Fifty thousand a year!
+You're mad. It can't be!"
+
+"Yes'um. Fifty thousand at least."
+
+Nancy's pallor increased. She closed her eyes.
+
+"Don't do that," Billy said sharply. "No woman can faint on me just
+because she's had money left her. You make me feel like the ghost of
+Hamlet's father."
+
+Nancy clutched at his sleeve.
+
+"Don't, Billy!" she besought. "I'm past joking now. Fifty thousand a
+year! Why, Uncle Elijah bought fifteen-dollar suits and fifteen-cent
+lunches. How could a retired sea captain get all that money by
+investing in a little rubber, and getting to be president of a little
+rubber company?"
+
+"That's how. Be a good sensible girl, and face the music."
+
+"I'll have to give up the tea-room."
+
+Billy laid a consolatory arm over her shoulder, and patted her
+awkwardly.
+
+"Cheer up," he said, "there's worse things in this world than money.
+The time may come when you'll be grateful to your poor little old
+uncle, for his nifty little fifty thousand per annum."
+
+Nancy turned a tragic face to him.
+
+"I tell you I'm not grateful to him," she said, "and I doubt if I ever
+will be. I don't want the stupid money. I want to work life out in my
+own way. I know I've got it in me, and I want my chance to prove it. I
+want to give myself, my own brain and strength, to the job I've
+selected as mine. Now, it's all spoiled for me. I'm subsidized. I'm
+done for, and I can't see any way out of it."
+
+"You can give the money away."
+
+"I can't. Giving money away is a special science of itself. If I
+devote my life to doing that as it should be done, I won't have time
+or energy for anything else. I'm not a philanthropist in that sense. I
+wanted my restaurant to be philanthropic only incidentally. I wanted
+to cram my patrons with the full value of their money's worth of good
+nourishing food; to increase the efficiency of hundreds of people who
+never suspected I was doing it, by scientific methods of feeding.
+That's my dream."
+
+"A good little dream, all right."
+
+"To make people eat the right food; to help them to a fuller and more
+effective use of themselves by supplying them with the proper fuel for
+their functions."
+
+"You could buy a chain of restaurants with the money you've got."
+
+"I don't want a chain of restaurants."
+
+"You can endow a perpetual diet squad. You can buy out the whole Life
+Extension Institute. If you would only stop to think of the advantages
+of having all the money you wanted to spend on anything you wanted,
+you'd--"
+
+"Billy," Nancy said solemnly, "I've been through all that. If I had
+thought I would have been a better person with a great deal of money
+at my disposal, I--I might have--"
+
+"Married Dick," Billy finished for her. "I forgot that interesting
+possibility. I suppose to a girl who has just turned down a cold five
+millions, this meager little proposition"--he flourished the crumpled
+document in his hand--"has no real allure. Lord! What a world this is.
+You'll marry Dick yet. Them as has--_gits_. It never rains but it
+pours. To the victor belong the spoils, _et cetera, et cetera_--"
+
+"Money simply does not interest me."
+
+"Dick interests you. I don't know to what extent, but he interests
+you."
+
+"Don't be sentimental, Billy. Just because you're in love with
+Caroline, you can't make all your other friends marry each other. Tell
+me what to do about this legacy. What is customary when you get a lump
+of money like that? I suppose I'll have to begin to get rid of all
+_this_ immediately." There was more than a hint of tears in her voice,
+but she smiled at Billy bravely. "I'm so perfectly crazy about
+these--these cups and saucers, Billy. See the lovely way that rose is
+split to fit into the design. Oh, when do I come into possession,
+anyway?"
+
+"You don't come into possession right away, you know. You don't
+inherit for a couple of years, under the Rhode Island law. The
+formalities will take--"
+
+"Billy Boynton, do you mean to say that I won't have to do a blessed
+thing about this money for two years?" Nancy shrieked.
+
+"Why, no. It takes a certain amount of red tape to settle an estate,
+to probate a will, etc., and the law allows a period of time, varying
+in different states--"
+
+"Oho! Is there anything in all this universe so stupid as a man?"
+Nancy interrupted fervently. "Why didn't you tell me that before? Do
+you suppose I care how much money I have two years from now? Two years
+of freedom, why, that's all I want, Billy. There you've been sitting
+up winking and blinking at me like a sympathetic old owl, when all I
+needed to know was that I had two years of grace. Of course, I'll go
+on with my tea-room, and not a soul shall know the difference."
+
+"While the feminine temperament has my hearty admiration and my most
+cordial endorsement," Billy murmured, "there are things about it--"
+
+"I won't have to tell anybody, will I?"
+
+"There's no law to that effect. If your friends don't know it from
+you, they're not likely to hear it."
+
+"I haven't mentioned it," Nancy said. "I only told you, because it
+seemed rather in your line of work, and I was getting so much mail
+about it, I thought it would be wise to have some one look it over."
+
+"I've given up my law practice and Caroline for three days in your
+service."
+
+"You've done more than well, Billy, and I'm grateful to you. Of
+course, you would have saved me days of nervous wear and tear if it
+had only occurred to you to tell me the one simple little thing that
+was the essential point of the whole matter. If I had known that I
+didn't inherit for two years, I wouldn't have cared _what_ was in that
+will."
+
+Billy stared at her feelingly.
+
+"A peculiar sensation always comes over me," he said musingly, "after
+I spend several hours uninterruptedly in the society of a woman who is
+using her mind in any way. I couldn't explain it to you exactly. It's
+a kind of impression that my own brain has begun to disintegrate, and
+to--"
+
+"Don't be too hard on yourself, Billy." Nancy soothed him sweetly,--Billy
+was not one of the people to whom she habitually allowed full
+conversational leeway: "Swear you won't tell Caroline or Betty--or Dick."
+
+"I swear."
+
+Nancy held out her hand to him.
+
+"You're a good boy," she said, "and I appreciate you, which is more
+than Caroline does, I'm afraid. Run along and see her now--I don't
+need you any more, and you're probably dying to."
+
+Billy bowed over her hand, lingeringly and politely, but once
+releasing it, he shook his big frame, and straightening up, drew a
+long deep breath of something very like relief.
+
+"With all deference to your delightful sex," he said, "the only
+society that I'm dying for at the present moment is that of the old
+family bar-keep."
+
+As Billy left her, Nancy turned to her basement window, and stood
+looking out at the quaint stone court he had to cross in order to
+reach the high gate that guarded the entrance to the marble worker's
+establishment, under the shadow of which it was her intention to open
+her out-of-door tea-room. She watched him dreamily is he made his way
+among the cinerary urns, the busts and statues and bas-reliefs that
+were a part of the stock in trade of her incongruous business
+associate.
+
+In her investigation of the various sorts and conditions of
+restaurants in New York, she characteristically hit upon the garden
+restaurant, a commonplace in the down-town table d'hote district, as
+the ideal setting for her adventure in practical philanthropy, while
+the ubiquitous tea-room and antique-shop combination gave her the
+inspiration to stage her own undertaking even more spectacularly. Her
+enterprise was destined to flourish picturesquely in the open court
+during the fair months of the year, and in the winter months, or in
+the event of a bad storm, to be housed under the eaves in the rambling
+garret of the old brick building, the lower floor of which was given
+over to traffic in marbles.
+
+She sighed happily. Billy, extricating himself from the grasp of an
+outstretched marble hand, which bad seemed to clutch desperately at
+his elbow, and narrowly escaping a plunge into a too convenient bird's
+bath, turned to see her eyes following him, and waved gaily, but she
+scarcely realized that he had done so. It was rather with the eye of
+her mind that she was contemplating the dark, quadrangular area
+outstretched before her. In spirit she was moving to and fro among the
+statuary, bringing a housewifely order out of the chaos that
+prevailed,--placing stone ladies draped in stone or otherwise;
+cherubic babies, destined to perpetual cold water bathing; strange
+mortuary furniture, in the juxtaposition that would make the most
+effective background for her enterprise.
+
+She saw the gritty, gray paving stones of the court cleared of their
+litter, and scoured free from discoloration and grime, set with dozens
+of little tables immaculate in snowy napery and shiny silver, and
+arranged with careful irregularity at the most alluring angle. She saw
+a staff of Hebe-like waitresses in blue chambray and pink ribbons, to
+match the chinaware, and all bearing a marked resemblance to herself
+in her last flattering photograph, moving among a crowd of well
+brought up but palpably impoverished young people,--mostly social
+workers and artists. They were _all_ young, and most of them very
+beautiful. In all her twenty-five years, she had never before been so
+close to a vision realized, as she was at that moment.
+
+"Outside Inn," she said to herself, still smiling. "It's a perfect
+name for it, really. Outside Inn!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+APPLICANTS FOR BLUE CHAMBRAY
+
+
+Ann Martin was an orphan of New England extraction. Her father, the
+eldest child of a simple unpretentious country family in Western
+Massachusetts, had been a brilliant but erratic throw-back to
+Mayflower traditions and Puritan intellectualism. He had married a
+girl with much the same ancestry as his own, but herself born and
+brought up in New York, and of a generation to which the assumption of
+prerogative was a natural rather than an acquired characteristic. The
+possession of a comfortable degree of fortune and culture was a matter
+of course with Ann Winslow, while to poor David Martin education in
+the finer things of life, and the opportunity to indulge his taste in
+the choice of surroundings and associates, were hard-won privileges.
+
+Both parents had been killed in a railroad accident when Ann, or Nancy
+as her mother had insisted on calling her from the day of her
+christening, was about seven years old. She had been placed in the
+care of a maternal aunt, and had flourished in the heart of a well
+ordered establishment of the mid-Victorian type, run by a vigorous,
+rather worldly old lady.
+
+From her lovely mother--Ann Winslow had been more than a merely
+attractive or pretty woman; she had the real grace and distinction,
+and purity of profile that placed her in the actual category of
+beauty,--Nancy had inherited a healthy and equitable outlook on life,
+while her father, irresistible and impracticable being that he was,
+had endowed her with a certain eccentric and adventurous spirit in the
+investigation of it.
+
+She had been educated in a boarding-school, forty minutes' run from
+New York, and had specialized in the domestic sciences and basket
+ball; and on attaining her majority had taken up a course or two at
+Columbia, rather more to put off the evil day of assuming the
+responsibility of the stuffy, stately old house in Washington Square
+than because she ever expected to make any use of her superfluous
+education. She was conceded by every one to be her aunt's heir, but
+old Miss Winslow died intestate, very suddenly in Nancy's twenty-third
+year; and the beneficiaries of this accident, most of them extremely
+well-to-do themselves, combined to make Nancy a regular allowance
+until she was twenty-five. On her twenty-fifth birthday fifteen
+thousand dollars was deposited to her account in the Trust Company
+which conserved the family fortunes of the Winslows, and Nancy
+understood that they considered their duty by her to be done. It was
+with this fifteen thousand dollars that she was to inaugurate her
+darling enterprise,--Outside Inn.
+
+Money, as she had truthfully told Billy, meant nothing to her. Her
+aunt, living and giving generously, had furnished her with a
+background of comfortable, unostentatious well being, against which
+the rather vivid elements that went to make up her intimate social
+circle--she was a creature of intimates--stood out in alluring relief.
+She had literally never wanted for anything. Her tastes, to be sure,
+were modest, but the wherewithal to gratify them had always been
+almost stultifyingly near at hand. The excitement and adventure of an
+income to which there was attached some uncertainty had never been
+hers, and she was too much her father's daughter to be interested in
+the playing of any game in which she could not lose. With all she
+possessed staked against her untried business acumen she was for the
+first time in her life concerned with her financial situation, and
+quite honestly resentful of any interruption of her experiment. Her
+life was closely associated with her mother's family. Her father's
+people had at no time entered into her scheme of living,--her uncle
+Elijah less than any member of it, and she found his post-obit
+intervention in her affairs embarrassing in a dozen different
+connections.
+
+The best friend she had in the world, before he had made the tactical
+error of asking her to marry him, was Richard Thorndyke. He was still,
+thanks to his immediate skill in trying to retrieve that error, a very
+good friend indeed. Nancy would normally have told him everything that
+happened to her in the exact order of its occurrence; but partly
+because she did not wish to exaggerate her eccentricity in eyes that
+looked upon her so kindly, and partly because she had the instinct to
+spare him the realization that there was no way in which he might come
+to her rescue in the event of disaster,--she did not inform him of her
+legacy. She knew that he was shrewdly calculating to stand behind her
+venture, morally and practically, and that the chief incentive of his
+encouragement and helpfulness was the hidden hope that through her
+experiment and its probable unfortunate termination she would learn to
+depend on _him_. Nancy was so sure of herself that this attitude of
+Dick's roused her tenderness instead of her ire.
+
+The two girls who were closest to her, Caroline Eustace and Betty
+Pope, had been actively enlisted in the service of Outside Inn and the
+ideals that it represented. Betty, a dimpling, dynamic little being,
+who took a sporting interest in any project that interested her,
+irrespective of its merits, was to be associated with Nancy in the
+actual management of the restaurant. Caroline, who took herself more
+seriously, and was busy with a dozen enterprises that had to do with
+the welfare of the race, was concerned chiefly with the humanitarian
+side of the undertaking and willing to deflect to it only such energy
+as she felt to be essential to its scientific betterment. She was
+tentatively engaged to Billy Boynton,--for what reason no one--not
+even Billy--had been able to determine; since she systematically
+disregarded him in relation to all the interests and activities that
+went to make up her life.
+
+The affairs of the Inn progressed rapidly. It was in the first week of
+May that Nancy and Billy had their memorable discussion of her
+situation. By the latter part of June, when she could be reasonably
+sure of a succession of propitious days and nights, for she had set
+her heart on balmy weather conditions, Nancy expected to have her
+formal opening,--a dinner which not only initiated her establishment,
+but submitted it to the approval of her own group of intimate friends,
+who were to be her guests on that occasion.
+
+Meantime, the most extensive and discriminating preparations were
+going forward. Billy and Dick were present one afternoon by special
+request when Betty and Nancy were interviewing a contingent of
+waitresses.
+
+"We've got three perfectly charming girls already," Nancy said, "that
+is, girls that look perfectly charming to me, but a man's point of
+view on a woman's looks is so different that I thought it would be a
+good plan to have you boys look over this lot. They are all very
+high-class and competent girls. The Manning Agency doesn't send any
+other kind."
+
+"Trot 'em along," Billy said; "where are they anyway?"
+
+"In the room in front." They were in the smallest of the nest of attic
+rooms that Nancy planned to make her winter quarters. "Michael
+receives them, and shows them in here one by one."
+
+"You like Michael then?" Dick asked. "I always said his talents were
+hidden at our place. He has a soul above the job of handy man on a
+Long Island farm."
+
+"He's certainly a handy man here," Nancy said; "I couldn't live
+without him."
+
+"The lucky dog," Billy said, with a side glance at Dick.
+
+"You see," Betty explained, "the girl comes in, and we ask her
+questions. Then if I don't like her I take my pencil from behind my
+ear, and rap against my palm with it. If Nancy doesn't like her she
+says, 'You're losing a hairpin, Betty.' If we like her we rub our
+hands together."
+
+"It's a good system," Billy said, "but I don't see why Nancy doesn't
+take her pencil from behind her ear, or why you don't say to her--"
+
+"I wouldn't put a pencil behind my ear," Nancy said scathingly.
+
+"And she never loses a hairpin," Betty cut in. "If I approve this
+system of signals I don't see what you have to complain of. Nancy
+couldn't get a pencil behind her ear even if she wanted to. It's only
+a criminal ear like mine that accommodates a pencil."
+
+"Speaking of ears," Dick said, looking at his watch, "let's get on
+with the beauty show. I have to take my mother to see _Boris_
+to-night, and she has an odd notion of being on time."
+
+"Aw right," Betty said. "Here's Michael. Bring in the first one
+immediately, Michael."
+
+"Sure an' I will that, Miss Pope." The old family servitor of the
+Thorndykes pulled a deliberate lid over a twinkling left eye by way of
+acknowledging the presence of his young master. "There's quite a
+display of thim this time."
+
+The first applicant, guided thus by Michael, appeared on the
+threshold and stood for a moment framed in the low doorway. Seeing
+two gentlemen present she carefully arranged her expression to meet
+that contingency. She was a blonde girl with masses of doubtfully
+tinted hair and no chin, but her eyes were very blue and matched a
+chain of turquoise beads about her throat, and she radiated a peculiar
+vitality.
+
+Betty took her pencil from behind her ear.
+
+"You're losing a hair--" Nancy began, but Dick and Billy exchanged
+glances and began rubbing their hands together energetically and
+enthusiastically.
+
+"I'm sorry," Nancy said crisply, "but you're a little too tall for our
+purpose."
+
+"And too blonde," Betty added with a bland dismissing smile. "We're
+looking for a special type of girl."
+
+"I understood you were looking for a waitress," the girl said pertly,
+with her eyes on Billy.
+
+"I was," Billy answered, "but I'm not now. My--my wife won't let me."
+He waved an inclusive hand in the direction of Nancy and Betty.
+
+"If you don't behave," Nancy said, while they waited for Michael to
+bring in the next girl, "you can't stay. If that is the kind of girl
+you men find attractive then my restaurant is doomed from the
+beginning. I wouldn't have that girl in my employ for--"
+
+Before she could begin again, applicant number two stood before
+them,--a comfortable, kind-eyed girl, no longer very young but with
+efficiency written all over her, despite the shyness that beset her.
+
+Nancy rubbed her hands with satisfaction and looked at Betty, who
+beamed back at her. The girl, encouraged by Nancy's kindly smile took
+a step forward, and began to recite her qualifications for the
+position. Dick fumbled with a fountain-pen which he placed elaborately
+behind his ear for an instant, and then as ostentatiously removed.
+
+"I think you're losing a hairpin, Dick," Billy suggested solicitously,
+as Nancy, ignoring their existence entirely, proceeded to make terms
+with the newcomer.
+
+The next girl created a diversion--being palpably an adventuress out
+of a job and impressing none of the quartette as being interesting
+enough to deserve one,--but the two girls who followed her were bright
+and sprightly creatures, disarmingly graceful and ingenuous, of whom
+the entire quartette approved. They were twin sisters, they said,
+Dolly and Molly, and they had always had places together ever since
+they had begun working out.
+
+"Tell me, pretty maiden, _are_ there any more at home _like_--" Billy
+was addressing Molly gravely when Dick slipped a friendly but firm
+hand over his jugular region, and cut off his utterance.
+
+"He's not feeling quite himself," he explained suavely to Dolly,
+"but we'll bring him around soon.--I think you'll find Miss Martin
+an ideal person to work for, and the salary and the hours unusually
+satisfactory."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Molly and Dolly together, in the English manner
+which showed the excellence of their training.
+
+There were several other dubby creatures so much out of the picture
+that they were not even considered, and then Michael brought in what
+he called "a grand girl," and left her standing statuesquely in their
+midst.
+
+"With large lovely arms and a neck like a tower," Dick quoted in his
+throat.
+
+Nancy engaged her without enthusiasm.
+
+"She'll draw," she said briefly. "Personally, I dislike these Alma
+Tadema girls."
+
+"What the men see," Betty said, curling around the better part of two
+straight dining chairs, in the moment of relaxation that followed the
+final disposition of the business of the day, "in a girl like that
+first one is one of the mysteries of existence."
+
+"I know it," Nancy agreed, with New England colloquialism. "You feel
+reasonably allied to them as a sex, and then suddenly they show some
+vulgar preference for a woman like that, and it's all off."
+
+"This from the woman who thinks my chauffeur is an ideal of manly
+beauty," Dick scoffed, "a dimpled man with a little finger ring."
+
+"He can run a car, though," Nancy retorted.
+
+"I'll bet little blue eyes could run a restaurant."
+
+"That was just the trouble,--she would have been running mine in
+twenty-four hours. Oh! I think what you men really like is a bossy
+woman."
+
+"Now, what a woman really likes in a man--" Betty began, "is--is--"
+
+"Quality," Nancy finished for her succinctly.
+
+"I wonder--" Dick mused. "I should have said finish."
+
+"Almost any kind of finish so long as it is smooth enough," Billy
+supplemented. "Look at the way they eat up this artistic and poetic
+veneer."
+
+"Look at the way they mangle their metaphors," Nancy complained to
+Betty.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I know what I really like in a woman," Dick whispered to Nancy, as he
+helped her into her coat just before they started out together, "and
+you know what I like, too. That's one of the subjects that needs no
+discussion between us."
+
+Betty and Billy walking up the avenue ahead of them,--Outside Inn was
+located in one of the cross-streets in the thirties,--were discussing
+their relation to one another.
+
+"I wonder sometimes if Nancy's got it in her really to care for a
+man," Betty argued; "she's as fond as she can be of Dick, but she'd
+sacrifice him heart, soul and body for that restaurant of hers. She's
+a perfect darling, I don't mean that; she's the very essence of
+sweetness and kindness, but she doesn't seem to understand or
+appreciate the possibilities of a devotion like Dick's. Do you think
+she's really capable of loving anybody--of putting any man in the
+world before all her ideas and notions and experiments?"
+
+"Lord, yes," said Billy, accelerating his pace, suggestively in the
+hope of getting Betty home in good time for him to dress to keep his
+engagement with Caroline.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+INAUGURATION
+
+
+Nancy's heart was beating heavily when she woke on the memorable
+morning of the day that was to inaugurate the activities of Outside
+Inn. A confused dream of her Uncle Elijah in tatters on a park bench,
+which was instantly metamorphosed into one of the rustic seats she had
+arranged against the wall along the side of some of the bigger tables
+in the marble worker's court, was ostensibly the cause of the
+disturbance in her cardiac region. She had, it seemed, in the
+interminable tangle of nightmare, given Molly and Dolly and the Alma
+Tadema girl instructions to throw out the unwelcome guest, and she was
+standing by with Michael, who was assuring her that the big blonde was
+"certain a grand bouncer," when she was smitten with a sickening
+dream-panic at her own ingratitude. "He has given me everything he had
+in the world, poor old man," she said to herself, and approached him
+remorsefully; but when she looked at him again she saw that he had the
+face and figure of a young stranger, and that the garments that had
+seemed to her to be streaming and unsightly rags, were merely the
+picturesque habiliments of a young artist, apparently newly translated
+from the Boulevard Montparnasse. At the sight of the stranger a
+heart-sinking terror seemed to take possession of her, and so, quaking
+and quavering in mortal intimidation,--she woke up.
+
+She laughed at herself as she brushed the sleep out of her eyes, and
+drew the gradual long breaths that soothed the physical agitation that
+still beset her.
+
+"I'm scared," she said, "I'm as excited and nervous as a youngster on
+circus day.--Oh! I'm glad the sun shines."
+
+Nancy lived in a little apartment of her own in that hinterland of
+what is now down-town New York, between the Rialto and its more
+conventional prototype, Society,--that is, she lived east of Broadway
+on a cross-street in the forties. The maid who took care of her had
+been in her aunt's employ for years, and had seen Nancy grow from her
+rather spoiled babyhood to a hoydenish childhood, and so on to
+soft-eyed, vibrant maturity. She was the only person who tyrannized
+over Nancy. She brought her a cup of steaming hot water with a pinch
+of soda in it, now.
+
+"You were moaning and groaning in your sleep," she said, in the
+strident accents of her New England birthplace, "so you'll have to
+drink this before I give you a living thing for your breakfast."
+
+"I will, Hitty," Nancy said, "and thank you kindly. Now I know you've
+been making pop-overs, and are afraid they will disagree with me. I'm
+glad--for I need the moral effect of them."
+
+"I dunno whether pop-overs is so moral, or so immoral if it comes to
+that. I notice it's always the folks that ain't had much to do with
+morals one way or the other that's so almighty glib about them."
+
+"There's a good deal in what you say, Hitty. If I had time I would go
+into the matter with you, but this is my busy day." Nancy sat up in
+bed, and began sipping her hot water obediently. She looked very
+childlike in her straight cut, embroidered night-gown, with a long
+chestnut pig-tail over either shoulder. "I feel as if I were going to
+be married, or--or something. I'm so excited."
+
+"I guess you'd be a good sight more excited if you was going to be
+married"--Hitty was a widow of twenty-five years' standing--"and
+according to my way of thinking 'twould be a good deal more suitable,"
+she added darkly. "I don't take much stock in this hotel business. In
+my day there warn't no such newfangled foolishness for a girl to take
+up with instead o' getting married and settled down. When I was your
+age I was working on my second set o' baby clothes."
+
+"Don't scold, Hitty," Nancy coaxed. "I could make perfectly good baby
+clothes if I needed to. Don't you think I'll be of more use in the
+world serving nourishing food to hordes of hungry men and women than
+making baby clothes for one hypothetical baby?"
+
+"I dunno about the hypothetical part," Hitty said, folding back the
+counterpane, inexorably. "What I do know is that a girl that's getting
+to be an old girl--like you--past twenty-five--ought to be bestirring
+herself to look for a life pardner if she don't see any hanging around
+that suits her, instead of opening up a hotel for a passel of perfect
+strangers. If ever I saw a woman spoiling for something of her own to
+fuss over--"
+
+"If ever there was a woman who _had_ something of her own to fuss
+over," Nancy cried ecstatically, "I'm that woman to-day, Hitty. You're
+a professional Puritan, and you don't understand the broader aspects
+of the maternal instinct." She sprang out of bed, and tucked her bare
+pink toes into the fur bordered blue mules that peeped from under the
+bed, and slipped into the wadded blue silk bathrobe that lay on the
+chair beside her. "Is my bath drawn, Hitty?"
+
+"Your bath is drawed," Hitty acknowledged sourly, "and your breakfast
+will be on the table in half an hour by the clock."
+
+"I suppose I must require that corrective New England influence,"
+Nancy said to herself, as she tried the temperature of her bath and
+found it frigid, "just as some people need acid in their diet. If my
+mother were alive, I wonder what she would have said to me this
+morning."
+
+Nancy spent a long day directing, planning, and arranging for the
+great event of the evening, the first dinner served to the public at
+Outside Inn.
+
+From the basement kitchen to the ground-floor serving-room in the
+rear, space cunningly coaxed from the reluctant marble worker, the
+mechanism of Nancy's equipment was as perfect as lavish expenditure
+and scientific management could make it. The kitchen gleamed with
+copper and granite ware; huge pots for soup and vegetables, mammoth
+double boilers of white enamel,--Nancy was firm in her conviction that
+rice and cereal could be cooked in nothing but white enamel,--rows
+upon rows of shelves methodically set with containers and casseroles
+and odd-shaped metal serving-dishes, as well as the ubiquitous blue
+and rose-color chinaware presenting its gay surface from every
+available bit of space.
+
+Presiding over the hooded ranges, two of gas and one coal for toasting
+and broiling, there was to be a huge Franco-American man-cook,
+discovered in one of the Fifth Avenue pastry shops in the course of
+Nancy's indefatigable tours of exploration, who was the son of a
+French _chef_ and a Virginian mother, and could express himself in the
+culinary art of either his father's or his mother's nativity. His
+staff of helpers and dishwashers had been chosen by himself, with what
+Nancy considered most felicitous results, while her own galaxy of
+waitresses, who operated the service kitchen up-stairs, proved
+themselves to a woman almost unbelievably superior and efficient.
+
+The courtyard itself was a brave spectacle in its final aspect of
+background for the detail and paraphernalia of polite dining. The more
+unself-conscious of the statues, the nymphs and nereids and Venuses,
+she managed either to relegate to the storehouse within, or to add a
+few cunningly draped vines to the nonchalance of their effect, while
+the gargoyles and Roman columns and some of the least ambitious of the
+fountain-models she was able to adapt delightfully to her outrageous
+ideal of arrangement. Dick had denuded several smart florist shops to
+furnish her with field flowers enough to develop her decorative
+scheme, which included strangely the stringing of half a dozen huge
+Chinese lanterns that even in the daylight took on a meteoric light
+and glow.
+
+The night was clear and soft, and Fifth Avenue, ingratiatingly swept
+and garnished, stretched its wake of summer allure before the never
+unappreciative eyes of Billy and Caroline, and Betty and Dick
+respectively, who had met at the Waldorf by appointment, and were now
+making their way, thus ceremoniously and in company, to the formal
+opening dinner of Nancy's Inn.
+
+Two nondescript Pagan gentlemen of Titanesque proportions had joined
+the watch of the conventional leonine twins, and the big gate now
+stood hospitably open, over it swinging the new sign in gallant
+crimson and white, that announced to all the world that Outside Inn
+was even at that moment, at its most punctilious service.
+
+Molly and Dolly, in the prescribed blue chambray, their cheeks several
+shades pinker than their embellishment of pink ribbon, and panting
+with ill-suppressed excitement, rushed forward to greet the four and
+ushered them solemnly to their places,--the gala table in the center
+of the court, set with a profusion of fleur de lis, with pink ribbon
+trainers. Thanks to Dick's carefully manipulated advertising campaign
+and personal efforts among his friends and business associates, they
+were not by any means the first arrivals. Half a dozen laughing groups
+were distributed about the round tables in the center space, while
+several tete-a-tete couples were confidentially ensconced in corners
+and at cozy tables for two, craftily sheltered by some of the most
+imposing of the marble figures and columns.
+
+"It seems like a real restaurant," Caroline said wonderingly.
+
+"What did you think it would seem like?" Betty asked argumentatively.
+"Just because Nancy is the best friend you have in the world, and
+you're familiar with her in pig-tails and a dressing-gown doesn't
+argue that she is incapable of managing an undertaking like this as
+well as if she were a perfect stranger."
+
+"I don't suppose it does," Caroline mused, "but someway I'd feel
+easier about a perfect stranger investing her last cent in such a
+venture. I don't see how she can possibly make it pay, and I don't
+feel as if I could ever have a comfortable moment again until I knew
+whether she could or not.--What are you looking so guilty about,
+Billy?"
+
+"I was regretting your uncomfortable moments, Caroline," Billy said,
+"and wishing it were in my power to do away with them, but it isn't. I
+was also musing sadly, but quite irrelevantly, on the tangled web we
+weave when first we practise to deceive."
+
+"Are you deceiving Caroline in some way?" Dick inquired.
+
+"No, he isn't," Caroline answered for him, "though he has full
+permission to if he wants."
+
+"The time may come when he will avail himself of that permission,"
+Betty said; "you ought to be careful how you tempt Fate, Caroline."
+
+"She ought to be," Billy groaned, "but the fact is that I am not one
+of the things she is superstitious about. Pipe the dame at the corner
+table with the lorgnette. Classy, isn't she?"
+
+"Friend of my aunt's," Dick said, acknowledging the lady's salute.
+
+"And the Belasco adventuress in the corner."
+
+"My stenographer," Dick explained, bowing again.
+
+"I've got a bunch of men coming," Billy said; "if they put the place
+on the bum you've got to help me bounce them, Dick."
+
+"Up-stairs in the service kitchen," Betty was explaining to Caroline,
+"they keep all the dishes that don't have to be heated for serving,
+also the silver and daily linen supply. When we seat ourselves at a
+table like this, the waitress to whom it is assigned goes in and gets
+a basket of bread--I think it's a pretty idea to serve the bread in
+baskets, don't you?--and whatever silver is necessary, and a bottle of
+water. When she places those things she asks us what our choice of a
+meat course is,--there is a choice except on chicken night--and gives
+that order in the kitchen when she goes to get our soup."
+
+"Who serves the things,--puts the meat on the plates, and dishes up
+the vegetables?"
+
+"The cook--Nancy won't let me call him the _chef_--because she is
+going to make a specialty of the southern element of his education. He
+has a serving-table by his range and he cuts up the meat and fowl, and
+dishes up the vegetables. In a bigger establishment he would have a
+helper to do that."
+
+"Why can't Michael help him?" Dick asked.
+
+"Michael calls him the Haythan Shinee. He is rather a _glossy_ man,
+you know, and he says when the time comes for him, Michael, to dress
+like a street cleaner and pilot a gravy boat, he'll let us know."
+
+"Respect for his superiors is not one of Michael's most salient
+characteristics," Dick twinkled. "Nancy and I have a scheme for making
+a match between him and Hitty."
+
+"Here's the soup," Betty announced. "Nancy's idea is to have
+everything perfectly simple, and--and--"
+
+"Simply perfect," Billy assisted her.
+
+"Isn't she going to eat with us?" Dick asked.
+
+"She can't. She's busy getting it going just at present. She may
+appear later."
+
+"Somebody's got to direct this pageant, old top," Billy reminded him.
+
+"The soup is perfect," Caroline said seriously. "It is simple--with
+that deceptive simplicity of a Paris morning frock."
+
+"French home cooking is all like that," Dick said. "I like puree of
+forget-me-nots!"
+
+"Molly or Dolly, I can't tell the difference between you," Billy said,
+"extend our compliments to Miss Martin, and tell her that this course
+is a triumph."
+
+"Wait till you see the roast, sir."
+
+"It's the very _best_ sirloin," Dick announced at the first mouthful,
+"and these assorted vegetables all cut down to the same size are as
+pretty as they are good, as one says of virtuous innocence."
+
+"This variety of asparagus is expensive," Caroline said; "she can't do
+things like this at seventy-five cents a head. She'll ruin herself."
+
+"I don't see how she can," Dick said thoughtfully, "with the price of
+foodstuffs soaring sky-high."
+
+"I never for a moment expected it to pay," Betty said, "but think of
+the run she will have for her money, and the experience we'll get out
+of it."
+
+"You're in it for the romance there is in it, Betty. I must confess it
+isn't altogether my idea of a good time," Caroline said.
+
+"I know, you would go in for military training for women, and that
+sort of thing. There's a woman over there asking for more olives, and
+she's eaten a plate full of them already."
+
+"They're as big as hen's eggs anyhow," Caroline groaned, "and almost
+as extravagant. I don't see how Nancy'll go through the first month at
+this rate. There she comes now. Doesn't she look nice in that color of
+green?"
+
+"How do you like my party?" Nancy asked, slipping into the empty chair
+between Dick and Billy; "isn't the food good and nourishing, and
+aren't there a lot of nice-looking people here?"
+
+"Very much, and it is, and there are," Dick answered with affectionate
+eyes on her.
+
+"The salad is alligator pear served in half sections, with French
+dressing," she said dreamily. "I'm too happy to eat, but I'll have
+some with you. Look at them all, don't they look relaxed and soothed
+and refreshed? Every individual has a perfectly balanced ration of the
+most superlatively good quality, slowly beginning to assimilate within
+him."
+
+"I don't see many respectable working girls," Billy said.
+
+"There are though,--from the different shops and offices on the
+avenue. There is a contingent from the Columbia summer school coming
+to-morrow evening. This group coming in now is newspaper people."
+
+"Who's the fellow sitting over in the corner with that Vie de Boheme
+hat? He looks familiar, but I can't seem to place him."
+
+"The man in black with the mustache?" Dick asked. "He's an artist,
+pretty well known. That impressionistic chap--I can't think of his
+name--that had that exhibition at the Palsifer galleries."
+
+"Does he sell?" Caroline asked.
+
+"No, they say he's awfully poor, refuses to paint down to the public
+taste. What the deuce is his name--oh! I know, Collier Pratt--do you
+know him, Nancy? Lived in Paris always till the war. He'll appreciate
+Ritz cooking at Riggs' prices if anybody will."
+
+Nancy looked fixedly at the small side-table where the stranger had
+just placed himself as if he were etched upon the whiteness of the
+wall behind him. He sat erect and brooding,--his dark, rather
+melancholy eyes staring straight ahead, and a slight frown wrinkling
+his really fine forehead. He wore an Inverness cape slung over one
+shoulder.
+
+"Looks like one of Rembrandt's portraits of himself," Caroline
+suggested.
+
+"He looks like a brigand," Betty said. "Nancy's struck dumb with the
+privilege of adding fuel to a flame of genius like that. Wake up and
+eat your peach Melba, Nancy."
+
+Nancy started, and took perfunctorily the spoon that Molly was holding
+out to her, which she forgot to lift to her lips even after it was
+freighted with its first delicious mouthful.
+
+"I dreamed about that man," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CINDERELLA
+
+
+Nancy shut the door of her apartment behind her, and slipped out into
+the dimly lit corridor. From her sitting-room came a burst of
+concerted laughter, the sound of Betty's sweet, high pitched voice
+raised in sudden protest, and then the echo of some sort of a physical
+struggle; and Caroline took the piano and began to improvise.
+
+"They won't miss me," Nancy said to herself, "I must have air." She
+drew a long breath with a hand against her breast, apparently to
+relieve the pressure there. "I can't stay shut up in a _room_," she
+kept repeating as if she were stating the most reasonable of premises,
+and turning, fled down the two flights of stairs that led to the
+outside door of the building.
+
+The breath of the night was refreshingly cool upon her hot cheeks, and
+she smiled into the darkness gratefully. Across the way a row of
+brownstone houses, implacably boarded up for the summer, presented
+dull and dimly defined surfaces that reflected nothing, not even the
+lights of the street, or the shadow of a passing straggler. Nancy
+turned her face toward the avenue. The nostalgia that was her
+inheritance from her father, and through him from a long line of
+ancestors that followed the sea whither it might lead them, was upon
+her this night, although she did not understand it as such. She only
+thought vaguely of a strip of white beach with a whiter moon hung high
+above it, and the long silver line of the tide,--drawing out.
+
+"I wish I had a hat on," she said. There was a night light in the
+chemist's shop at the corner, and the panel of mirror obligingly
+placed for the convenience of the passing crowd, at the left of the
+big window, showed her reflection quite plainly. She was suddenly
+inspired to take the soft taffeta girdle from the waist of her dark
+blue muslin gown, and bind it turban-wise about her head. The effect
+was pleasingly modish and conventional, and she quickened her
+steps--satisfied. There was a tingle in the air that set her blood
+pleasantly in motion, and she established a rhythm of pace that made
+her feel almost as if she were walking to music. Insensibly her mind
+took up its responsibilities again as the blood, stimulated from its
+temporary inactivity, began to course naturally through her veins.
+
+"There is plenty of beer and ginger ale in the ice-box," she
+thought, "and I've done this before, so they won't be unnaturally
+disturbed about me. Billy wanted to take Caroline home early, and
+Dick can go on up-town with Betty, without making her feel that she
+ought to leave him alone with me for a last tete-a-tete. It will hurt
+Dick's feelings, but he understands really. He has a most blessed
+understandingness, Dick has."
+
+She had the avenue almost entirely to herself, a silent gleaming
+thoroughfare with the gracious emptiness that a much lived in street
+sometimes acquires, of a Sunday at the end of an adventurous season.
+It was early July, the beginning of the actual summer season in New
+York. Nancy had never before been in town so late in the year, nor for
+that matter had Caroline or Betty, but Betty's interest in the affairs
+of the Inn was keeping her at Nancy's side, while Caroline had just
+accepted a secretarial position in one of the big Industrial Leagues
+recently organized by women for women, that would keep her in town all
+summer. Billy and Dick, by virtue of their respective occupations,
+were never away from New York for longer than the customary two weeks'
+vacation.
+
+"My soul smoothed itself out, a long cramped scroll,"--her conscience
+placated on the score of her deserted guests, Nancy was quoting
+Browning to herself, as she widened the distance between herself and
+them. "I wonder why I have this irresistible tendency to shake the
+people I love best in the world at intervals. I am such a really
+well-balanced and rational individual, I don't understand it in
+myself. I thought the Inn was going to take all the nonsense out of
+me, but it hasn't, it appears," she sighed; "but then, I think it is
+going to take the nonsense out of a lot of people that are only
+erratic because they have never been properly fed. I guess I'll go and
+have a look at the old place in its Sunday evening calm. Already it
+seems queer not to be there at nine o'clock in the evening, but I
+don't really think there are people enough in New York now on Sundays
+to make it an object."
+
+Nancy's feet turned mechanically toward the arena of her most serious
+activities. Like most of us who run away, she was following by
+instinct the logical periphery of her responsibilities.
+
+The big green latticed gate was closed against all intruders. Nancy
+had the key to its padlock in her hand-bag, but she had no intention
+of using it. The white and crimson sign flapped in the soft breeze
+companionably responsive to the modest announcement, "Marble Workshop,
+Reproductions and Antiques, Garden Furniture," which so inadequately
+invited those whom it might concern to a view of the petrified
+vaudeville within. Through the interstices of the gate the courtyard
+looked littered and unalluring;--the wicker tables without their fine
+white covers; the chairs pushed back in a heterogeneous assemblage;
+the segregated columns of a garden peristyle gaunt against the dark,
+gleamed a more ghostly white than the weather-stained busts and
+figures less recently added to the collection. It seemed to Nancy
+incredible that the place would ever bloom again with lights and
+bouquets and eager patrons, with her group of pretty flower-like
+waitresses moving deftly among them. She stared at the spot with the
+cold eye of the creator whose handiwork is out of the range of his
+vision, and the inspiration of it for the moment, gone.
+
+"I feel like Cinderella and her godmother rolled into one," she
+thought disconsolately. "I waved my wand, and made so many things
+happen, and now that the clock has struck, again here I am outside in
+the cold and dark,"--the wind was taking on a keener edge, and she
+shivered slightly in her muslins--"with nothing but a pumpkin shell to
+show for it. Hitty says that getting what you want is apt to be
+unlikely business, and I'm inclined to think she's right."
+
+It seemed to her suddenly that the thing she had wanted,--a
+picturesque, cleverly executed restaurant where people could be fed
+according to the academic ideals of an untried young woman like
+herself was an unthinkable thing. The power of illusion failed for the
+moment. Just what was it that she had hoped to accomplish with this
+fling at executive altruism? What was she doing with a French cook in
+white uniform, a competent staff of professional dishwashers and
+waitresses and kitchen helpers? How had it come about that she owned
+so many mounds and heaps and pyramids of silver and metal and linen?
+What was this Inn that she had conceived as a project so unimaginably
+fine? Who were these shadow people that came and went there? Who was
+she? Why with all her vitality and all her hungry yearning for life
+and adventure couldn't she even believe in her own substantiality and
+focus? Wasn't life even real enough for a creature such as she to
+grasp it,--if it wasn't--
+
+She saw a figure that was familiar to her turn in from the avenue, a
+tall man in an Inverness with a wide black hat pulled down over his
+eyes. For the moment she could not remember who he was, but by the
+time he had stopped in front of the big gate, giving utterance to a
+well delivered expletive, she knew him perfectly, and stood waiting,
+motionless, for him to turn and speak to her. She was sure that he
+would have no recollection of her. He turned, but it was some seconds
+before he addressed her.
+
+"Doubt thou the stars are fire," he said at last, with a shrug that
+admitted her to the companionship of his discomfiture. "Doubt thou the
+sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt that your
+favorite New York restaurant will be closed on a Sunday night."
+
+"Oh! _is_ it your favorite New York restaurant?" Nancy cried, her
+heart in her throat. "It's mine, you know, my--my favorite."
+
+"So I judged, or you wouldn't be beating against the gate so
+disconsolately." It was too dark to see his face clearly, but Nancy
+realized that he was looking down at her quizzically through the
+darkness.
+
+"Do you really like this restaurant?" she persisted.
+
+"In some ways I like it very much. The food is quite possible as you
+know, very American in character, but very good American, and it has
+the advantage of being served out-of-doors. I am a Frenchman by
+adoption, and I like the outdoor cafe. In fact, I am never happy
+eating inside."
+
+"The surroundings are picturesque?" Nancy hazarded.
+
+The stranger laughed. "According to the American ideal," he said,
+"they are--but I do admit that they show a rather extraordinary
+imagination. I've often thought that I should like to make the
+acquaintance of the woman,--of course, it's a woman--who conceived the
+notion of this mortuary tea-room."
+
+"Why, of course, is it a woman?"
+
+"A man wouldn't set up housekeeping in--in _Pere Lachaise_."
+
+"Why not, if he found a really domestic-looking corner?"
+
+"He _wouldn't_ in the first place, it wouldn't occur to him, that's
+all, and if he did he couldn't get away with it. The only real
+drawback to this hostelry is, as you know, that they don't serve
+spirits of any kind. I'm accustomed to a glass or two of wine with my
+dinner, and my food sticks in my throat when I can't have it, but I've
+found a way around that, now."
+
+"Oh! have you?" said Nancy.
+
+"Don't give me away, but there's a man about the place here whose name
+is Michael, and he possesses that blend of Gallic facility with Celtic
+canniness that makes the Irish so wonderful as a race. I told my
+trouble to Michael,--with the result that I get a teapot full of
+Chianti with my dinner every night, and no questions asked."
+
+"Oh! you do?" gasped Nancy.
+
+"You see Michael is serving the best interests of his employer, who
+wants to keep her patrons, because if I couldn't have it I wouldn't be
+there. He couldn't trouble the lady about it, naturally, because it is
+technically an offense against the law. Come, let's go and find a
+quiet corner where we can continue our conversation comfortably.
+There's a painfully respectable little hotel around the corner here
+that looks like the Cafe L'avenue when you first go in, but is a place
+where the most bourgeoise of one's aunts might put up."
+
+"I--I don't know that I can go," said Nancy.
+
+"There's no reason why you shouldn't, you know. My name is Collier
+Pratt. I'm an artist. The more bourgeoise of my aunts would introduce
+me if she were here. She's a New Englander like so many of your own
+charming relatives."
+
+"How did you know that?" Nancy asked, as she followed him with a
+docility quite new to her, past the big green gate, and the row of
+nondescript shops between it and the corner of Broadway.
+
+"I was _born_ in Boston," Collier Pratt said a trifle absently. "I
+know a Massachusetts product when I see one. Ah! here we are."
+
+He led her triumphantly to a table in the far corner of the
+practically empty restaurant, waved away the civilities of a swarthy
+and somewhat badly coordinated waiter, and pulled out her chair for
+her himself.
+
+"Now, let me have a look at you," he said; "why, you've nothing on but
+muslin, and you're wearing your belt for a turban."
+
+"A sop to the conventions," Nancy said, blushing burningly. She was
+not quite able yet to get her bearings with this extraordinary man,
+who had assumed charge of her so cavalierly, but she was eager to find
+her poise in the situation. "I ran away, and I thought it would look
+better to have something like a hat on."
+
+"Looks," said Collier Pratt, "looks! That's New England, always the
+looks of a thing, never the feel of it. Mind you I don't mean the
+_look_ of a thing, that's something different again."
+
+"Yes, I know, the conventional slant as opposed to the artistic
+perspective."
+
+"Good! It isn't necessary to have my remarks followed intelligently,
+but it always adds piquancy to the situation when they are. Speaking
+of artistic perspective, you have a very nice coloring. I like a ruddy
+chestnut hair with a skin as delicately white and pink as yours." He
+spoke impersonally with the narrowing eye of the artist. "I can see
+you either in white,--not quite a cream white, but almost,--against a
+pearly kind of Quakerish background, or flaming out in the most crude,
+barbaric assemblage of colors. That's the advantage of your type and
+the environment you connote--you can be the whole show, or the veriest
+little mouse that ever sought the protective coloring of the
+shadows."
+
+"You aren't exactly taking the quickest way of putting me at my ease,"
+Nancy said. "I'm very much embarrassed, you know. I'd stand being
+looked over for a few minutes longer if I could,--but I can't. I'm not
+having one of my most equable evenings."
+
+"I beg your pardon," Collier Pratt said.
+
+For the first time since she had seen his face with the light upon it,
+he smiled, and the smile relieved the rather empiric quality of his
+habitual expression. Nancy noticed the straight line of the heavy
+brows scarcely interrupted by the indication of the beginning of the
+nose, and wondering to herself if it were not possible for a person
+with that eyebrow formation to escape the venality of disposition that
+is popularly supposed to be its adjunct,--decided affirmatively.
+
+"I'm not used to talking to American girls very much. I forget how
+daintily they're accustomed to being handled. I'm extremely anxious to
+put you at your ease," he added quietly. "I appreciate the privilege
+of your company on what promised to be the dullest of dull evenings. I
+should appreciate still more," he bowed, as he handed her a bill of
+fare of the journalistic proportions of the usual hotel menu, "if you
+would make a choice of refreshment, that we may dispense with the
+somewhat pathological presence of our young friend here," he indicated
+the waiter afflicted with the jerking and titubation of a badly strung
+puppet. "I advise Rhine wine and seltzer. I offer you anything from
+green chartreuse to Scotch and soda. Personally I'm going to drink
+Perrier water."
+
+"I'd rather have an ice-cream," Nancy said, "than anything else in the
+world,--coffee ice-cream, and a glass of water."
+
+"I wonder if you would, or if you only think it's--safer. At any rate
+I'm going to put my coat over your shoulders while you eat it. I never
+leave my rooms at this hour of the night without this cape. If I can
+find a place to sit out in I always do, and I'm naturally rather
+cold-blooded."
+
+"I'm not," said Nancy, but she meekly allowed him to drape her in the
+folds of the light cape, and found it grateful to her.
+
+"Bring the lady a big cup of coffee, and mind you have it hot,"
+Collier Pratt ordered peremptorily, as her ice-cream was served by the
+shaking waiter. "Coffee may be the worst thing in the world for you,
+nervously. I don't know,--it isn't for me, I rather thrive on it, but
+at any rate I'm going to save you from the combination of organdie and
+ice-cream on a night like this. What is your name?" he inquired
+abruptly.
+
+"Ann Martin."
+
+"Not at my service?"
+
+"I don't know, yet."
+
+"Well, I don't know,--but I hope and trust so. I like you. You've got
+something they don't have--these American girls,--softness and
+strength, too. I imagine you've never been out of America."
+
+"I--I have."
+
+"With two other girls and a chaperon, doing Europe, and staying at all
+the hotels doped up for tourist consumption."
+
+Nancy was constrained to answer with a smile.
+
+"You don't like America very much," she said presently.
+
+"I like it for itself, but I loathe it--for myself. My way of living
+here is all wrong. I can't get to bed in this confounded city. I can't
+get enough to eat."
+
+"Oh! can't you?" Nancy cried.
+
+"In Paris, or any town where there is a cafe life one naturally gets
+fed. The technique of living is taken care of much better over there.
+Your _concierge_ serves you a nourishing breakfast as a matter of
+course. When you've done your morning's work you go to your favorite
+cafe--not with the one object in life--to cram a _Chateaubriand_ down
+your dry and resisting throat because he who labors must live,--but to
+see your friends, to read your daily journals, to write your letters,
+and do it incidentally in the open air while some diplomat of a waiter
+serves you with food that assuages the palate, without insulting your
+mood. That's what I like about the little restaurant in the court
+there. It's out-of-doors, and you may stay there without feeling your
+table is in requisition for the next man. It's a very polite little
+place."
+
+"You didn't expect to get in there to-night."
+
+"I had hopes of it. I've not dined, you see."
+
+"Not dined?" Nancy's eyes widened in dismay.
+
+"There's no use for me to dine unless I can eat my food tranquilly, in
+some accustomed corner. Getting nourished with me is a spiritual, as
+well as a physical matter. It is with all sensitive people. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"I suppose so. I--I hadn't thought of it that way. Couldn't you eat
+something now--an oyster stew, or something like that?"
+
+"Nothing in any way remotely connected with that. An oyster stew is to
+me the most barbarous of concoctions. I loathe hot milk,--an oyster is
+an adjunct to a fish sauce, or a preface to a good dinner."
+
+"You ought to have something," Nancy urged, "even ice-cream is more
+nourishing than mineral water, or coffee with cream in it."
+
+"I like coffee after dinner, not before."
+
+"If you only eat when it's convenient, or the mood takes you," Nancy
+cried out in real distress, "how can you ever be sure that you have
+calories enough? The requirement of an average man at active labor is
+estimated at over three thousand calories. You must have something
+like a balanced ration in order to do your work."
+
+"Must I?" Collier Pratt smiled his rare smile. "Well, at any rate, it
+is good to hear you say so."
+
+She finished her ice-cream, and Collier Pratt drank his mineral water
+slowly, and smoked innumerable cigarettes of Virginia tobacco. The
+conversation which had proceeded so expeditiously to this point seemed
+for no apparent reason, suddenly to become gratuitous. Nancy had never
+before begun on the subject of the balanced ration without being
+respectfully allowed to go through to the end. She had not been
+allowed to feel snubbed, but she was a little bewildered that any
+conversation in which she was participating, could be so gracefully
+stopped before it was ended by her expressed desire.
+
+Collier Pratt took his watch out of his pocket, and looked at it
+hastily.
+
+"By jove," he said, "I had entirely forgotten. I have a child in my
+charge. I must be about looking after her."
+
+"A child?" Nancy cried, astonished.
+
+"Yes, a little girl. She's probably sitting up for me, poor baby. Can
+you get home alone, if I put you on a bus or a street-car?"
+
+"If you'll call a taxi for me--" Nancy said.
+
+She noticed that the check was paid with change instead of a bill. In
+fact, her host seemed not to have a bill of any denomination in his
+pocket, but to be undisturbed by the fact. He parted from her
+casually.
+
+"Good-by, child," he said with his head in the door after he had given
+the chauffeur her street number; "with the permission of _le bon
+Dieu_, we shall see each other again. I feel that He is going to give
+it to us."
+
+"Good-by," Nancy said to his retreating shoulder.
+
+At her own front door was Dick's big Rolls-Royce, and Dick sitting
+inside of it, with his feet comfortably up, feigning sleep.
+
+"You didn't think I'd go home until I saw you safe inside your own
+door, did you?" he demanded.
+
+"Where's Betty?" Nancy asked mechanically.
+
+"I sent Williams home with her. Then he came back here, and left the
+car with me."
+
+"You needn't have waited," Nancy said, "I'm sorry, Dick, I--I had to
+have air. I had to get out. I couldn't stay inside a minute longer."
+
+"You need never explain anything to me."
+
+"Don't you want to know where I've been?"
+
+Dick looked at her carefully before he made his answer. Then he said
+firmly.
+
+"No, dear."
+
+"I might have told you," she said, "if you had wanted to know." She
+felt her knees sagging with fatigue, and drooped against the
+door-frame.
+
+"Come and sit in the car, and talk to me for a minute," he suggested.
+"Do you good, before you climb the stairs."
+
+He opened the car door for her ingratiatingly, but she shook her
+head.
+
+"I've done unconventional things enough for one evening," she said.
+"Unlock the door for me. Hitty'll be waiting up to take care of me."
+
+"What's that queer thing you're wearing?" he asked her, as he held the
+door for her to pass through, "I never remember seeing you wear that
+before."
+
+Nancy looked down wonderingly at the folds of the Inverness still
+swinging from her shoulders. She had been subconsciously aware of the
+grateful warmth in which she was encased ever since she snuggled
+comfortably into the depths of the taxi-cab into which Collier Pratt
+had tucked her.
+
+"No, I never _have_ worn it before," she said, answering Dick's
+question.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SCIENCE
+
+
+The activities of the day at Outside Inn began with luncheon and the
+preparation for it. Nancy longed to serve breakfast there, but as yet
+it had not seemed practicable to do so. Most of the patrons of the
+restaurant conducted the business of the day down-town, but had their
+actual living quarters in New York's remoter fastnesses,--Brooklyn,
+the Bronx or Harlem. Nancy was satisfied that the bulk of her
+patronage should be the commuting and cliff dwelling contingent of
+Manhattanites,--indeed it was the sort of patronage that from the
+beginning she had intended to cater to.
+
+Nancy did most of the marketing herself at first, but Gaspard--the big
+cook--gradually coaxed this privilege away from her.
+
+"You see," he said, "we sit--us together, and talk of eating"--he
+prided himself on his use of English, and never used his native tongue
+to help him out, except in moments of great excitement. "It is
+immediately after breakfast. Yes! I am full of milk-coffee sopped with
+bread, and you of bacon with eggs and marmalade. We say, what shall we
+give to our custom for its dinner and its luncheon? We think sadly--we
+who have but now brushed away the crumbs of breakfast--of those who
+must sit down so soon to the table groaning with viands. Therefore we
+say, 'Market delicately. Have the soup clear, the entree light and the
+salad green with plenty of vinegar.' Even your calories--they do not
+help us much. They are in quantities so unexpected in the food that
+weighs nothing in the scales. We say you shall go to market and buy
+these things, and you go. I stir and walk about, and grow restless for
+my _dejeuner_, and when you return from market, hungry too, we are not
+the same people who had thought our soup should be clear, and our
+entree more beautiful than nutritious. If I go to market myself _late_
+I am inspired there to buy what is right, because by that hour I have
+a proper relish and understanding of what all the world should eat."
+
+"I know he is right," Nancy said to Billy afterward in reporting the
+conversation, "I hate to admit it, but even my notion of what other
+people should eat is colored by my own relation to food. I never
+realized before how little use an intellect is in this matter of food
+values. I can actually get up a meal that according to the tables is
+scientifically correct that wouldn't feed anybody if they were
+hungry."
+
+"One banana is equal to a pound and three-quarters of steak," Billy
+misquoted helpfully.
+
+"The trouble is that it _isn't_," Nancy said, "except technically."
+
+"You can't eat it and grow thin."
+
+"You can't eat it and grow _fat_ unless it happens to be the peculiar
+food to which you are idiosyncratic."
+
+"If that's really a word," Billy said, "I'll overlook your trying it
+out on me. If it isn't you'll have to take the consequences." He went
+through the pantomime of one preparing to do physical violence.
+
+"Oh! it's a word. Ask Caroline." Nancy's eyes still held their look of
+being focussed on something in the remote distance. "The trouble with
+all this dietetic problem is that the individual is dependent on
+something more than an adjustment of values. His environment and his
+heredity play an active part in his diet problem. Some people can eat
+highly concentrated food, others have to have bulk, and so on. You
+can't substitute cheese and bananas for steak and do the race a
+service no matter what the cost of steak may soar to. You can't even
+substitute rice for potatoes."
+
+"Not unless your patronage is more Oriental than Celtic."
+
+"Healthy people have to have honest fare of about the type to
+which their environment has accustomed them, but intelligently
+supervised,--that's the conclusion I've come to."
+
+"You may be right," Billy said, "my general notion has always been
+that everybody ate wrong, and that everybody who would stand for it
+ought to be started all over again. I wouldn't stand for it, so I've
+never looked into the matter."
+
+"People don't eat wrong, that's the really startling discovery I've
+made recently. I mean healthy people don't."
+
+"I don't believe it," said Billy; "the way people eat is one of the
+most outrageous of the human scandals. I read the newspapers."
+
+"The newspapers don't know," Nancy said; "the individual usually has
+an instinctive working knowledge of the diet that is good for him, and
+his digestional experiences have taught him how to regulate it to some
+extent."
+
+"How do you account for the clerk that orders coffee and sinkers at
+Child's every day?"
+
+"That's exactly it," Nancy said. "He knows that he needs bulk and
+stimulation. He's handicapped by his poverty, but he gets the nearest
+substitute for the diet that suits him that he can get. If he could
+afford it he would have a square meal that would nourish him as well
+as warm and fill him."
+
+"I don't see but what this interesting theory lets you out altogether.
+Why Outside Inn, with its foxy table d'hote, if what's one man's meat
+is another man's poison, and natural selection is the order of the
+day?"
+
+"Outside Inn is all the more necessary to the welfare of a nation
+that's being starved out by the high cost of living. All I need to do
+is to have a little more variety, to have all the nutritive
+requirements in each meal, and such generous servings that every
+patron can make out a meal satisfying to himself."
+
+"Everybody knows that all fat people eat all the sweets that they can
+get, and all thin people take tea without sugar with lemon in it."
+
+"These people aren't healthy. That's where the intelligent supervision
+comes in."
+
+"What do you intend to do about them?"
+
+"Watch over them a little more carefully. Regulate their servings
+craftily. Be sure of my tables. I have lots of schemes. I'll tell you
+about them sometime."
+
+"_Sometime_,--for this relief much thanks," murmured Billy; "just now
+I've had as much of these matters as I can stand. I don't see how you
+are going to run this thing on a profit, though."
+
+"I'm not," Nancy said, "I'm losing money every minute. That fifteen
+thousand dollars is almost gone now, of course. Billy, do you think it
+would be perfectly awful if I didn't try to make money at all?"
+
+"I think it would be a good deal wiser. I'll raise all the money you
+want on your expectations."
+
+"All right then. I'm not going to worry."
+
+Billy looked down into the courtyard from the room up-stairs in which
+they had been talking. Already the preparations for lunch were under
+way. The girls were moving deftly about, laying cloths and arranging
+flower vases and silver.
+
+"Can I get right down there and sit down at one of those tables and
+have my lunch," Billy inquired, "or do I have to go out of the back
+door and come in the front like a regular customer?"
+
+"Whichever you prefer. There's Caroline coming in at the gate now."
+
+"Well, then, I know which I prefer," Billy said, swimming realistically
+toward the stairs.
+
+"You are getting fat, Billy," Caroline informed him critically after
+the amenities were over, and the meal appropriately begun. "You ought
+to watch your diet a little more carefully."
+
+"No," Billy said firmly, "I don't need to watch my diet, I'm perfectly
+healthy, and therefore my natural cravings will point the way to my
+most judicious nourishment. Nancy has explained all to me."
+
+"That's a very interesting theory of Nancy's," Caroline said, "but I
+don't altogether agree with it."
+
+"I do," said Billy, then he added hastily, "but I agree with you, too,
+Caroline. You are to all other women what moonlight is to sunlight, or
+I mean--what sunlight is to moonlight. In other words--you are the
+goods."
+
+"Don't be silly, Billy."
+
+"There's only one thing in all this wide universe that you can't say
+to me, Caroline, and 'don't be silly, Billy,' is that thing,--express
+this same thing in _vers libre_ if you must say it! Look at the
+handsome soup you're getting. What is the name of that soup, Molly?"
+
+He smiled ingratiatingly at the little waitress, who always beamed at
+any one of Nancy's particular friends that came into the restaurant,
+and made a point of serving them if she could possibly arrange it.
+
+"Cream of spinach," she said, "it's a special to-day."
+
+"Beautiful soup so rich and green," Billy began in a soulful baritone,
+"waiting in a hot tureen. Where's mine, Molly?"
+
+"Dolly's bringing your first course, sir."
+
+Billy gazed in perplexity at the half of a delicious grapefruit set
+before him by the duplicate of the pretty girl who stood smiling
+deprecatingly behind Caroline's chair.
+
+"Where's my soup, Dolly?" Billy asked with a thundering sternness of
+manner.
+
+"I'm sorry, sir," Dolly began glibly, "but the soup has given out.
+Will you be good enough to allow the substitution of--"
+
+"That's a formula," Billy said. "The soup can't be out. We're the
+first people in the dining-room. Go tell Miss Nancy that I will be
+served with some of that green soup at once, or know the reason why."
+
+The two waitresses exchanged glances, and went off together
+suppressing giggles, to return almost immediately, their risibility
+still causing them great physical inconvenience.
+
+"Intelligent supervision, she says." Dolly exploded into the miniature
+patch of muslin and ribbon that served her as an apron.
+
+"She says that's the reason why," Molly contributed,--following her
+sister's example.
+
+"Nancy doesn't serve soup to a fat man if she can possibly avoid it.
+That's part of her theory," Caroline explained. "There's no use making
+a fuss about it, because you won't get it."
+
+Billy sat looking at his grapefruit for some seconds in silence. Then
+he began on it slowly.
+
+"Well, I'll be damned," he said.
+
+Nancy was learning a great many things very rapidly. The practical
+application of her theories of feeding mankind to her actual
+experiments with the shifting population of New York, revolutionized
+her attitude toward the problem almost daily. She had started in with
+a great many ideas and ideals of service, with preconceived notions of
+balanced rations, and exact distribution of fuel stuffs to the human
+unit. She had come to realize very shortly, that the human unit was a
+quantity as incalculable in its relation to its digestive problems as
+its psychological ones. She had believed vaguely that in reference to
+food values the race made its great exception to its rule of working
+out toward normality; but she changed that opinion very quickly as she
+watched her fellow men selecting their diet with as sure an instinct
+for their nutritive requirements as if she had coached them personally
+for years.
+
+From the assumption that she lived in a world gone dietetically mad,
+and hence in the process of destroying itself, she had gradually come
+to see that in this phase of his struggle for existence, as well as in
+every other, the instinct of man operated automatically in the
+direction of his salvation. This new attitude in tie matter relieved
+her of much of her responsibility, but left her not less anxious to do
+what she could for her kind in the matter of calories. She was, as she
+had shown in her treatment of Billy, not entirely blinded by her
+growing predilection in favor of the doctrine of natural selection.
+
+Every day she had Gaspard make, in addition to his regular table
+d'hote menu, dozens of nutritive custards, quarts of stimulating
+broths and jellies and other dishes containing the maximum of
+easily digested and highly concentrated nutriment, and these she
+managed to have Molly or Dolly or even Hildeguard--the Alma Tadema
+girl--introduce into the luncheon or dinner service in the case of
+those patrons who seemed to need peculiarly careful nourishing. Let a
+white-faced girl sink into a seat within the range of Nancy's
+vision,--she always ensconced herself in the doorway screened with
+vines at the beginning of a meal,--and she gave orders at once for
+the crafty substitution of invalid broth for soup, of rich nut
+bread for the ordinary rolls and crackers, of custards or specially
+made ice-cream for the dessert of the day. No overfed, pasty-faced
+man ever escaped from Outside Inn until an attempt at least had been
+made to introduce a portion of stewed prunes into his diet; and
+all such were fed the minimum of bread and other starchy foods, and
+the maximum of salad and green vegetables. Nancy had gluten bread made
+in quantities for the stouter element of her patronage, and in
+nine cases out of ten she was able to get it served and eaten
+without protest. Some of her regular patrons began to change weight
+gradually, a heavy man or two became less heavy, and a wraithlike
+girl now and then took on a new bloom and substantiality. These were
+the triumphs for which Nancy lived. Her only regret was that she
+was not able to give to each her personal time and attention, and
+establish herself on a footing with her patrons where she might learn
+from their own lips the secrets of their metabolism.
+
+She was not known as the proprietor of the place. In fact, the
+management of the restaurant was kept a careful secret from those who
+frequented it and with the habitual indifference of New Yorkers to the
+power behind the throne, so long as its affairs were manipulated in
+good and regular order, they soon ceased to feel any apparent
+curiosity about it. Betty, who sometimes rebelled at remaining so
+scrupulously incognita, defiantly took the limelight at intervals and
+moved among the assembled guests with an authoritative and possessive
+air, adjusting and rearranging small details, and acknowledging the
+presence of _habitues_, but since her attentions were popularly
+supposed to be those of a superior head waitress, she soon tired of
+the gesture of offering them.
+
+Nancy's intention had been to allow the restaurant to speak for
+itself, and then at the climactic moment to allow her connection with
+it to be discovered, and to speak for it with all the force and
+earnestness of which she was capable. She had meant to stand sponsor
+for the practical working theory on which her experiment was based,
+and she had already partially formulated interviews with herself in
+which she modestly acknowledged the success of that experiment, but
+the untoward direction in which it was developing made such a
+revelation inexpedient.
+
+There was one regular patron to whom she was peculiarly anxious to
+remain incognita. Collier Pratt made it his almost invariable habit to
+come sauntering toward the table in the corner, under the life-sized
+effigy of the _Venus de Medici_, at seven o'clock in the evening, and
+that table was scrupulously reserved for him. To it were sent the
+choicest of all the viands that Outside Inn could command. Michael was
+tacitly sped on his way with his teapot full of claret. Gaspard did
+amazing things with the breasts of ducks and segments of orange, with
+squab chicken stuffed with new corn, with _filets de sole a la
+Marguery_. Nancy craftily spurred him on to his most ambitious
+achievements under pretense of wishing her own appetite stimulated,
+and the big cook, who adored her, produced triumph after triumph of
+his art for her delectation, whereupon the biggest part of it was
+cunningly smuggled out to the artist. From behind her screen of vines
+Nancy watched the fine features of her quondam friend light with the
+rapture of the _gourmet_ as be sampled Gaspard's sauce _verte_ or
+Hollandaise or lifted the glass cover from the mushrooms _sous cloche_
+and inhaled their delicate aroma.
+
+"I wonder if he finds our food very American in character, now," she
+said to herself, with a blush at the memory of the real southern
+cornbread and candied sweet potatoes that were offered him in the
+initial weeks of his patronage. Gaspard still made these delicacies
+for luncheon, but they had been almost entirely banished from the
+dinner menu. Afternoon tea at the Inn was famous for the wonderful
+waffles produced with Parisian precision from a traditional Virginian
+recipe, but Collier Pratt never appeared at either of these meals to
+criticize them for being American.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AN ELEEMOSYNARY INSTITUTION
+
+
+One night during the latter part of July Betty had a birthday, and
+according to immemorial custom Caroline and Nancy and Dick and Billy
+helped her to celebrate it at one of the old-fashioned down-town
+hotels where they had ordered practically the same dinner for her
+anniversaries ever since they had been grown up enough to celebrate
+them unchaperoned. Caroline's brother, Preston, had made a sixth
+member of the party for the first two or three years, but he had been
+located in London since then, in charge of the English office of his
+firm, to which he had been suddenly appointed a month after he and
+Betty, who had been sweethearts, had had a spectacular quarrel.
+
+Nancy stayed by the celebration until about half past nine, and
+then Dick put her into a taxi-cab, and she fled back to her
+responsibilities as mistress of Outside Inn, agreeing to meet the
+others later for the rounding out of the evening. As she drew up
+before the big gate the courtyard seemed practically deserted. The
+waitresses were busy clearing away the few cluttered tables left
+by the last late guests, and in one sheltered corner a man and a girl
+were frankly holding hands across the table, while they whispered
+earnestly of some impending parting. The big canopy of striped awning
+cloth had been drawn over the tables, as the rather heavy air of
+the evening bad been punctured occasionally by a swift scattering
+of rain. Nancy was half-way across the court before she realized
+that Collier Pratt was still occupying his accustomed seat under the
+shadow of the big Venus. She had not seen him face to face or
+communicated with him since the day she had looked him up in the
+telephone book and sent his cape to him by special messenger. She
+stopped involuntarily as she reached his side, and he looked up and
+smiled as he recognized her.
+
+"You're late again, Miss Ann Martin," he said, rising and pulling out
+a chair for her opposite his own. "I think perhaps I can pull the
+wires and procure you some sustenance if you will say the word."
+
+"I've no word to say," Nancy said, "but how do you do? I've just
+dined elsewhere. I only stopped in here for a moment to get
+something--something I left here at lunch."
+
+"In that case I'll offer you a drop of Michael's tea in my water
+glass." He poured a tablespoonful or so of claret from the teapot into
+the glass of ice-water before him, and added several lumps of sugar to
+the concoction, which he stirred gravely for some time before he
+offered it to her. "I never touch water myself. This is _eau rougie_
+as the French children drink it. It's really better for you than
+ice-cream and a glass of water."
+
+"And less American," Nancy murmured with her eyes down.
+
+"And less American," he acquiesced blandly.
+
+Nancy sipped her drink, and Collier Pratt stirred the dregs in his
+coffee cup--Nancy had overheard some of her patrons remarking on the
+curious habits of a man who consumed a pot of tea and a pot of coffee
+at one and the same meal--and they regarded each other for some time
+in silence. Michael and Hildeguard, Molly and Dolly and two others of
+the staff of girls were grouped in the doorway exactly in Nancy's
+range of vision, and whispering to one another excitedly concerning
+the phenomenon that met their eyes.
+
+"The little girl?" Nancy said, trying to ignore the composite scrutiny
+to which she was being subjected, by turning determinedly to her
+companion, "the little girl that you spoke of--is she well?"
+
+"She's as well as a motherless baby could be, subjected to the
+irregularities of a life like mine. Still she seems to thrive on it."
+
+"Is she yours?" Nancy asked.
+
+"Yes, she's mine," Collier Pratt said, gravely dismissing the subject,
+and leaving Nancy half ashamed of her boldness in putting the
+question, half possessed of a madness to know the answer at any cost.
+
+"I've discovered something very interesting," Collier Pratt said,
+after an interval in which Nancy felt that he was perfectly cognizant
+of her struggle with her curiosity; "in fact, it's one of the most
+interesting discoveries that I have made in the course of a not
+unadventurous life. Do you come to this restaurant often?"
+
+"Quite often," Nancy equivocated, "earlier in the day. For luncheon
+and for tea."
+
+"I come here almost every night of my life," Collier Pratt declared,
+"and I intend to continue to come so long as _le bon Dieu_ spares me
+my health and my epicurean taste. You know that I spoke of the food
+here before. The character of it has changed entirely. It's
+unmistakably French now, not to say Parisian. Outside of Paris or
+Vienna I have never tasted such soups, such sauce, such delicate and
+suggestive flavors. My entire existence has been revolutionized by the
+experience. I am no longer the lonely and unhappy man you discovered
+at this gate a short month ago. I can not cavil at an America that
+furnishes me with such food as I get in this place.
+
+    "Man may live without friends, and may live without books.
+    But civilized man can not live without cooks,"
+
+Nancy quoted sententiously.
+
+"Exactly. The whole point is that the cooking here is civilized. Oh!
+you ought to come here to dinner, my friend. I don't know what the
+luncheons and teas are like--"
+
+"They're very good," Nancy said.
+
+"But not like the dinners, I'll wager. The dinners are the very last
+word! I don't know why this place isn't famous. Of course, I do my
+best to keep it a secret from the artistic rabble I know. It would be
+overrun with them in a week, and its character utterly ruined."
+
+"I wonder if it would."
+
+"Oh! I'm sure of it."
+
+"What is your discovery?" Nancy asked.
+
+Collier Pratt leaned dramatically closer to her, and Nancy instinctively
+bent forward across the tiny table until her face was very near to his.
+
+"Do you know anything about the price of foodstuffs?" he demanded.
+
+"A little," Nancy admitted.
+
+"You know then that the price of every commodity has soared
+unthinkably high, that the mere problem of providing the ordinary
+commonplace meal at the ordinary commonplace restaurant has become
+almost unsolvable to the proprietors? Most of the eating places in New
+York are run at a loss, while the management is marking time and
+praying for a change in conditions. Well, here we have a restaurant
+opening at the most crucial period in the history of such enterprises,
+offering its patrons the delicacies of the season most exquisitely
+cooked, at what is practically the minimum price for a respectable
+meal."
+
+"That's true, isn't it?"
+
+"More than that, there are people who come here, who order one thing
+and get another, and the thing they get is always a much more
+elaborate and extravagant dish than the one they asked for. I've seen
+that happen again and again."
+
+"Have you?" Nancy asked faintly, shrinking a little beneath the
+intentness of his look. "How--how do you account for it?"
+
+"There's only one way to account for it."
+
+"Do you think that there is an--an unlimited amount of capital behind
+it?"
+
+"I think that goes without saying," he said; "there must be an
+unlimited amount of capital behind it, or it wouldn't continue to
+flourish like a green bay tree; but that's not in the nature of a
+discovery. Anybody with any power of observation at all would have
+come to that conclusion long since."
+
+"Then, what is it you have found out?" Nancy asked, quaking.
+
+"My discovery is--" Collier Pratt paused for the whole effect of his
+revelation to penetrate to her consciousness, "that this whole outfit
+is run _philanthropically_."
+
+"Philanthropically?"
+
+"Don't you see? There can't be any other explanation of it. It's an
+eleemosynary institution. That's what it is."
+
+Nancy met his expectant eyes with a trifle of wildness in her own, but
+he continued to hold her gaze triumphantly.
+
+"Don't you see," he repeated, "doesn't everything point to that as the
+only possible explanation? It's some rich woman's plaything. That
+accounts for the food, the setting,--everything in fact that has
+puzzled us. Amateur,--that's the word; effective, delightful but
+inexperienced. It sticks out all over the place."
+
+"The food isn't amateur," Nancy said, a little resentfully.
+
+"Nothing is amateur but the spirit behind it, through which we profit.
+Don't you see?"
+
+"I'm beginning to see," Nancy admitted, "perhaps you are right. I
+guess the place is run philanthropically. I--I hadn't quite realized
+it before."
+
+"What did you think?"
+
+"I knew that the--one who was running it wasn't quite sure where she
+was coming out, but I didn't think of it is an eleemosynary
+institution."
+
+"Of course, it is."
+
+"It's an unscrupulous sort of charity, then," Nancy mused, "if it's
+masquerading as self-respecting and self-supporting. I--I've never
+approved of things like that."
+
+"Why quarrel with a scheme so beneficent?"
+
+"Don't you care?" Nancy asked with a catch in her voice that was very
+like an appeal.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Why should I?" he smiled.
+
+"Then I don't care, either," she decided with an emphasis that was
+entirely lost on the man on the other side of the table.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CAVE-MAN STUFF
+
+
+"Cave-man stuff," Billy said to Dick, pointing a thumb over his
+shoulder toward the interior of the Broadway moving-picture palace at
+the exit of which they had just met accidentally. "It always goes big,
+doesn't it?"
+
+"It does," Dick agreed thoughtfully, "in the movies anyhow."
+
+"Caroline says that the modern woman has her response to that kind of
+thing refined all out of her." Billy intended his tone to be entirely
+jocular, but there was a note of anxiety in it that was not lost on
+his friend.
+
+Dick paused under the shelter of a lurid poster--displaying a fierce
+gentleman in crude blue, showing all his teeth, and in the act of
+strangling an early Victorian ingenue with a dimple,--and lit a
+cigarette with his first match.
+
+"Caroline may have," he said, puffing to keep his light against the
+breeze, "but I doubt it."
+
+"Rough stuff doesn't seem to appeal to her," Billy said, quite
+humorously this time.
+
+"She's healthy," Dick mused, "rides horseback, plays tennis and all
+that. Wouldn't she have liked the guy that swung himself on the roof
+between the two poles?" He indicated again the direction of the
+theater from which they had just emerged.
+
+"She would have liked him," Billy said gloomily, "but the show
+would have started her arguing about this whole moving-picture
+proposition,--its crudity, and its tremendous sacrifice of artistic
+values, and so on and so on."
+
+"Sure, she's a highbrow. Highbrows always cerebrate about the movies
+in one way or another. Nancy doesn't get it at just that angle, of
+course. She hasn't got Caroline's intellectual appetite. She's not
+interested in the movies because she hasn't got a moving-picture house
+of her own. The world is not Nancy's oyster--it's her lump of putty."
+
+"I don't know which is the worst," Billy said. "Caroline won't listen
+to anything you say to her,--but then neither will Nancy."
+
+"Women never listen to anything," Dick said profoundly, "unless
+they're doing it on purpose, or they happen to be interested. I
+imagine Caroline is a little less tractable, but Nancy is capable of
+doing the most damage. She works with concrete materials. Caroline's
+kit is crammed with nothing but ideas."
+
+"Nothing _but_--" Billy groaned.
+
+"As for this cave-man business--theoretically, they ought to react to
+it,--both of them. They're both normal, well-balanced young ladies."
+
+"They're both runnin' pretty hard to keep in the same place, just at
+present."
+
+"Nancy isn't doing that--not by a long shot," Dick said.
+
+"She's not keeping in the same place certainly," Billy agreed.
+"Caroline is all eaten up by this economic independence idea."
+
+"It's a good idea," Dick admitted; "economic conditions are
+changing. No reason at all that a woman shouldn't prove herself
+willing to cope with them, as long as she gets things in the order
+of their importance. Earning her living isn't better than the
+Mother-Home-and-Heaven job. It's a way out, if she gets left, or
+gets stung."
+
+"I'm only thankful Caroline can't hear you." Billy raised pious eyes
+to heaven but he continued more seriously after a second, "It's all
+right to theorize, but practically speaking both our girls are getting
+beyond our control."
+
+"I'm not engaged to Nancy," Dick said a trifle stiffly.
+
+"Well, you ought to be," Billy said.
+
+Dick stiffened. He was not used to speaking of his relations with
+Nancy to any one--even to Billy, who was the closest friend he
+had. They walked up Broadway in silence for a while, toward the
+cross-street which housed the university club which was their common
+objective.
+
+"I know I ought to be," Dick said, just as Billy was formulating an
+apology for his presumption, "or I ought to marry her out of hand.
+This watchful waiting's entirely the wrong idea."
+
+"Why do we do it then?" Billy inquired pathetically.
+
+"I wanted Nancy to sow her economic wild oats. I guess you felt the
+same way about Caroline."
+
+"Well, they've sowed 'em, haven't they?"
+
+"Not by a long shot. That's the trouble,--they don't get any forrider,
+from our point of view. I thought it would be the best policy to stand
+by and let Nancy work it out. I thought her restaurant would either
+fail spectacularly in a month, or succeed brilliantly and she'd make
+over the executive end of it to somebody else. I never thought of her
+buckling down like this, and wearing herself out at it."
+
+"There's a pretty keen edge on Caroline this summer."
+
+"I'm afraid Nancy's in pretty deep," Dick said. "The money end of it
+worries me as much as anything."
+
+"I wouldn't let that worry me."
+
+"She won't take any of mine, you know."
+
+"I know she won't. See here, Dick, I wouldn't worry about Nancy's
+finances. She'll come out all right about money."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"I know so. We've got lots of things in the world to worry about,
+things that are scheduled to go wrong unless we're mighty delicate in
+the way we handle 'em. Let's worry about _them_, and leave Nancy's
+financial problems to take care of themselves."
+
+"Which means," Dick said, "that you are sure that she's all right. I'm
+not in her confidence in this matter--"
+
+"Well, I am," Billy said, "I'm her legal adviser, and with all due
+respect to your taste in girls, it's a very difficult position to
+occupy. What with the things she won't listen to and the things she
+won't learn, and the things she actually knows more about than I
+do--"
+
+The indulgent smile of the true lover lit Dick's face, as if Billy had
+waxed profoundly eulogistic. Unconsciously, Billy's own tenderness
+took fire at the flame.
+
+"Why don't we run away with 'em?" he said, breathing heavily.
+
+Dick stopped in a convenient doorway to light his third cigarette, end
+on.
+
+"It's the answer to you and Caroline," he said.
+
+"Why not to you and Nancy?"
+
+"It may be," Dick said, "I dunno. I've reached an _impasse_. Still
+there is a great deal in your proposition."
+
+They turned in at the portico that extended out over the big oak doors
+of their club. An attendant in white turned the knob for them, with
+the grin of enthusiastic welcome that was the usual tribute to these
+two good-looking, well set up young men from those who served them.
+
+"I'll think it over," Dick added, as he gave up his hat and stick,
+"and let you know what decision I come to."
+
+In another five minutes they were deep in a game of Kelly-pool from
+which Dick emerged triumphantly richer by the sum of a dollar and
+ninety cents, and Billy the poorer by the loss of a quarter.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a town in Connecticut, within a reasonable motoring distance
+from New York that has been called the Gretna Green of America. Here
+well-informed young couples are able to expedite the business of
+matrimony with a phenomenal neatness and despatch. Licenses can be
+procured by special dispensation, and the nuptial knot tied as
+solemnly and solidly as if a premeditated train of bridesmaids and
+flower girls and loving relatives had been rehearsed for days in
+advance.
+
+Dick and his Rolls-Royce had assisted at a hymeneal celebration or
+two, where a successful rush had been made for the temporary altars of
+this beneficent town with the most felicitous results, and he knew the
+procedure. When he and Billy organized an afternoon excursion into
+Connecticut, they tacitly avoided all mention of the consummation they
+hoped to bring about, but they both understood the nature and
+significance of the expedition. Dick,--who was used to the easy
+accomplishment of his designs and purposes, for most obstacles gave
+way before his magnetic onslaught,--had only sketchily outlined his
+scheme of proceedings, but he trusted to the magic of that inspiration
+that seldom or never failed him. He was the sort of young man that the
+last century novelists always referred to as "fortune's favorite," and
+his luck so rarely betrayed him that he had almost come to believe it
+to be invincible.
+
+His general idea was to get Nancy and Caroline to drive into the
+country, through the cool rush of the freer purer air of the suburbs,
+give them lunch at some smart road-house, soothingly restful and dim,
+where the temperature was artificially lowered, and they could powder
+their noses at will; and from thence go on until they were within the
+radius of the charmed circle where modern miracles were performed
+while the expectant bridegroom waited.
+
+"Nancy, my dear, we are going to be married,"--that he had formulated,
+"we're going to be done with all this nonsense of waiting and doubting
+the evidence of our own senses and our own hearts. We're going to put
+an end to the folly of trying to do without each other,--your folly of
+trying to feed all itinerant New York; my folly of standing by and
+letting you do it, or any other fool thing that your fancy happens to
+dictate. You're mine and I'm yours, and I'm going to take you--take
+you to-day and prove it to you." This was to be timed to be delivered
+at just about the moment when they drew up in front of the office of
+the justice of the peace, who was Dick's friend of old. "Hold up your
+head, my dear, and put your hat on straight; we're going into that
+building to be made man and wife, and we're not coming out of it until
+the deed has been done." In some such fashion, he meant to carry it
+through. Many a time in the years gone by he had steered Nancy through
+some high-handed escapade that she would only have consented to on the
+spur of the moment. She was one of these women who responded
+automatically to the voice of a master. He had failed in mastery this
+last year or so. That was the secret of his failure with her, but the
+days of that failure were numbered now. He was going to succeed.
+
+On the back seat of the big car he expected Billy and Caroline to be
+going through much the same sort of scene.
+
+"We've come to a show-down now, Caroline,--either I sit in this
+game, or get out." He could imagine Billy bringing Caroline bluntly
+to terms with comparatively little effort. That was what she
+needed--Caroline--a strong hand. Billy's problem was simple.
+Caroline had already signified her preference for him. She wore his
+ring. Billy had only to pick her up, kicking and screaming if need
+be, and bear her to the altar. She would marry him if he insisted.
+That was clear to the most superficial of observers,--but Nancy was
+different.
+
+The day was hot, and grew steadily hotter. By the time Nancy and
+Caroline were actually in the car, after an almost superhuman effort
+to assemble them and their various accessories of veils and wraps, and
+to dispose of the assortment of errands and messages that both girls
+seemed to be committed to despatch before they could pass the
+boundaries of Greater New York, the two men were very nearly
+exhausted. It was only when the chauffeur let the car out to a speed
+greatly in excess of the limitations on some clear stretch of road,
+that the breath of the country brought them any relief whatsoever.
+
+Dick looked over his shoulder at the two in the back seat, and noted
+Caroline's pallor, and the fact that she was allowing a listless hand
+to linger in Billy's; but when he turned back to Nancy he discovered
+no such encouraging symptoms. She was sitting lightly relaxed at his
+side, but there was nothing even negatively responsive in her
+attitude. Her color was high; her breath coming evenly from between
+her slightly parted lips. She looked like a child oblivious to
+everything but some innocent daydream.
+
+"You look as if you were dreaming of candy and kisses, Nancy,--are
+you?" he asked presently.
+
+"No, I'm just glad to be free. It's been a long time since I've played
+hooky."
+
+"I know it." The "dear" constrained him, and he did not add it:
+"You've been working most unholy hard. I--I hate to have you."
+
+"But I was never so happy in my life."
+
+"That's good." His voice hoarsened with the effort to keep it steady
+and casual. "Is everything going all right?"
+
+"Fine."
+
+"Is--is the money end of it all right?"
+
+"Yes, that is, I am not worrying about money."
+
+"You're not making money?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You are not losing any?"
+
+"I am--a little. That was to be expected, don't you think so?"
+
+"How much are you losing?"
+
+"I don't know exactly."
+
+"You ought to know. Are you keeping your own books?"
+
+"Betty helps me."
+
+"Are you losing a hundred a month?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Five hundred?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"A thousand?"
+
+"I don't really know."
+
+"A thousand?" he insisted.
+
+"Yes," Nancy answered recklessly, "the way I run it."
+
+"It doesn't make any difference, of course;" Dick said, "you've got
+all my money behind you."
+
+"I haven't anybody's money behind me except my own."
+
+"You had fifteen thousand dollars. Do you mean to say that you have
+any of that left to draw on?"
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"Do you mind telling me how you are managing?"
+
+"Billy borrowed some money for me."
+
+"On what security?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Why didn't he come to me?"
+
+"I told him not to."
+
+"Nancy, do you realize that you're the most exasperating woman that
+ever walked the face of this earth?" the unhappy lover asked.
+
+Nancy managed to convey the fact that Dick's asseveration both
+surprised and pained her, without resorting to the use of words.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't spoil this lovely party," she said to him a few
+seconds later. "I'm extremely tired, and I should like to get my mind
+off my business instead of going over these tiresome details with
+anybody."
+
+"You look very innocent and kind and loving," Dick said desperately,
+"but at heart you're a little fraud, Nancy."
+
+She interrupted him to point out two children laden with wild flowers,
+trudging along the roadside.
+
+"See how adorably dirty and happy they are," she cried. "That little
+fellow has his shoestrings untied, and keeps tripping on them, he's so
+tired, but he's so crazy about the posies that he doesn't care. I
+wonder if he's taking them home to his mother."
+
+"You're devoted to children, Nancy, aren't you?" Dick's voice
+softened.
+
+"Yes, I am, and some day I'm going to adopt a whole orphan asylum,"--her
+voice altered in a way that Dick did not in the least understand. "I
+could if I wanted to," she laughed. "Maybe I will want to some day. So
+many of my ideas are being changed and modified by experience."
+
+The road-house of his choice, when they reached it, proved to have
+deteriorated sadly since his last visit. The cool interior that he
+remembered had been inopportunely opened to the hottest blast of the
+day's heat, and hermetically sealed again, or at least so it
+seemed to Dick; and the furniture was all red and thickly, almost
+suffocatingly, upholstered. Nancy had no comment on the torrid air of
+the dining-room,--she rarely complained about anything. Even the
+presence of a fly in her bouillon jelly scarcely disturbed her
+equanimity, but Dick knew that she was secretly sustained by the
+conviction that such an accident was impossible under her system
+of supervision at Outside Inn, and resented her tranquillity
+accordingly.
+
+Caroline, behaving not so well, seemed to him a much more human and
+sympathetic figure, though her nose took on a high shine unknown to
+Nancy's demurer and more discreetly served features; but Billy
+evidently preferred Nancy's deportment, which was on the surface calm
+and reassuring.
+
+"Nancy's a sport," he pointed out to Caroline enthusiastically, "no
+fly in the ointment gets her goat. She enjoys herself even when she's
+perfectly miserable."
+
+"She doesn't feel the heat the way I do," Caroline snapped.
+
+"I feel the heat," Nancy said, "but I--"
+
+"She's got a system," Dick cut in savagely: "she stands it just as
+long as she can, and then she takes it out of me in some diabolical
+fashion."
+
+Nancy's gray-blue eyes took on the far-away look that those who loved
+her had learned to associate with her most baffling moments.
+
+"Just by being especially nice to Dick," she said thoughtfully, "I can
+make him more furious with me than in any other way."
+
+Nancy and Caroline finished their sloppy ices at the table together
+while Dick and Billy sought the solace of a pipe in the garage
+outside.
+
+"I don't understand coming into Connecticut to-day," Nancy said as
+soon as they were alone; "it seems like such a stupid excursion for
+Dick to make. He's usually pretty good at picking out places to go. In
+fact, he has a kind of genius for it."
+
+"He slipped up this time," Caroline said, "I'm so hot."
+
+"So am I," said Nancy, slumping limply into the depths of her red
+velour chair. "I want to get back to New York. Oh! what was it you
+told me the other day that you had been saving up to tell me?"
+
+Caroline brightened.
+
+"Oh, yes! Why, it was something Collier Pratt said about you. You know
+Betty has scraped up quite an acquaintance with him. She goes and sits
+down at his table sometimes."
+
+"She's going to be stopped doing _that_," Nancy said.
+
+"Well, you remember the night when you went home early with a
+headache, and passed by his table going out?"
+
+"Yes, but I didn't know he saw me."
+
+"He sees everything, Betty says."
+
+"He didn't suspect me?"
+
+"He didn't know you came out of the interior. He said to Betty, 'It's
+curious that Miss Martin never stays here to dine in the evening,
+though she so often drops in.' Betty is pretty quick, you know. She
+said, 'I think Miss Martin is a friend of the proprietor.'"
+
+"So I am," said Nancy, "the best friend she's got. Go on, dear."
+
+"Then he said slowly and thoughtfully, 'It's a crime for a woman like
+that not to be the mother of children. If ever I saw a maternal type,
+Miss Ann Martin is the apotheosis of it. Why some man hasn't made her
+understand that long ago I can not see.'"
+
+Nancy's cheeks burned crimson and then white again.
+
+"How dare Betty?" she said.
+
+"Wait till you hear. You know Betty doesn't care what she says. Her
+reply to that was peculiarly Bettyish. She sighed and cast down her
+eyes,--the little imp! 'The course of true love never does run
+smooth,' she said; 'perhaps Ann has discovered the truth of that old
+saying in some new connection.' She didn't mean to be a cat, she was
+only trying to create a romantic interest in your affairs, doing as
+she would be done by. The effect was more than she bargained for
+though. Collier Pratt's eyes quite lit up. 'I can imagine no greater
+crime than frustrating the instincts of a woman like that,' he said.
+Imagine that--the instincts--whereupon Betty, of course, flounced off
+and left him."
+
+"She would," Nancy said. Then a storm of real anger surged through
+her. "I'll turn her out of my place to-morrow. I'll never look at her
+or speak to her again."
+
+"I think it would be more to the point," Caroline said, "to turn out
+Collier Pratt. That was certainly an extraordinary way for him to
+speak of you to a girl who is a stranger to him."
+
+"Caroline, you're almost as bad as Betty is. You're both of you
+hopelessly--helplessly--provincially American. I don't think that was
+extraordinary or impertinent even," Nancy said. "I--I understand how
+that man means things."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The car drove up in front of the office of the justice of the peace in
+the town beyond that in which they had had their unauspicious luncheon
+party.
+
+"Are we stopping here for any particular reason?" Caroline said.
+
+Nancy had not spoken in more than a monosyllable since they had
+resumed their places in the car again.
+
+"Not now," Dick said wearily. "I thought I'd point out the sights of
+the town. This place is called the Gretna Green of America, you know.
+A great many runaway couples come out here to be married. The man
+inside that office, the one with whiskers and no collar, is the one
+that marries them."
+
+"Does he?" Billy asked a trifle uncertainly.
+
+Nancy turned to Dick with a real appeal in her voice. It was the first
+time during the day that she had addressed him with anything like her
+natural tenderness and sweetness.
+
+"Oh! Dick, can't we start on?" she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+SCIENCE APPLIED
+
+
+Gaspard was ill--very ill. He lay in the little anteroom at the top of
+the stairs and groaned thunderously. He had a pain in his back and a
+roaring in his head, and an extreme disorder in the region of his
+solar plexus.
+
+"Sure an' he's no more nor less than a human earthquake," Michael
+reported after an examination.
+
+Nancy applied ice caps and hot-water bags to the afflicted areas
+without avail. The stricken man had struggled from his bed in the
+Twentieth Street lodging-house that he had chosen for his habitation,
+and staggered through the heavy morning heat to his post in the
+basement kitchen of Nancy's Inn, there to collapse ignominiously
+between his cooking ranges. With Molly and Dolly and Hildeguard at his
+feet and herself and Michael and a dishwasher at his head they had
+managed to get him up the two short flights of stairs. It developed
+that it would be necessary to remove him in an ambulance later in the
+day, but for the time being he lay like a contorted Colossus on the
+fragile-looking cot that constituted his improvised bed of pain: "Like
+the great grandfather," to quote Michael again, "of all of them
+Zeus'es and gargoyles, and other cavortin' gentlemen in the yard
+down-stairs."
+
+With the luncheon menu before her, Nancy decided that the hour had
+come for her to prove herself. She had assumed the practical
+management of the business of the Inn only to have the responsibility
+and much of the authority of her position taken from her by the very
+efficiency of her staff. She was far too good a business woman not to
+realize that this condition was distinctly to her advantage, and to
+encourage it accordingly, but there was still so much of the child in
+her that she secretly resented every usurpation of privilege.
+
+With Gaspard ill she was able to manipulate the affairs of the kitchen
+exactly as she chose, and even in the moment of applying the "hot at
+the base of the brain and the cold at the forehead" that the doctor
+had prescribed as the most effective method for relieving the pressure
+of blood in the tortured temples of the suffering man, she had been
+conscious of that thrill of triumph that most human beings feel when
+the involuntary removal of the man higher up invests them with power.
+
+Michael did the marketing, and the list went through as Gaspard had
+planned it, with some slight adaptations to the exigency, such as the
+substitution of twenty-five cans of tomato soup for the fresh
+vegetables with which Gaspard had planned to make his tomato bisque,
+and brandied peaches in glass jars instead of peach souffle.
+
+"If I allow myself a little handicap in the matter of details," she
+said, "I know I can put everything else through as well as Gaspard;"
+whereupon she enveloped herself in a huge linen apron, tucked her hair
+into one of the chef's white caps, and attacked the problem of
+preparing luncheon for from sixty-five to two hundred people, who were
+scheduled to appear at uncertain intervals between the hours of twelve
+and two-thirty. Later she must be ready to serve tea and ices to a
+problematical number of patrons, but she tried not to think beyond the
+immediate task.
+
+She could make a very good tomato bisque by adding one cup of milk and
+a dash of cream to one half-pint can of MacDonald's tomato soup,
+enough to serve three people adequately, and she proceeded to multiply
+that recipe by twenty-five. She didn't think of getting large cans
+till Michael in the process of opening the half-pint tins made the
+belated suggestion, which she greeted with some hauteur.
+
+"I'm not the person to mind a little extra work, Michael, when I am
+sure of my results. Precision--that's the secret of the difference
+between American and French cooking."
+
+"An' sure and I fail to see the difference between the preciseness of
+a quart can and four half-pint ones, but I suppose it's my ignorance
+now."
+
+"Your supposition is correct, Michael," she said airily, but out of
+the corner of her eye she saw him smiling to himself over the growing
+heap of half-pint tins, and reddened with mortification at her naivete
+in the matter.
+
+She looked at the vat of terra-cotta puree with considerable dismay
+when she had stirred in the last measure of cream. Twenty-five pints
+of tomato bisque is a rather formidable quantity of a liquid the chief
+virtue of which is its sparing and judicious introduction into the
+individual diet scheme. Nancy hardly felt that she wanted to be alone
+with it.
+
+"They'll soon lick it all up, and be polishing their plates like so
+many Tom-cats," Michael said, indicating their potential patronage by
+waving his hand toward the courtyard. "Here comes Miss Betty, now.
+She'll be after lending a hand in the cooking."
+
+"Keep her away, Michael," Nancy cried; "go out and head her off. Make
+her go up-stairs and sit with Gaspard,--anything, but don't let her
+come in here. If she does I won't answer for the consequences.
+I'll--I'll--I don't know what I'll do to her."
+
+"Throw her in the soup kettle, most likely," Michael chuckled. "Faith,
+an' I never saw a woman yet that wasn't ready to scratch the eyes out
+of the next one that got into her kitchen."
+
+"She isn't safe," Nancy said darkly. "I need every bit of brain and
+self-control I have to put this luncheon through. You keep Miss
+Betty's mind on something else--anything but me and the way I am doing
+the cooking."
+
+"'Tis done," said Michael; "sure an' I'll protect her from you, if I
+have to abduct her myself!"
+
+"I wish he would," Nancy said to herself viciously, "before she gets
+another chance at Collier Pratt.--Creamed chicken and mushrooms. It's
+a lucky thing that Gaspard diced the chicken last night, and fixed
+that macedoine of vegetables for a garnish.--She's a dangerous woman;
+she might wreck one's whole life with her unfeeling, histrionic
+nonsense.--I wonder if thirteen quarts of cream sauce is going to be
+enough."
+
+It turned out to be quite enough after the crises in which the butter
+basis got too brown, and the flour after melting into it smoothly
+seemed unreasonably inclined to lump again as Nancy stirred the cold
+milk into it, but the result after all was perfectly adequate, except
+for the uncanny brown tinge that the whole mixture had taken on. Nancy
+was unable to restrain herself from taking a sample of it to Gaspard's
+bedside.
+
+"_Mais_--but I can not eat it now," he cried, misunderstanding the
+purpose of her visit, "nor again--nor ever again. _Jamais!_"
+
+"I don't want you to eat it, Gaspard, I want you to look at it, and
+tell me what makes it that color. It turned tan, you see. I don't want
+to poison any one."
+
+"I am too miserable," Gaspard said. "The sauce--you have made into
+Bechamel with the browning butter, _voila tout_. It is better so,--it
+would not hurt any one in the world but me--and me it would kill."
+
+"Poor thing," sighed Nancy, as she took her place by the kitchen
+dresser again, trying to remember where she had last seen brown eyes
+that reflected the look of stricken endurance that glazed Gaspard's
+velvet orbs, recalled with a start that Dick had gazed at her in
+much the same helpless fashion on their drive home from their
+recent motor trip in Connecticut. She had been too absorbed in her
+own distresses to consider anybody's state of mind but her own, on
+that occasion, but now Dick's expression came back to her vividly,
+and she nearly ruined a big bowl of French dressing, at the crucial
+moment of putting in the vinegar, trying to imagine which one of
+the events of that inauspicious day might conceivably have caused it.
+
+After the actual serving of the meal began, however, she had very
+little time for reflection or reminiscence. The distribution of
+food to the waitresses as they called for it required the full
+concentration of her powers. Molly and Dolly coached her, and with
+their assistance she was soon able to fill the bewilderingly rapid
+orders from the line of girls stretching from the door to the open
+space in front of her serving-table, which never seemed to diminish
+however adequately its demands were met.
+
+Mechanically she took soup and meat dishes from the hooded shelves at
+the top of the range where they were kept warming, and ladled out the
+brick-colored bisque, the creamed chicken and garnishing of the
+individual orders. The chicken looked delicious with its accompaniment
+of vari-colored vegetables,--Nancy had done away with the side dish
+long since--and each serving was assembled with special reference to
+its decorative qualities. The girls went up-stairs to put the salad on
+the plates, where the desserts were already dished in the quaint blue
+bowls in which stewed fruits and the more fluid sweets were always
+served.
+
+In her mind's eye Nancy could see the picture. At noon the court was
+almost entirely in the shade, and instead of the awning top, which
+shut out the air, there were gay striped umbrellas at the one or two
+tables that were imperfectly protected from the sun. She had recently
+invested in some table-cloths with bright blue woven borders. Flowers
+were arranged in low bowls and baskets on respective tables. Nancy
+instinctively grouped tired young business men in blue serge and soft
+collars at the tables decorated with the baskets of blue flowers; and
+pale young women in lingerie blouses before the bowls of roses. She
+could see them,--those big-eyed girls with delicate blue veins
+accentuating the pallor of their white faces--sinking gratefully into
+the wicker seats and benches, and sniffing rapturously at the faint
+far-away fragrance of the woodland blossoms.
+
+"I hope they will steal a great many of them," she thought, for her
+patrons were given to despoiling her flower vases in a way that
+scandalized the good Hildeguard, who was a just but ungenerous soul in
+spite of her ample proportions and popular qualities. Molly and Dolly
+were rather given to encouraging the vandals, knowing that they had
+Nancy's tacit approval.
+
+Automatically dipping the huge metal ladle--one filling of which was
+enough for a service--into the big soup kettle, she stood for a moment
+gazing into its magenta depths oblivious to everything but the
+rhapsodic consideration of her realized dream. Now for the first time
+she was contributing directly her own strength and energy to the
+public which she served. She had prepared with her own hands the meal
+which her grateful patrons were consuming. The little girls with the
+tired faces, the jaded men, the smart, weary business women--buyers
+and secretaries and modistes,--who were occupied in the neighborhood
+were all being literally nourished by her. She had actually
+manufactured the product that was to sustain them through the weary
+day of heat and effort.
+
+"How do they like the lunch, Molly?" she asked, as she deftly
+deposited the forty-fifth serving of chicken with Bechamel sauce on
+the exact center of the plate before her. "Are they pleased with the
+soup? Are they saying complimentary things about the chicken?"
+
+"Some of them is, Miss Nancy. Some of them is complaining that they
+can't get any other kind of soup. Them that usually gets invalid broth
+don't understand our running out of it."
+
+"I forgot about the specials," Nancy cried.
+
+"That red-haired girl that we feed on custards and nut bread and that
+special cocoa Gaspard makes for her, she acted real bad. They get
+expecting certain things, and then they want them."
+
+"I'm sorry," Nancy said; "I'll make all those things to-morrow."
+
+"The old feller that always has the stewed prunes is terrible pleased
+though. I give him two helps of the peaches, and he wanted another. He
+was pleased to get white bread too. He complains something dreadful
+about his bran biscuit every day."
+
+"I meant to send to the woman's exchange for different kinds of health
+bread, but I forgot it," Nancy moaned. "Do they like the peaches at
+all?"
+
+"Most of them likes them too well. There was one old lady that got one
+whiff of them, and pushed back her chair and left. I guess she had
+took the pledge, and the brandy went against her principles."
+
+"I never thought of that. I only thought that brandied peaches would
+be a treat to so many people who didn't have them habitually served at
+home."
+
+The picture in Nancy's mind changed in color a trifle. She could see
+sour-faced spinsters at single tables pushing back their chairs,
+overturning the rose bowls in their hurry to shake the dust of her
+restaurant from their feet.
+
+"Don't accept any money from people who don't like their luncheon,"
+she admonished Molly, who was next in line with several orders to be
+filled at once. "Tell them that the proprietor of Outside Inn prefers
+not to be paid unless the meal is entirely satisfactory."
+
+"I'm afraid there wouldn't never be any satisfactory meals if I told
+them that, Miss Nancy."
+
+"I don't want any one ever to pay for anything he doesn't like," Nancy
+insisted. "Slip the money back in their coat pockets if you can't
+manage it any other way."
+
+"There's lots of complaints about the soup," Dolly said; "so many
+people don't like tomato in the heat. Gaspard, he always had a choice
+even if it wasn't down on the menu. I might deduct, say fifteen cents
+now, and slip it back to them with their change."
+
+"Please do," Nancy implored. "Tell Molly and Hildeguard."
+
+"Hilda would drop dead, but Molly'd like the fun of it."
+
+It was hot in the kitchen. The soup kettle bad been emptied of more
+than half its contents, but the liquid that was left bubbled thickly
+over the gas flame that had been newly lit to reheat it. The pungent,
+acrid odor of hot tomatoes affronted her nostrils. She had a vision
+now of the pale tired faces of the little stenographers turning in
+disgust from the contemplation of the flamboyant and sticky puree on
+their plates, annoyed by the color scheme in combination with the soft
+wild-rose pink of the table bouquets, if not actually sickened by the
+fluid itself. For the first time since his abrupt seizure that morning
+she began to hope in her heart that Gaspard's illness might be a
+matter of days instead of weeks. She served Hildeguard and one of the
+other waitresses with more soup, and then began to boil some eggs to
+eke out the chicken, which, owing to her unprecedented generosity in
+the matter of portions, seemed to be diminishing with alarming
+rapidity.
+
+From the kitchen closet beyond came the clatter of dishwashing, the
+interminable splashing of water, and stacking of plates, punctuated by
+the occasional clang of smashing glass or pottery. She had discharged
+two dishwashers in less than two weeks' time, with the natural feeling
+that any change in that department must be for the better, but the
+present incumbent was even more incompetent than his predecessors.
+Even Nancy's impregnable nerves began to feel the strain of the
+continual clamorous assault on them.
+
+Betty appeared in the doorway that led directly from the restaurant
+stairs.
+
+"I'm sorry to intrude," she said. "Don't blame Michael, I'm breaking
+my parole to get in here. He locked me in and made me swear I'd keep
+out of the kitchen before he'd let me out at all, but I had to tell
+you this. The tomato soup has curdled and you ought not to serve it
+any more."
+
+"Well, I thought it looked rather funny," Nancy moaned.
+
+"It won't do anybody any harm, you know. It just looks bad, and a lot
+of people are kicking about it. Did Molly tell you about the old
+fellow that got tipsy on the peaches?"
+
+"No, she didn't. I sent Michael out for some ripe peaches and other
+fruit to serve instead."
+
+"That's a good idea. How's the food holding out? There are lots of
+people you know up-stairs," she rattled on, for Nancy, who was getting
+more and more distraught with each disquieting detail, made no
+pretense of answering her. "Dolly has probably kept you informed.
+Dick's aunt is here, and that terribly highbrow cousin of Caroline's;
+and that good-looking young surgeon that suddenly got so famous last
+winter, and admired you so much. Dr. Sunderland--isn't that his name?
+I never saw Collier Pratt here for lunch before. There's a little girl
+with him, too."
+
+"Collier Pratt?" Nancy cried, "Oh, Betty, he isn't here. He couldn't
+be. Don't frighten me with any such nonsense. He never comes here in
+the day-time."
+
+"He is though," Betty said, "and a queer-looking little child with
+him, a dark-eyed little thing dressed in black satin."
+
+"It seems a good deal to me as if you were making that up," Nancy
+cried in exasperation; "it's so much the kind of thing you do make
+up."
+
+"I know it," Betty said, unexpectedly reasonable, "but as it happens
+I'm not. Collier Pratt really is up-stairs with a poor little orphan
+in tow. Ask any one of the girls."
+
+At this moment Dolly, her ribbons awry and her china-blue eyes widened
+with excitement, appeared with a dramatic confirmation of Betty's
+astonishing announcement.
+
+"There's a little girl took sick from the peaches, and moved up-stairs
+in the room next to Gaspard's," she cried breathlessly. "The doctor
+that was sitting at the next table, had her moved right up there. He
+wants to see the lady that runs the restaurant, and he wants a lot of
+hot water in a pitcher, and some baking soda."
+
+"You see," Betty said, "go on up, I'll take your place here. Dolly,
+get the things the doctor asked for."
+
+Nancy stripped off her cap and her apron and resigned her spoons and
+ladles to Betty without a word. She was still incredulous of what she
+would find at the top of the three flights of creaking age-worn stairs
+that separated her from the nest of rooms that were the storm quarters
+of her hostelry, now converted by a sudden malevolence on the part of
+fate into a temporary hospital. As she took the last flight she could
+hear Gaspard's stertorous breathing coming at the regular intervals of
+distressful slumber, and through that an ominous murmur of grave and
+low-voiced conference, such as one hears in the chambers of the dead.
+The convulsive application of a powder puff to the tip of her burning
+nose--her whole face was aflame with exertion and excitement--was
+merely a part of her whole subconscious effort to get herself in hand
+for the exigency. Her mind, itself, refused any preparation for the
+scene that awaited her.
+
+On one of the cushioned benches against the wall in the most
+decorative of the dining-rooms of the up-stairs suite, a little girl
+was lying stark against the brilliant blue of the upholstery. She was
+a child of some seven or eight, lightly built and delicate of features
+and dressed all in black. Her eyes were closed, but the long lashes
+emphasizing the shadows in which they were set, prepared you for the
+revelation of them. Nancy understood that they were Collier Pratt's
+eyes, and that they would open presently, and look wonderingly up at
+her. She recognized the presence of Dr. Sunderland, of Michael and
+several of the waitresses, and a flighty woman in blue taffeta--an
+ubiquitous patron,--but she made her way past them at once, and sank
+on her knees before the prostrate child.
+
+"It's nothing very serious, Miss Martin," the young surgeon reassured
+her, "delicate children of this type are likely to have these
+seizures. It's not exactly a fainting fit. It belongs rather to the
+family of hysteria."
+
+"Wasn't it the peaches?" Nancy asked fearfully. "They--they had a
+little brandy in them."
+
+"They may have been a contributing cause," Dr. Sunderland acknowledged,
+"but the child's condition is primarily responsible. Let her alone
+until she rouses,--then give her hot water with a pinch of soda in it
+at fifteen-minute intervals. Keep her feet hot and her head cold and
+don't try to move her until after dark, when it's cooler."
+
+"All right," Nancy said, "I'll take care of her."
+
+"Here comes her poor father, now," the lady in taffeta announced with
+the dramatic commiseration of the self-invited auditor. "He thought an
+iced towel on her head might make her feel better. Is the dear little
+thing an orphan--I mean a half orphan?"
+
+The assembled company seeming disinclined to respond, she repeated her
+inquiry to Collier Pratt himself, as with the susceptive grace that
+characterized all his movements, he swung the compress he was carrying
+sharply to and fro to preserve its temperature in transit. "Is the
+poor little thing a half orphan?"
+
+"The poor little thing is nine-tenths orphan, madam," said Collier
+Pratt, "that is--the only creature to whom she can turn for protection
+is the apology for a parent that you see before you. Would you mind
+stepping aside and giving me a little more room to work in?"
+
+"Not at all." Irony was wasted on the indomitable sympathizer in blue.
+"Hasn't she really anybody but you to take care of her?"
+
+Collier Pratt arranged the towel precisely in position over the little
+girl's forehead, smoothing with careful fingers the cloud of dusky
+hair that fell about her face.
+
+"She has not," he answered with some savagery.
+
+"Hasn't she any women friends or relatives that would be willing to
+take charge of her?"
+
+"No, madam."
+
+"Then some woman that has no child of her own to care for ought to
+adopt her, and relieve you of the responsibility. It's a shame and
+disgrace the way these New York women with no natural ties of their
+own go around crying for something to do, when there are sweet little
+children like this suffering for a mother's care. I'd adopt her myself
+if I was able to. I certainly would."
+
+"I'm perfectly willing to give over the technical part of her bringing
+up to some one of the women whom you so feelingly describe," Collier
+Pratt said. "The trouble is to find the woman--the right woman. The
+vicarious mother is not the most prevalent of our modern types, I
+regret to say."
+
+The little girl on the couch stirred softly, and the hand that Nancy
+was holding, a pathetic, thin, unkempt little hand, grew warm in hers.
+The lids of the big eyes fluttered and lifted. Nancy looked into their
+clouded depths for an instant. Then she turned to Collier Pratt
+decisively.
+
+"I'll take care of your little girl for you, if you will let me," she
+said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SHEILA
+
+
+"I had _mal de mer_ when I was on the steamer," the child said, in her
+pretty, painstaking English--she spoke French habitually. "I do not
+like to have it on the land. The gentleman in there," she pointed to
+the room beyond where Gaspard was again distressfully sleeping the
+sleep of the spent after a period of the most profound physical
+agitation, "he does not like to have it, too,--I mean either."
+
+Nancy had propped the little girl up on improvised pillows made of
+coats and wraps swathed in towels and covered her with some strips of
+canton flannel designed to use as "hushers" under the table
+covers. As soon as the intense discomfort and nausea that had
+followed the first period of faintness had passed, Nancy had
+slipped off the shabby satin dress, made like the long-sleeved
+kitchen apron of New England extraction, and attired the child in a
+craftily simulated night-gown of table linen. Collier Pratt had
+worked with her, deftly supplementing all her efforts for his little
+girl's comfort until she had fallen into the exhausted sleep from
+which she was only now rousing and beginning to chatter. Her father
+had left her, still sleeping soundly, in Nancy's care, and gone
+off to keep an appointment with a prospective picture buyer. He had
+made no comment on Nancy's sudden impulsive offer to take the child
+in charge, and neither she nor he had referred to the matter again.
+
+"Are you comfortable now, Sheila?" Nancy asked. She had expected the
+child to have a French name, Suzanne or Japonette or something equally
+picturesque, but she realized as soon as she heard it that Sheila was
+much more suitable. The cloudy blue-black hair, and steel-blue eyes,
+the slight elongation of the space between the upper lip and nose, the
+dazzling satin whiteness of the skin were all Irish in their
+suggestion. Was the child's mother--that other natural protector of
+the child, who had died or deserted her--Nancy tried not to wonder too
+much which it was that she had done,--an Irish girl, or was Collier
+Pratt himself of that romantic origin?
+
+"_Oui_, Mademoiselle, I mean, yes, thank you. I do not think I will
+say to you Miss Martin. We only say their names like that to the
+people with whom we are not _intime_. We are _intime_ now, aren't we,
+now that I have been so very sick _chez vous_? In Paris the
+_concierge_ had a daughter that I called Mademoiselle Cherie, and we
+were _very intime_. I think I would like to call you Miss Dear in
+English after her."
+
+"I should like that very much," Nancy said.
+
+"I am glad the sick gentleman is called Gaspard. So many _messieurs_--I
+mean gentlemen in Paris are called Gaspard, and hardly any in the
+United States of America. American things are very different from
+things in Paris, don't you think so, Miss Dear?"
+
+"I'm afraid they are," Nancy acquiesced gravely.
+
+"I'm afraid they are too," the child said, "but afraid is what I try
+not to be of them. My father says America is full of beasts and
+devils, but he does not mind because he can paint them."
+
+"Do you live in a studio?" Nancy asked after a struggle to prevent
+herself from asking the question. She felt that she had no right to
+any of the facts about Collier Pratt's existence that he did not
+choose to volunteer for himself.
+
+"Yes, Miss Dear, but not like Paris. There we had a door that opened
+into a garden, and the birds sang there, and I was allowed to go and
+play. Here we have only a fire-escape, and the _concierge_ is only a
+janitor and will not allow us to keep milk bottles on it. I do not
+like a janitor. _Concierges_ have so much more _politesse_. Now, no
+one takes care of me when father goes out, or brings me soup or
+_gateaux_ when he forgets."
+
+"Does he forget?" Nancy cried, horrified.
+
+"Sometimes. He forgets himself, too, very often except dinner. He
+remembers that because he likes to come to this Outside Inn
+restaurant, where the cooking is so good. He brought me here to-day
+because it was my birthday. I think the cooking is very good except
+that I was so sick of eating it, but father swore to-day that it was
+not."
+
+"Swore?"
+
+"He said damn. That is not very bad swearing. I think _nom de Dieu_ is
+worse, don't you, Miss Dear?"
+
+"I'm going to take you up in my arms," said Nancy with sudden passion.
+"I want to feel how thin you are, and I want to feel how you--feel."
+
+"Why, your eyes are wetting," the little girl exclaimed as she nestled
+contentedly against Nancy's breast, where Nancy had gathered her,
+converted table-cloth and all.
+
+"It's your not having enough to eat," Nancy cried. "Oh! baby child,
+honey. How could they? It's your calling me Miss Dear, too," she said.
+"I--I can't stand the combination."
+
+The child patted her cheek consolingly.
+
+"Don't cry," she said; "my father cries because I get so hungry, when
+he forgets, but he does forget again as soon."
+
+"Would you like to come and live with me, Sheila?" Nancy asked.
+
+"I think so, Miss Dear."
+
+"Then you shall," Nancy said devoutly.
+
+Collier Pratt found his child in Nancy's arms when he again mounted
+the stairs to the third floor of Outside Inn. The place was curiously
+cool to one who had been walking the sun-baked streets, and he gave an
+appreciative glance at the dim interior and the tableau of woman and
+child. Nancy's burnished head bent gravely over the shadowy dark one
+resting against her bosom.
+
+"All right again, is she?" he inquired with the slow rare smile that
+Nancy had not seen before that day.
+
+"Yes," Nancy said, "she's better. She's under-nourished, that's what
+the trouble is."
+
+"I suspected that," Collier Pratt said ruefully. "I'm not specially
+talented as a parent. I feed her passionately for days, and then I
+stop feeding her almost entirely. Artists in my circumstances eat
+sketchily at best. The only reason that I am fed with any regularity
+is that I have the habit of coming to this restaurant of yours. By the
+way, is it yours? I found you in charge to-day to my amazement."
+
+"I am in charge to-day," Nancy acknowledged; "in fact I have taken
+over the management of it for--for a friend."
+
+"The mysterious philanthropist."
+
+"Ye-es."
+
+"Then I will refrain from any comment on the lunch to-day."
+
+"Oh! that--that was a mistake," Nancy cried, "an experiment. Gaspard
+the _chef_--was ill."
+
+"He was very ill, father, dear," Sheila added gravely, "like crossing
+the Channel, much sicker than I was. I was only sick like crossing the
+ocean, you know."
+
+"These fine distinctions," Collier Pratt said, "she's much given to
+them." His eyes narrowed as they rested again on the picture Nancy
+made--the cool curve of her bent neck, the rise and fall of the
+breast in which the breathing had quickened perceptibly since his
+coming,--the child swathed in the long folds of white linen outlined
+against the Madonna blue of the dress that she was wearing. Nancy
+blushed under the intentness of his gaze, understanding, thanks to
+Caroline's report of his conversation with Betty, something of
+what was in his mind about her.
+
+"Gaspard is going to be taken away in an ambulance," the child said,
+"to the hospital."
+
+"Then who is going to cook my dinner?" Collier Pratt asked.
+
+"Good lord, I don't know," Nancy cried, roused to her responsibilities.
+
+She looked at the watch on her wrist, a platinum bracelet affair with
+an octagonal face that Dick had persuaded her to accept for a
+Christmas present by giving one exactly like it to Betty and Caroline.
+It was twenty-five minutes of five. Dinner was served every night
+promptly at half past six, and there was absolutely no preparation
+made for it, not so much as a loaf of bread ordered. Instead of doing
+the usual marketing in the morning she had sent Michael out for the
+things that she needed in the preparation of luncheon, and planned to
+make up a list of things that she needed for dinner just as soon as
+her midday duties in the kitchen had set her free. She thought that
+she would be more like Gaspard, "inspired to buy what is right" if she
+waited until the success of her luncheon had been assured. The ensuing
+events had driven the affairs of her cuisine entirely out of her mind.
+She was constrained by her native tendency to concentrate on the
+business in hand to the exclusion of all other matters, big and
+little. She had dismissed Betty during the excitement that followed
+Sheila's illness, and Betty had seemed unnaturally willing to leave
+the hectic scene and go about her business. Michael had made several
+ineffectual attempts to speak to her, but she had waved him away
+impatiently. She knew that neither he nor any one else on the
+restaurant staff would believe that she hadn't made some adequate and
+mysterious provision for the serving of the night meal. She had never
+failed before in the smallest detail of executive policy. She set the
+child back upon the cushion, and arranged her perfunctorily in
+position there.
+
+"I don't know _what_ you are going to have for dinner," she said,
+"much less who's going to cook it for you."
+
+"Perhaps I had better arrange to have it elsewhere, since this seems
+to be literally the cook's day out."
+
+"There'll be dinner," said Nancy uncertainly.
+
+Dick came up the stairs three at a time, and in his wake she heard the
+murmur of women's voices--Caroline's and Betty's.
+
+"I heard you were in difficulties," Dick said, "so I made Sister Betty
+and Caroline give up their perfectly good trip into the country, in
+order to come around and mix in."
+
+"I didn't know Betty was going driving with you," Nancy said. "She
+didn't say so. Oh! Dick, there isn't any dinner. I forgot all about
+it. This is Mr. Collier Pratt and his little daughter,--Mr. Richard
+Thorndyke. She's coming to live with me soon, I hope, and let Hitty
+take care of her."
+
+The two men shook hands.
+
+"Hold on a minute," Dick said, "that paragraph is replete with
+interest, but I want to get it assimilated. Sure, Betty was going
+driving with me. I told her to ask you if she thought it would be any
+use, but she allowed it wouldn't. I am delighted to meet Mr. Pratt,
+and pleased to know that his daughter is coming to live with you, but
+isn't that rather sudden? Also, what's this about there not being any
+dinner?"
+
+"There isn't," Nancy was beginning, when she realized that Caroline
+and Betty, who had followed closely on Dick's footsteps, were looking
+at her with faces pale with consternation and alarm. She could see the
+anticipatory collapse of Outside Inn writ large on Caroline's
+expressive countenance. Caroline was the type of girl who believed
+that in the very nature of things the undertakings of her most
+intimate friends were doomed to failure. "There isn't any dinner yet,"
+Nancy corrected herself, "but you go up to my place, Dick, and get
+Hitty. Tell her she's got to cook dinner for this restaurant to-night.
+She can cook three courses of anything she likes, and have _carte
+blanche_ in the kitchen. You have more influence with her than
+anybody, so, no matter what she says, make her do it. Then when she
+decides what she wants to cook, drive her around until she collects
+her ingredients. She won't let anybody do the marketing for her."
+
+"All right," Dick said, "I'll do my best."
+
+"You'll have to do more than that," Betty laughed as he started off,
+"but you're perfectly capable of it. How do you do, Mr. Pratt? This is
+Miss Eustace, pale with apprehension about the way things are going,
+but still recognizable and answering to her name." Betty always
+enjoyed introducing Caroline with an audacious flourish, since
+Caroline always suffered so much in the process.
+
+"And this is little Miss Sheila Pratt," Nancy supplemented.
+
+"_Enchante_," the little girl said, "I mean, I am very pleased to meet
+you. I was very sick, but I am better now, and I am going to live with
+Miss Dear."
+
+"It seems to be settled," her father said, shrugging.
+
+"Would you mind it so very much?" Nancy asked.
+
+"I wouldn't mind it at all," Collier Pratt said. "I think it would be
+a delightful arrangement,--if I'm to take you seriously."
+
+"Nancy is always to be taken seriously," Betty put in. "What she
+really wants of the child is to use her for dietetic experiment, I'm
+sure."
+
+"That's what she's used to, poor child," Collier Pratt said ruefully.
+
+The removal of Gaspard created a diversion. Nancy took Sheila in to
+bid him good-by, and the great creature was so touched by the farewell
+kiss that she imprinted on his forehead, and the revelation of the
+fact that a fellow being had been suffering kindred throes in the
+chamber just beyond his own that he was of two minds about letting
+himself be moved at all from her proximity. A group of waitresses
+collected on the second landing, and Nancy and her friends stood
+together at the head of the stairs while the white-coated intern from
+the hospital rolled his great bulk upon a fragile-looking stretcher,
+and with the assistance of all the male talent in the establishment,
+managed to head him down the stairs, and so on across the court and
+into the waiting ambulance.
+
+Nancy's eyes filled with inexplicable tears, and she caught Collier
+Pratt regarding them with some amusement.
+
+"He's such a dear," she said somewhat irrelevantly. "I really didn't
+care whether he was sick or not this morning,--but you get so fond of
+people that are around all the time."
+
+"I don't," said Collier Pratt,--he spoke very lightly, but there was
+something in his tone that made Nancy want to turn and look at him
+intently. She seemed to see for the first time a shade of defiant
+cruelty in his face,--"I don't," he reiterated.
+
+"I do," Nancy repeated stubbornly, but as she met his slow smile, the
+slight impression of unpleasantness vanished.
+
+"We artists are selfish people," he said. "I'm going to run away now,
+and leave my daughter to cultivate your charming friends. Will you
+come and eat your dinner at my little table to-night, and talk,
+discuss this matter of her visit to you?"
+
+"I will if there is any dinner," Nancy said, putting out a throbbing
+hand to him.
+
+There was a dinner. It was Hitty's conception of an emergency
+meal--the kind of thing that her mother before her had prepared on
+wash-day when an unexpected relative alighted from the noon train, and
+surprised her into inadvertent hospitality. It began with steamed
+clams and melted butter sauce. Hitty knew a fish market where the
+clams were imported direct from Cape Cod by the nephew of a man who
+used to go to school with her husband's brother, and he warranted
+every clam she bought of him. They were served in soup plates and the
+drawn butter in demi-tasses, but Hitty would have it no other way. The
+_piece de resistance_ was ham and eggs, great fragrant crispy slices
+of ham browned faintly gold across their pinky surface, and
+eggs--Hitty knew where to get country eggs, too--so white, so
+golden-yolked, so tempting that it was difficult to associate them
+with the prosaic process of frying, but fried they were. With them
+were served boiled potatoes in their jackets,--no wash-day cook ever
+removed the peeling from an emergency potato,--and afterward a course
+of Hitty's famous huckleberry dumplings, the lightest, most ephemeral
+balls of dumplings that were ever dipped into the blue-black deeps of
+hot huckleberry--not blueberry, but country huckleberry--sauce.
+
+"Where's the coffee?" Nancy asked Dolly miserably, when the
+humiliating meal was drawing to its close.
+
+"She won't make coffee," Dolly whispered; "she says it will keep
+everybody awake, and they're much better off without it, but Miss
+Betty, she's watching her chance, and she's making it."
+
+Collier Pratt had received each course in silence, but had eaten
+heartily of the food that was set before him.
+
+"I suppose he was hungry enough to eat anything," Nancy thought; "the
+lunch was humiliating enough, but this surpasses anything I dreamed
+of."
+
+She had given up trying to estimate the calories that each man was
+likely to average in partaking of Hitty's menu. She noticed that a
+great many of her patrons had taken second helpings, and that threw
+her out in her calculation of quantities, while the relative
+digestibility of the protein and the fats in pork depend so much upon
+its preparation that she could not approximate the virtue of Hitty's
+bill of fare without consultation with Hitty.
+
+"That was a very excellent dinner," Collier Pratt broke through her
+painful reverie to make his pronouncement. "Astonishing, but very
+satisfactory. It reminds me of days on my grandfather's farm when I
+was a youngster."
+
+"I should think it might," Nancy said, for the first time in her
+relation with her new friend becoming ironical on her own account.
+Then she added seriously, "It's Hitty, you know, that will have all
+the real care of Sheila. I'm pretty busy down here, and I--" she
+hesitated, half expecting him to threaten to remove his child at once
+from the prospective guardianship of a creature who reverted so
+readily to the barbarism of ham and eggs.
+
+"Well, if it's Hitty that is to have the care of Sheila," Collier
+Pratt said, and Nancy was not longer puzzled as to which element of
+her parentage Sheila owed her Irish complexion, "why, more power to
+her!"
+
+Nancy dreamed that night that she was married to Dick, and that Hitty
+made and served them _pate de foies gras_ dumplings, while Collier
+Pratt in freckles and overalls sat in a high chair, and had his dinner
+with the family. Later it was discovered that Betty had poisoned his
+bread and milk, and he died in Nancy's arms in dreadful agony,
+swearing in a beautiful Irish brogue that in all his life he had never
+looked at another woman,--which even in her dream seemed to Nancy a
+somewhat irreconcilable statement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE PORTRAIT
+
+
+To Nancy's surprise Hitty welcomed the little girl warmly, when she
+was introduced into the family circle. She liked to be busy all day,
+and her duties in taking care of Nancy were not onerous enough to keep
+her full energy employed. She liked children and family life, and she
+seemed to have the feeling that if Nancy continued to assemble the
+various parts that go to make up a family, she would end by adding to
+it the essential masculine element, though it was Dick and not Collier
+Pratt that she visualized at the head of the table cutting up Sheila's
+meat for her. Collier Pratt was to her a necessary but insignificant
+detail in Nancy's scheme of things, a poor artist who had "frittered
+away so much time in furrin parts" that he was incapable of supporting
+his only child--"poor little motherless lamb!"--in anything like a
+befitting and adequate manner. Whenever he came to see Sheila she
+treated him with the condescension of a poor relation, and served his
+tea in the second best china with the kitchen silver and linen, unless
+Nancy caught her at it in time to demand the best.
+
+Nancy had expected that Collier Pratt would try to make some business
+arrangement with her when she took Sheila in charge,--that he would
+insist on paying her at least a nominal sum a week for the child's
+board. She had lain awake nights planning the conversations with him
+in which she would overcome his delicate but natural scruples in the
+matter and persuade him to her own way of thinking. She had even fixed
+on the smallest sum--two dollars and a half a week--at which she
+thought she might induce him to compromise, if all her eloquence
+failed. She knew that he considered her the hard working, paid manager
+of Outside Inn, and took it for granted that she had no other source
+of income. She was a little disconcerted that he made no effort,
+beyond thanking her sincerely and simply for her kindness, to put the
+matter on a more concrete basis, but when he told her presently that
+he was going to do a portrait of her, she scourged herself for her New
+England perspective on an affair that he handled with so much
+delicacy.
+
+Her friends were, on the whole, pleased with her experiment in
+vicarious motherhood. Dick instinctively resented the fact that Nancy
+had taken Collier Pratt's daughter into her home and heart, but the
+child herself was a delight to him, and he spent hours romping with
+her and telling her stories, loading her with toys and sweetmeats, and
+taking her off for enchanting holiday excursions "over the Palisades
+and far away." Billy was hardly less diverted with her, and Betty
+regarded her advent as a provision on the part of Providence against
+things becoming too commonplace. Caroline, as was her wont, took the
+child very seriously, and tried to interest Nancy in all the latest
+educational theories for her development, including posture dancing,
+and potato raising.
+
+Nancy herself had loved the child from the moment the big lustrous
+gray eyes opened, on the day of her sudden illness at Outside Inn, and
+looked confidingly up into hers. For the first time in her life her
+maternal ardor--the instinct which made her yearn to nourish and
+minister to a race--had concentrated on a single human being. Sheila,
+hungry for mothering, had turned to her with the simplicity of the
+people among whom she had been brought up, taking her sympathetic
+response as a matter of course; and the two were soon on the closest,
+most affectionate terms.
+
+Sheila and Outside Inn divided Nancy's time to the practical exclusion
+of all other interests. She had, without realizing her processes,
+taken into her life artificial responsibilities in almost exact
+proportion to the normal ones of any woman who makes the choice of
+marriage rather than that of a career. She was doing housekeeping on a
+large scale,--she had a child to care for, and she felt that she had
+entirely disproved any lingering feeling in the mind of any one
+associated with her that she ought to marry,--at least that she ought
+to marry Dick.
+
+No woman ought to marry for the sake of marrying, but she was growing
+to understand now that the experiences of love and marriage might be
+necessary to the true development of a woman like herself; that there
+might even be some tragedy in missing them. She was twenty-five,
+practically alone in the world, and the growing passion of her life
+was for a child that she had borrowed, and might be constrained to
+relinquish at any moment.
+
+She was tired. The unaccustomed confinement of the long hours at the
+Inn, the strain of enduring the thick, almost unalleviated heat of an
+exceptionally humid New York summer, and the tension engendered by her
+various executive responsibilities, all told on her physically, and
+her physical condition in its turn reacted on her mind, till she was
+conscious of a nostalgia,--a yearning and a hunger for something that
+she could not understand or name, but that was none the less
+irresistible. She fell into strange moods of brooding and lassitude;
+but there were two connections in which her spirit and ambition never
+failed her. She never failed of interest in the distribution of food
+values to her unconscious patrons, and incidentally to Collier Pratt,
+or in directing the activities and diversions of Sheila.
+
+She bathed and dressed the child with her own hands every morning,
+combed out the cloudy black hair, fine spun and wavy, that framed the
+delicate face, and accentuated the dazzling white and pink of her
+coloring. She had bought her a complete new wardrobe--she was spending
+money freely now on every one but herself--venturing on one dress at a
+time in fear and trepidation lest Collier Pratt should suddenly call
+her to account for her interference with his rights as a parent, but
+he seemed entirely oblivious of the fact that Sheila had changed her
+shabby studio black for the most cobwebby of muslins and linens,
+frocks that by virtue of their exquisite fineness cost Nancy
+considerably more than her own.
+
+"I say to my father, 'See the pretty new gown that Miss Dear bought
+for me,' and my father says to me, 'Comb your hair straight back from
+your brow, and don't let your arms dangle from your shoulders.'"
+Sheila complained, "He sees so hard the little things that nobody
+sees--and big things like a dress or a hat he does not notice."
+
+"Men are like that," Nancy said. "Last night when I put on my new
+rose-colored gown for the first time, your friend Monsieur Dick told
+me he had always liked that dress best of all."
+
+"_Comme il est drole_, Monsieur Dick," Sheila said; "he asked me to
+grow up and marry him some day. He said I should sit on a cushion and
+sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream--like
+the poetry."
+
+"And what did you say?" Nancy asked.
+
+"I said that I thought I should like to marry him if I ever got to be
+big enough,--but I was afraid I should not be bigger for a long time.
+Miss Betty said she would marry him if I was _trop petite_."
+
+"What did Dick say to that?" Nancy could not forbear asking.
+
+"He said she was very kind, and maybe the time might come when he
+would think seriously of her offer."
+
+There was a feeling in Nancy's breast as if her heart had suddenly got
+up and sat down again. Betty bore no remotest resemblance to the pale
+kind girl, practically devoid of feminine allure, that Nancy had
+visualized as the mate for Dick, and frequently exhorted him to go in
+search of.
+
+"Miss Betty was only making a joke," she told Sheila sharply.
+
+"We were all making jokes, Miss Dear," Sheila explained.
+
+"I have never loved any one in the world quite so much as I love you,
+Sheila," Nancy cried in sudden passion as the little girl turned her
+face up to be kissed, as she always did when the conversation puzzled
+her.
+
+"I like being loved," Sheila said, sighing happily. "My father loves
+me,--when he is not painting or eating. He is very good to me, I
+think."
+
+"Your father is a very wise man, Sheila," Nancy said, "he understands
+beautiful things that other people don't know anything about. He looks
+at a flower and knows all about it, and--and what it needs to make it
+flourish. He looks at people that way, too."
+
+"But he doesn't always have time to get the flower what it wants,"
+Sheila said; "my jessamine died in Paris because he forgot to water
+them."
+
+"Your father needs taking care of himself, Sheila. We must plan ways
+of trying to make him more comfortable. Don't you think of something
+that he needs that we could get for him?"
+
+"More socks--he would like," Sheila said unexpectedly. "When his socks
+get holes in them he will not wear them. He stops whatever he is doing
+to mend them, and the mends hurt him. He mends my stockings, too,
+sometimes, but I like better the holes especially when he mends them
+on my feet."
+
+Sheila could have presented no more appealing picture of her father to
+Nancy's vivid imagination. Collier Pratt with the incongruous sewing
+equipment of the unaccustomed male, using, more than likely, black
+darning cotton on a white sock--Nancy's mental pictures were always
+full of the most realistic detail--bent tediously over a child's
+stocking, while the precious sunlight was streaming unheeded upon the
+waiting canvas. She darned very badly herself, but the desire was not
+less strong in her to take from him all these preposterous and
+unbefitting tasks, and execute them with her own hands. She stared at
+the child fixedly.
+
+"You buy him some socks out of your allowance," she said at last. Then
+she added an anxious and inadequate "Oh, dear!"
+
+"Aren't you happy?" Sheila asked in unconscious imitation of Dick,
+with whom she had been spending most of her time for days, while Nancy
+superintended the additions and improvements she was making in the
+up-stairs quarters of her Inn, preparatory to moving in for the
+winter.
+
+"Yes, I'm happy," Nancy said, "but I'm sort of--stirred, too. I wish
+you were my own little girl, Sheila. I think I'll take you with me to
+the Inn to-day. You might melt and trickle away if I left you alone
+here with Hitty."
+
+"_Quelle joie!_ I mean, how nice that will be! Then I can talk about
+Paris to Gaspard, and he will give me some baba, with a _soupcon of
+maraschine_ in the sauce, if you will tell him that I may, Miss Dear."
+
+"I'll think about it." It was Nancy's dearest privilege to be asked
+and grant permission for such indulgences. "Put on that floppy white
+hat with the yellow ribbon, and take your white coat."
+
+"When I had only one dress to wear I suppose I got just as dirty,"
+Sheila reflected, "only it didn't show on black satin. Now I can tell
+just how dirty I am by looking. I make lots of washing, Miss Dear."
+
+"Yes, thank heaven," Nancy said, unaccountably tearful of a sudden.
+
+The first part of the day at the Inn went much like other days.
+Gaspard, eager to retrieve the record of the week when Hitty and a
+Viennese pastry cook had divided the honors of preparing the daily
+menus between them--for Nancy had never again attempted the
+feat--never let a day go by without making a new _plat de jour_ or
+inventing a sauce; was in the throes of composing a new casserole, and
+it was a pleasure to watch him deftly sifting and sorting his
+ingredients, his artist's eyes aglow with the inward fire of
+inspiration. Nancy called all the waitresses together and offered
+them certain prizes and rewards for all the buttermilk, and prunes
+and other health dishes that they were able to distribute among
+ailing patrons,--with the result they were over assiduous at the
+luncheon hour, and a red-headed young man with gold teeth made a
+disturbance that it took both Hilda and Michael, who appeared
+suddenly in his overalls from the upper regions where he was
+constructing window-boxes, to quell. But these incidents were not
+sufficiently significant to make the day in any way a memorable
+one to Nancy. It took a telephone message from Collier Pratt,
+requesting, nay demanding, her presence in his studio for the first
+sitting on her portrait, to make the day stand out upon her calendar.
+
+"Sheila is with me. Shall I bring her?" Nancy asked.
+
+"No," Collier Pratt said uncompromisingly, "I am not a parent at this
+hour. She would disturb me."
+
+"What shall I wear?"
+
+"What have you got on?"
+
+"That blue crepe, made surplice,--the one you liked the other night."
+
+"That's just what I want--Madonna blue. Can you get down here in
+fifteen minutes?"
+
+"Yes, I'll send Michael up-town with Sheila."
+
+The bare, ramshackle studio on Washington Square shocked her,--it was
+so comfortless, so dingy; but the canvases on the walls, set up
+against the wainscoting, stacked on every available chair, gave her a
+new and almost appalling impression of his personality, and the
+peculiar poignant power of him. She could not appraise them, or get
+any real sense of their quality apart from the astounding revelation
+of the man behind the work.
+
+"They're wonderful!" she gasped, but "You're wonderful" were the words
+she stifled on her lips.
+
+He painted till the light failed him.
+
+"It's this diffused glow,--this gentle, faded afternoon light that I
+want," he said. "I want you to emerge from your background as if you
+had bloomed out of it that very moment. Oh! I've got you at your hour,
+you know! The prescient maternal--that's what I want. The conscious
+moment when a woman becomes aware that she is potentially a mother.
+Sheila's done that for you. She's brought it out in you. It was ready,
+it was waiting there before, but now it's come. It's wonderful!"
+
+"Yes," Nancy said, "it's--it's come."
+
+"It hasn't been done, you know. It's a modern conception, of course;
+but they all do the thing realized, or incipient. I want to do it
+_implicit_--that's what I want. I might have searched the whole world
+over and not found it."
+
+"Well, here I am," said Nancy faintly.
+
+"Yes, here you are," Collier Pratt responded out of the fervor of his
+artist's absorption.
+
+"It's rather a personal matter to me," Nancy ventured some seconds
+later.
+
+Collier Pratt turned from the canvas he was contemplating, and looked
+at her, still posed as he had placed her, upright, yet relaxed in the
+scooped chair that held her without constraining her.
+
+"Like a flower in a vase," he said; "to me you're a wonderful
+creature."
+
+"I'm glad you like me," Nancy said, quivering a little. "This is a
+rather uncommon experience to me, you know, being looked at so
+impersonally. Now please don't say that I'm being American."
+
+"But, good God! I don't look at you impersonally."
+
+"Don't you?" Nancy meant her voice to be light, and she was appalled
+to hear the quaver in it.
+
+"You know I don't." He glanced toward a dun-colored curtain evidently
+concealing shelves and dishes. "Let's have some tea."
+
+"I can't stay for tea." Nancy felt her lips begin to quiver
+childishly, but she could not control their trembling. "Oh! I had
+better go," she said.
+
+Collier Pratt took one step toward her. Then he turned toward the
+canvas. Nancy read his mind like a flash.
+
+"You're afraid you'll disturb the--what you want to paint," she said
+accusingly.
+
+"I am." He smiled his sweet slow smile, then he took her stiff
+interlaced hands and raised them, still locked together, to his lips
+where he kissed them gently, one after the other. "Will you forgive
+me?" he asked, and pushed her gently outside of his studio door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BILLY AND CAROLINE
+
+
+It was one night in middle October when Billy and Caroline met by
+accident on Thirty-fourth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
+Caroline stood looking into a drug-store window where an automatic
+mannikin was shaving himself with a patent safety razor.
+
+"There's a wax feller going to bed in an automatic folding settee, a
+little farther down the street," Billy offered gravely at her elbow;
+"and on Forty-second Street there is a real live duck pond advertising
+the advantages of electric heaters in the home."
+
+"H'lo," said Caroline, who was colloquial only in moments of real
+pleasure or excitement. "I've just written to you. I asked you to come
+and see me to-morrow evening," she added more seriously, "to talk
+about something that's weighing on my mind."
+
+"I'm going out with a blonde to-morrow, night," Billy said speciously,
+"but what's the matter with to-night? I'm free until six-fifty A. M.
+and I could spare an hour or two between then and breakfast time."
+
+"I can't to-night," Caroline said, "I promised Nancy to dine at the
+Inn."
+
+"That wasn't your line at all," Billy groaned. "Who's the blonde?--that
+was your cue. If it's only Nancy you're dining with--that can be
+fixed."
+
+"I regard an engagement with Nancy as just as sacred as--"
+
+"So do I," Billy cut in. "She is the blonde. Well, let to-morrow night
+be as it may; let's you and I call up the Nancy girl now and tell her
+that we're going batting together; she won't care."
+
+"I don't like doing that," Caroline said; "it's a nice night for a
+bat, though."
+
+"I walked down Murray Hill and saw the sun set in a nice pinky gold
+setting," Billy said artfully. Caroline liked to have him get an
+artistic perspective on New York. "Let's walk down the avenue to the
+Cafe des Artistes and have Emince Bernard, and a long wide high, tall
+drink of--ginger ale," he finished lamely.
+
+"We'd have to telephone Nancy," Caroline hesitated.
+
+Billy took her by the arm and guided her into the interior of the
+drug-store to the side aisle where the telephones were, and stepped
+into the first empty booth that offered. Caroline stopped him firmly
+as he was about to shut himself inside.
+
+"I'd rather hear what you say," she said.
+
+Billy slipped his nickel in the slot and took up the receiver.
+
+"Madison Square 3403 doesn't answer," Central informed him crisply
+after an interval.
+
+"Oh! Nancy, dear," Billy replied softly into her astonished ear.
+"Caroline and I are going off by ourselves to-night, you don't care,
+do you?"
+
+"Ringing thr-r-ree-four-o-thr-r-ee, Madison Square."
+
+"That's nice of you," Billy responded heartily. "I thought you'd say
+that."
+
+"Madison Square thr-r-ree-four-o-t-h-r-r-ree doesn't answer. Hang up
+your receiver and I'll call you if I get the party."
+
+"Of course I will. You're always so tactful in the way you put things,
+always so generous and kind and thoughtful. I can't tell you how much
+I appreciate it."
+
+"What did Nancy say?" Caroline asked, as they turned away from the
+booth.
+
+"You heard my end of the conversation," Billy said blandly. "You can
+deduce hers from it."
+
+"There was something about your end of the conversation that sounded
+queer to me somehow. It was odd that Central should have returned your
+nickel to you after you had talked so long."
+
+"Yes, wasn't it?" Billy asked innocently. "Well, I suppose mistakes
+will happen in the best regulated telephone companies."
+
+"I like you," Billy said contentedly, as the lights of the avenue
+strung themselves out before them. "I like walking down this royal
+thoroughfare with you. You're a kind of a neutral girl, but I like
+you."
+
+"You're a kind of ridiculous boy."
+
+"Don't you like me a little bit?"
+
+"Yes, a little."
+
+"What did you get engaged to me for if you only like me a little?"
+
+"Ought not to be engaged to you. That's one of the things I want to
+talk to you about."
+
+"Well, you are engaged to me, and that's one of the things I don't
+care to discuss--even with you."
+
+"Oh! Billy," Caroline sighed, "why can't we be just good friends and
+see a good deal of each other without this perpetual argument about
+getting married?"
+
+"I don't know why we can't, but we can't," Billy said firmly. "What
+was the other thing you wanted to talk to me about?"
+
+"Nancy's affairs. The reckless--the criminal way she is running that
+restaurant, and the unthinkable expenditure of money involved. I can't
+sleep at night thinking of it."
+
+"And I thought this was going to be a pleasant evening," Billy cried
+to the stars.
+
+"I wish you'd be serious about this," Caroline said. "Nancy's the best
+friend I have in the world, and she doesn't seem to be quite right in
+her mind, Billy. Of course, I approve of a good part of her scheme. I
+believe that she can be of incalculable value as a pioneer in an
+enterprise of this sort. Her restaurant is based on a strictly
+scientific theory, and every person who patronizes it gets a balanced
+ration, if he has the good sense to eat it as it's served."
+
+"And not leave any protein on his plate," Billy murmured.
+
+"I don't even mind the slight extra expenditure and the deficit that
+is bound to follow her theory of stuffing all her subnormal patrons
+with additional nourishment. That is charity. I believe in devoting a
+certain amount of one's income to charity, but what I mind about the
+whole proceeding is the crazy way that Nancy is running it. She's not
+even trying to break even. She orders all the delicacies of the
+season--no matter what they are. She's paid an incredible amount for
+the new set of carved chairs she has bought for up-stairs. You'd think
+she had an unlimited fortune behind her, instead of being in a
+position where the sheriff may walk in upon her any day."
+
+"Handy men to have around the house,--sheriffs. I knew a deputy
+sheriff once that helped the lady of the house do a baby wash while he
+was standing around in charge of the place. All the servants had
+deserted, and--"
+
+"You pretend to be Nancy's friend, and you're the only thing remotely
+approaching a lawyer that she has, and yet you can shake with joy at
+the thought of her going into bankruptcy."
+
+"That isn't what I'm shaking with joy about."
+
+"Nancy must have spent at least twice the amount of her original
+investment."
+
+"Just about," Billy agreed cheerfully.
+
+Caroline turned large reproachful eyes on him.
+
+"Billy, how can you?"
+
+"Listen to me, Caroline, honey love, it will be all right. Nancy isn't
+so crazy as she seems. She is running wild a little, I admit, but
+there's no danger of the sheriff or any other disaster. She knows what
+she's doing, and she's playing safe, though I admit it's an
+extraordinary game."
+
+"She's unhappy," Caroline said. "You don't suppose she's going to
+marry Dick to get out of the scrape, and that she's suffering because
+she's had to make that compromise."
+
+"No, I don't," said Billy.
+
+"I can't imagine anything more dreadful than to give up your
+career--your independence because you were beaten before you could
+demonstrate it."
+
+"Let's go right in here," Billy said, guiding her by the arm through
+the door of the grill of the Cafe des Artistes which she was ignoring
+in her absorption.
+
+It was early but the place was already crowded with the assortment of
+upper cut Bohemians, Frenchmen, and other discriminating diners to
+whom the cafe owed its vogue. Billy and Caroline found a snowy table
+by the window, a table so small that it scarcely seemed to separate
+them.
+
+"If it's Dick that Nancy's depending on," Caroline shook out her
+mammoth napkin vigorously, "then I think the whole situation is
+dreadful."
+
+"I don't see why," Billy argued; "have him to fall back on--that's
+what men are for."
+
+"Your opinion of women, Billy Boynton, just about tallies with the
+most conservative estimate of the Middle Ages."
+
+"Charmed, I'm sure," he grinned, then his evil genius prompting, he
+continued. "Isn't that just about what you have me for--to fall back
+on? You're fond of me. You know I'll be there if the bottom drops out.
+You're sure of me, and you're holding me in reserve against the time
+when you feel like concentrating your attention on me."
+
+"Is that what you think?"
+
+"Sure, it's the way it is. If I haven't got any kick coming I don't
+see why you should have any. You're worth it to me. That's the
+point."
+
+Caroline opened her lips to speak, and then thought better of it. The
+dangerous glint in her pellucid hazel eyes was lost on Billy. He was
+watching the clear cool curve of her cheek, the smooth brown hair
+brushed up from the temple, and tucked away under the smart folds of a
+premature velvet turban.
+
+"I like those mouse-colored clothes of yours," he said contentedly.
+
+"I think the only reason a woman should marry a man is that
+she--she--"
+
+"Likes him?" Billy suggested.
+
+"No, that she can be of more use in the world married than single. She
+can't be that unless she's going to marry a man who is entirely in
+sympathy with her point of view."
+
+"That I know to be unsound," Billy said. "Caroline, my love, this is a
+bat. Can't we let these matters of the mind rest for a little? See,
+I've ordered _Petite Marmite_, and afterward an artichoke, and all the
+nice fattening things that Nancy won't let me eat."
+
+"I wish you'd tell me about Nancy," Caroline said. "It makes a lot of
+difference. You haven't any idea how much difference it makes."
+
+"See the nice little brown pots with the soup in them," Billy implored
+her. "Cheese, too, all grated up so fine and white. Sprinkle it in
+like little snow-flakes."
+
+But in spite of all Billy's efforts the evening went wrong after that.
+Caroline was wrapped in a mantle of sorrowful meditation the opacity
+of which she was not willing to let Billy penetrate for a moment.
+After they had dined they took a taxi-cab up-town and danced for an
+hour on the smooth floor of one of the quieter hotels. Billy's dancing
+being of that light, sure, rhythmic quality that should have installed
+him irrevocably in the regard of any girl who had ever danced with a
+man who performed less admirably. Caroline liked to dance and fell in
+step with an unexpected docility, but even in his arms, dipping,
+pivoting, swaying to the curious syncopation of modern dance time, she
+was as remote and cool as a snow maiden.
+
+At the table on the edge of the dancing platform where they sat
+between dances, Billy pledged her in nineteen-four _Chablis Mouton_.
+
+"This is what you look like," he said, holding up his glass to the
+light, "or perhaps I ought to say what you act like,--clear, cold
+stuff,--lovely, but not very sweet."
+
+"If it's Dick,"--Caroline refused to be diverted--"Nancy is merely
+taking the easiest way out. Just getting married because she hasn't
+the courage to go through any other way. She and Dick have hardly a
+taste in common--they don't even read the same books."
+
+"What difference does that make?"
+
+"If you don't know I can't tell you. When you see somebody else in
+danger of following the same course of action that you, yourself, are
+pursuing," she added cryptically, "it puts a new face on your own
+affairs."
+
+"Oh! let's get out of here," Billy said, signaling for his check.
+
+Caroline lived, for the summer while her family were away, in an
+elaborate Madison Avenue boarding-house. The one big room into
+which the entrance gave, dim and palatial in effect--at least in
+the light of the single gas-jet turned economically low--seemed
+scarcely to present a departure from its prototype, the great
+living hall of the private residence for which the house was
+originally designed. It was only on the second floor that the
+character of the establishment became unmistakable. Billy took
+Caroline's latchkey from her,--she usually opened the door for
+herself--and let her quietly into the dim interior. Then he
+stepped inside himself, and closed the door gently after him.
+Being a man he entirely failed to note the drift of psychological
+straws that indicated the sudden sharp turn of the wind, and the
+presage of storm in the air. He was thinking only of the illusive,
+desirable, maddening quality of the girl that walked beside him,
+filled with inexplicable forebodings for a friend, whom he knew to
+be invulnerable to misfortune. Certain phrases of Dick's were ringing
+in his ears to the exclusion of all more immediate conversational
+fragments.
+
+"Cave-man stuff--that's the answer to you and Caroline.... This
+watchful waiting's entirely the wrong idea...."
+
+Billy made a great lunge toward the figure of his fiancee, and caught
+her in his arms.
+
+"I've never really kissed you before," he cried, "now I shan't let you
+go."
+
+She struggled in his arms, but he mastered her. He covered her cool
+brow with kisses, her hands, the lovely curve of her neck where the
+smooth hair turned upward, and at last--her lips.
+
+"You're mine, my girl," he exulted, "and nothing, nothing, nothing
+shall ever take you away from me now."
+
+There was a click in the latch of the door through which they had just
+entered. Another belated boarder was making his way into the domicile
+which he had chosen as a substitute for the sacred privacy of home.
+Caroline tore herself out of Billy's arms just in time to exchange
+greetings with the incoming guest with some pretense of composure. He
+was a fat man with an umbrella which clattered against the balusters
+as he ascended the carved staircase.
+
+"Caught with the goods," Billy tried to say through lips stiffened in
+an effort at control.
+
+Caroline turned on him, her face blazing with anger, the transfiguring
+white rage of the woman whose spiritual fastnesses have been invaded
+through the approach of the flesh.
+
+"There is no way of my ever forgiving you," she said. "No way of my
+ever tolerating you, or anything you stand for again. You are
+utterly--utterly--utterly detestable in my eyes."
+
+"Is--is that so?" Billy stammered, dizzied by the suddenness of the
+onslaught.
+
+"I--I've got some decent hold on my pride and self-respect--even if
+Nancy hasn't, and I'm not going to be subjugated like a cave woman by
+mere brute force either."
+
+"Aren't you?" said Billy weakly, his mind in a whirl still from the
+lightning-like overthrow of all his theories of action.
+
+"I'm not going to do what Nancy is going to do, just out of sheer
+temperamental weakness, and--and tendency to follow the line of least
+resistance."
+
+Billy had no idea of the significance of her last phrase, and let it
+go unheeded. Caroline turned and walked away from him, her head high.
+
+"But, good lord, Nancy isn't going to do it," he called after her
+retreating figure, but all the answer he got was the silken swish of
+her petticoat as she took the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MORE CAVE-MAN STUFF
+
+
+When Nancy left Collier Pratt's studio on the day of her first sitting
+for the portrait he was to do of her, she never expected to enter it
+again. She was in a panic of hurt pride and anger at his handling of
+the situation that had developed there, and in a passion of
+self-disgust that she had been responsible for it.
+
+It was a simple fact of her experience that the men she knew valued
+her favors, and exerted themselves to win them. She had always had
+plenty of suitors, or at least admirers who lacked only a few smiles
+of encouragement to make suitors of them, and she was accustomed to
+the consideration of the desirable woman, whose privilege it is to
+guide the conversation into personal channels, or gently deflect it
+therefrom. An encounter in which she could not find her poise was as
+new as it was bewildering to her.
+
+From the moment that she had begun to realize Collier Pratt's
+admiration for her she had scarcely given a thought to any other man.
+With the insight of the artist he had seen straight into the heart of
+Nancy's secret--the secret that she scarcely knew herself until he
+translated it for her, the most obvious secret that a prescient
+universe ever throbbed with,--that a woman is not fulfilled until she
+is a mate and a mother. The nebulous urge of her spirit had been
+formulated. In Nancy's world there was no abstract sentimentality--if
+this man indulged himself in emotional regret for her frustrated
+womanhood--she called it that to herself--it must in some way concern
+him. She had never in her life been troubled by a condition that she
+was not eager to ameliorate, and she could not conceive of an
+emotional interest in an individual disassociated from a certain
+responsibility for that individual's welfare. She took Collier Pratt's
+growing tenderness for her for granted, and dreamed exultant dreams of
+their romantic association.
+
+The scene in the studio had shocked her only because he put his art
+first. He had taken a lover's step toward her, and then glancing at
+the crudely splotched canvas from which his ideal of her was presently
+to emerge, he had thought better of it, soothing her with caresses as
+if she were a child, and like a child dismissing her. She felt that
+she never wanted to see again the man who could so confuse and
+humiliate her. But this mood did not last. As the days went on, and
+she feverishly recapitulated the circumstances of the episode, she
+began to feel that it was she who had failed to respond to the
+beautiful opportunity of that hour. She had inspired the soul of an
+artist with a great concept of womanhood, and had, in effect, demanded
+an immediate personal tribute from him. He had been wise to deflect
+the emotion that had sprung up within them both. After the picture was
+done--. She became eager to show him that she understood and wanted to
+help him conserve the impression of her from which his inspiration had
+come, and when he asked her to go to the studio again the following
+week she rejoiced that she had another chance to prove to him how
+simply she could behave in the matter.
+
+She looked in the mirror gravely every night after she had done her
+hair in the prescribed pig-tails to try to determine whether or not
+the look he had discovered in her face was still there,--the look of
+implicit maternity that she had been fortunate enough to reflect and
+symbolize for him,--but she was unable to come to any decision about
+it. Her face looked to her much as it had always looked--except that
+her brow and temples seemed to have become more transparent and the
+blue veins there seemed to be outlined with an even bluer brush than
+usual.
+
+She was busier than she had ever been in her life. The volume of her
+business was swelling. With the return of the native to the city of
+his adoption--there is no native New Yorker in the strict sense of the
+word--Outside Inn was besieged by clamorous patrons. Gaspard, with the
+adaptability of his race, had evolved what was practically a perfect
+system of presenting the balanced ration to an unconscious populace,
+and the populace was responding warmly to his treatment. It had taken
+him a little time to gauge the situation exactly, to adapt the supply
+to the idiosyncrasies of the composite demand, but once he had
+mastered his problem he dealt with it inspiredly. His southern
+inheritance made it possible for him to apprehend if he could not
+actually comprehend the taste of a people who did not want the flavor
+of nutmeg in their cauliflower, and who preferred cocoanut in their
+custard pie, and he realized that their education required all the
+diplomacy and skill at his command.
+
+Nancy found him unexpectedly intelligent about the use of her tables.
+He grasped the essential fact that the values of food changed in the
+process of cooking, and that it was necessary to Nancy's peace of mind
+to calculate the amount of water absorbed in preparing certain
+vegetables, and that the amount of butter and cream introduced in
+their preparation was an important factor in her analysis. He also
+nodded his head with evident appreciation when she discoursed to him
+of the optimum amount of protein as opposed to the actual requirements
+in calories of the average man, but she never quite knew whether the
+matter interested him, or his native politeness constrained him to
+listen to her smilingly as long as she might choose to claim his
+attention. But the fact remained that there was no such cooking in any
+restaurant in New York of high or low degree, as that which Gaspard
+provided, and as time went on, and he realized that expense was not a
+factor in Nancy's conception of a successfully conducted restaurant,
+the reputation of Outside Inn increased by leaps and bounds.
+
+To Nancy's friends--with the exception, of course, of Billy, who was
+in her confidence--the whole business became more and more puzzling.
+Caroline, her susceptibility to vicarious distress being augmented by
+the sensitiveness of her own emotional state, yearned and prayed over
+her alternately. Betty, avid of excitement, spent her days in the
+pleasurable anticipation of a dramatic bankruptcy. It was on Dick,
+however, that the actual strain came. He saw Nancy growing paler and
+more ethereal each day, on her feet from morning till night
+manipulating the affairs of an enterprise that seemed to be assuming
+more preposterous proportions every hour of its existence. He made
+surreptitious estimates of expenditures and suffered accordingly,
+approximating the economic unsoundness of the Inn by a very close
+figure, and still Nancy kept him at arm's length and flouted all his
+suggestions for easing, what seemed to him now, her desperate
+situation.
+
+He managed to pick her up in his car one day with Sheila, and
+persuaded her to a couple of hours in the open. She was on her way
+home from the Inn, and had meant to spend that time resting and
+dressing before she went back to consult with Gaspard concerning the
+night meal. She had no complaint to make now of the usurpation of her
+authority or the lack of actual executive service that was required of
+her. With the increase in the amount of business that the Inn was
+carrying she found that every particle of her energy was necessary to
+get through the work of the day.
+
+"I'm worried about you," Dick said, as they took the long ribbon of
+road that unfurled in the direction of Yonkers, and Nancy removed her
+hat to let the breeze cool her distracted brow. His man Williams, was
+driving.
+
+"Well, don't tell me so," she answered a trifle ungraciously.
+
+"Miss Dear is cross to-day," Sheila explained. "The milk did not come
+for Gaspard to make the poor people's custard, _creme renverse_, he
+makes--deliciously good, and we give it to the clerking girls."
+
+"The buttermilk cultures were bad," Nancy said. "And I wasn't able to
+get any of the preparations of it, that I can trust. There are one or
+two people that ought to have it every day and their complexions show
+it if they don't."
+
+"I suppose so," Dick said, with a grimace.
+
+"These people who have worked in New York all summer have run pretty
+close to their margin of energy. You've no idea what a difference a
+few calories make to them, or how closely I have to watch them, and
+when I have to substitute an article of diet for the thing they've
+been used to, it's awfully hard to get them to take it."
+
+"I should think it might be," Dick said. "It's true about people who
+have worked in New York all summer, though. I have--and you have."
+
+"Oh! I'm all right," Nancy said.
+
+"So am I," Sheila said, "and so is Monsieur Dick, _n'est-ce pas_?"
+
+"_Vraiment, Mademoiselle."_
+
+"Father isn't very right, though. Even when Miss Dear has all the
+beautiful things in the most beautiful colors in the world cooked for
+him and sent to him, he won't eat them unless she comes and sits
+beside him and begs him."
+
+"He's very fond of _sauce verte_," Nancy said hastily, "and _apricot
+mousse_ and _cepes et pimentos_, things that Gaspard can't make for
+the regular menu,--bright colored things that Sheila loves to look
+at."
+
+"He likes _petit pois avec laitue_ too and _haricot coupe_, and
+_artichaut mousselaine_. Sometimes when he does not want them Miss
+Dear eats them."
+
+"I'm glad they are diverted to some good use," Dick said.
+
+"I've been looking into the living conditions of my waitresses." Nancy
+changed the subject hastily. "Did you realize, Dick, that the
+waitresses have about the unfairest deal of any of the day laborers?
+They're not organized, you know. Their hours are interminable, the
+work intolerably hard, and the compensation entirely inadequate.
+Moreover, they don't last out for any length of time. I'm trying out a
+new scheme of very short shifts. Also, I'm having a certain sum of
+money paid over to them every month from my bank. If they don't know
+where it comes from it can't do them any harm. That is, I am not
+establishing a precedent for wages that they won't be able to earn
+elsewhere. I consider it immoral to do that."
+
+"You are paying them an additional sum of money out of your own
+pocket? You told me you paid them the maximum wage, anyhow, and they
+get lots of tips."
+
+"Oh! but that's not nearly enough."
+
+"Nancy," Dick said dramatically, "where do you get the money?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," Nancy said, "it comes along. The restaurant makes
+some."
+
+"Very little."
+
+"I could make it pay any time that I wanted to."
+
+"Sometimes I wonder if you are in full possession of your senses."
+
+"Caroline is affected that way, too. I feel that she is likely to get
+an alienist in at any time. She is so earnest in anything she
+undertakes. She and Billy have had a scrap, did you know it?"
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"Billy wants to marry her, and he has shocked her delicate feelings by
+suggesting it to her."
+
+"I imagine you have a good deal to do with her feelings on the
+subject," Dick said gloomily. "I suppose at heart you don't believe in
+marriage, or think you don't and you've communicated the poison to
+Caroline."
+
+"I've done nothing of the kind," Nancy insisted warmly. "I do believe
+in marriage with all my heart. I think the greatest service any woman
+can render her kind in this mix-up age is to marry one man and make
+that marriage work by taking proper scientific care of him and his
+children."
+
+"This is news to me," Dick said. "I thought that _you_ thought that
+the greatest service a woman could do was to run Outside Inn, and
+stuff all the derelicts with calories."
+
+"That's a service, too."
+
+"Sure."
+
+They were out beyond the stately decay of the up-town drive, with its
+crumbling mansions and the disheveled lawns surrounding them, beyond
+the view of the most picturesque river in the world, though,
+comparatively speaking, the least regarded, covering the prosaic
+stretch of dusty road between Van Courtland Park and the town of
+Yonkers.
+
+"I like the _Bois_ better," Sheila said, "but I like Central Park
+better than the _Champs Elysees_. In Paris the children are not so gay
+as the grown-up people. Here it is the grown-up people who are without
+smiles on the streets."
+
+"Why is that, Dick?" Nancy asked.
+
+"That's always true of the maturer races, the gaiety of the French is
+appreciative enthusiasm,--if I may invent a phrase. The children
+haven't developed it."
+
+"I would like to have my hand held, Monsieur Dick," Sheila announced.
+"I always feel homesick when I think about Paris. I was so contente
+and so _malheureuse_ there."
+
+"Why were you unhappy, sweetest?" Nancy asked.
+
+"My father says I am never to speak of those things, and so I
+don't--even to Miss Dear, my _bien aimee_."
+
+Dick lifted Sheila into his lap, he took the hand that still clung to
+Nancy's in his warm palm, and held them both there caressingly.
+
+"My _bien aimee_," he said softly.
+
+Beyond the town a more gracious and magnificent country revealed
+itself; lovely homes set high on sweeping terraces, private parks and
+gardens and luxuriant estates, all in a blaze of October radiance with
+the glorious pigments of the season.
+
+"Isn't it time to go back?" Nancy asked.
+
+"Not yet," Dick said. "I want to show you something. There's an old
+place here I want you to see. That colonial house set way back in the
+trees there."
+
+"Williams is driving in," Nancy said as they approached it.
+
+"He's been here before."
+
+"Are we going to get out?" Sheila asked.
+
+Dick was already opening the door of the tonneau and assisting Nancy
+out of the car.
+
+"I'm going to leave Sheila with Williams, and take you over the house,
+Nancy. She'll be more interested in the grounds than she would in the
+interior. I want you to see the inside."
+
+He took a key out of his pocket, and unlocked the stately door.
+Everything about the place was gigantic, stately,--the huge columns
+that supported the roof of the porch, the big elms that flanked it,
+and the great entrance hall, as they stepped into its majestic
+enclosure.
+
+"It's a biggish sort of place, isn't it?" Nancy said.
+
+"But it's rather lovely, don't you think so?" Dick asked anxiously.
+"These old places are getting increasingly hard to find,--real old
+homes, dignified and beautiful, within a reasonable distance from
+town."
+
+"It is lovely," Nancy said, "it could be made perfectly wonderful to
+live in. I can see this big hall--furnished in mahogany or even carved
+oak that was old enough. Thank heaven, we're no longer slaves to a
+_period_ in our decorating; we can use anything that's beautiful and
+suitable and not intrinsically incongruous with a clear conscience."
+
+"Come up-stairs."
+
+Nancy lingered on the landing of the fine old staircase, white
+banistered with a mahogany hand-rail, that turned only once before it
+led into the region up-stairs.
+
+"I'd rather see the kitchen," she said.
+
+"The kitchen isn't the thing that I'm proudest of. Its plumbing is
+early English, or Scottish, I'm afraid. I think this arrangement up
+here is delightful. See these front suites, one on either side of the
+hall. Bedroom, dressing-room, sitting-room. Which do you like best? I
+thought perhaps I might take the one that overlooks the orchard."
+
+Nancy stopped still on her way from window to window.
+
+"Dick Thorndyke, whose house _is_ this?" she demanded.
+
+"Mine."
+
+"Yours--have you bought it?"
+
+"Yes, I put the deed in my safe deposit vault yesterday. Come in
+here. Isn't this a cunning little guest chamber nested in the
+trees? Be becoming to Betty's style of beauty, wouldn't it?" He
+held the door open for her ingratiatingly, and she passed under
+his arm perfunctorily.
+
+"What on earth did you buy a house like this for?"
+
+"I thought you might like it."
+
+"I--what have I to do with it?"
+
+Dick turned the rusty key in the lock deliberately, and put it in his
+pocket, thus closing them into the little musty room which had no
+other exit. A branch of flaming maple leaves tapped lightly on the
+window.
+
+"You've a whole lot to do with it, Nancy," he said. "It's yours, and
+I'm yours, and I want to know how much longer you're going to hedge."
+
+"I'm not hedging," Nancy blazed. "Take that key out of your pocket.
+This is moving-picture stuff."
+
+"I know it is. I can't get you to talk to me any other way, so I
+thought I'd try main force for a change."
+
+"Well, it is a change," she agreed. "Shall I begin to scream now, or
+do you intend to give me some other provocation?"
+
+"Don't be coarse, darling." There is a certain disadvantage in having
+known the woman who is the object of your tenderest emotions all your
+life, and to be on terms of the most familiar badinage with her. Dick
+was feeling this disadvantage acutely at the moment. He took a step
+toward her, and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Nancy, don't you
+love me?" he said, "don't you really?"
+
+"No," Nancy said deliberately, "I don't, and you know very well I
+don't. Unlock that door, and let's be sensible."
+
+"Don't you know, dear, or care that you're hurting me?"
+
+"No, I don't," Nancy said. "You say so, and I hear you, but I don't
+really believe it. If I did--"
+
+"If you did--what?"
+
+"Then I'd be sorrier."
+
+"You aren't sorry at all, as it stands."
+
+"I find it's awfully hard to be sorry for you, Dick, in any
+connection. There's really nothing pathetic about you, no matter how
+tragic you think you are being. You're rich and lucky and healthy. You
+have everything you want--"
+
+"Not everything."
+
+"And you live the way you want to, and eat the food you want to--"
+
+"The ruling passion."
+
+"And make the jokes you want to." Nancy literally stuck up a saucy
+nose at him. "There is really nothing that I could contribute to your
+happiness. I mean nothing important. You are not a poor man whom I
+could help to work his way up to the top, or a genius that needs
+fostering, or a--"
+
+"Dyspeptic that needs putting on a special diet,--but for all that I
+do need a mother's love, Nancy."
+
+"I don't believe you do," Nancy said, a trifle absently. "Unlock the
+door, Dick. I don't think Sheila put on that sweater when I told her
+to, and I'm afraid she'll get cold."
+
+"Kiss me, Nancy."
+
+"Will you unlock the door if I do?"
+
+"Yes'um."
+
+Nancy put up cool fragrant lips to meet a brother's kiss, and for the
+moment was threatened with a second salute that was very much less
+fraternal, but the danger passed. Dick unlocked the door and let her
+pass him without protest.
+
+"If you had been any other girl," he mused, as they went down the
+stairs together companionably, "you wouldn't have got away with
+that."
+
+"With what?" Nancy asked innocently.
+
+"If you don't know," Dick said, "I won't tell you. If you'd been any
+other girl I should have thrown that key out of the window when you
+began to sass me."
+
+"And then?" Nancy inquired politely.
+
+"And then," Dick replied finally and firmly.
+
+"Are there any other girls?" Nancy asked, faintly curious, as they
+stood on the deep steps of the porch waiting for Sheila and Williams
+who were emerging from the middle entrance.
+
+Dick met her glance a little solemnly, and hesitated for a perceptible
+instant.
+
+"Are there, Dick?" she insisted.
+
+"Yes, dear," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE HAPPIEST DAY
+
+
+It was thoroughly characteristic of Nancy to turn her back on the most
+significant facts of her experience, and occupy herself exclusively
+with its by-products. She refused to consider herself as an heiress
+entitled to spend money lavishly for her own uses, but she squandered
+it on her pet enterprise. She dismissed the idea that Dick, whom she
+neglected to discourage as decisively as her growing interest in
+another man would seem to warrant, had bought a country estate for the
+sole purpose of ensconcing her there as mistress. She dreamed of
+Collier Pratt and his ideal of her, and presented herself punctually
+at his studio as a model for that ideal, while ignoring absolutely the
+fact that he was nearly a hundred dollars in debt to her for meals
+served at Outside Inn. She had sufficient logic and common sense to
+apply to these matters, and sufficient imagination to handle them
+sympathetically, had she chosen to consider them at all, but she did
+not choose. She was deep in the adventure of her existence as
+differentiated from its practical working out.
+
+The day Collier Pratt finished his portrait of her she was not alone
+in the studio with him. Sheila, in a fluffy white dress with a floppy
+black satin hat framing her poignant little face, was omnipresent at
+the interview which succeeded the actual two hours of absorption when
+he put in the last telling strokes.
+
+"It's done," he said, as he set aside pigments and brushes, and
+divested himself of his painting apron. "I don't want to look at it
+now. I've got it, but I can't stand the strain of contemplating it
+till my brain cools a trifle. Let's go out and celebrate."
+
+"Where shall we go?" Nancy said. This was the moment she had dreamed
+of for weeks, the hour of fruition when the work was done, and they
+could face each other, man and woman again with no strip of canvas
+between them.
+
+"The place I always go when I've finished a picture is a little cafe
+under the shadow of _Notre Dame_, where I get cakes and beer and an
+excellent perspective on all my favorite gargoyles."
+
+"And the little birds flutter in the sun, and eat my crumbs and the
+great music swells out while you ask the _garcon_ for another _bock_.
+Do you remember, father dear, the day that _she_ found us there?"
+
+"I remember only that you made yourself ill eating _Madelaines_ and
+had to be taken home _en voiture_," Collier Pratt said quickly. "We
+will go and have some coffee at the Cafe des Artistes, and discuss
+ships and shoes and sealing wax--anything but the art of painting."
+
+"And cabbages and kings," Sheila contributed ecstatically. "I used to
+think when I was a very little girl and couldn't read English very
+well that it was really Heaven where Alice went, and it made me sad to
+think she was dead and I didn't understand it, but now Miss Dear has
+explained to me."
+
+"Miss Dear has made a good many things clear to us both," Collier
+Pratt said, but he said no more that might be even remotely construed
+as referring to the issue between them, and Nancy finished out her day
+with dragging limbs and an aching empty heart that a word of
+tenderness would have filled to running over.
+
+But after her work for the day was done, and she was back in her own
+apartment with Sheila tucked snugly in bed, and Hitty out for the
+night with a sick friend, there came the touch on her bell that she
+knew was Collier Pratt's; and she opened the door to find him standing
+on her threshold.
+
+"I knew you'd come," she said, as women always say to the man they
+have that hour given up looking for.
+
+"I wasn't sure I would," Collier Pratt said, "but I did, you see."
+
+"Why weren't you sure?" She stood beside him in her little rectangular
+hall while he divested himself of his cape, and placed his hat, stick
+and gloves in orderly sequence on the oak settee beside it. She liked
+to watch the precision with which he always arranged these things.
+
+"Why should I be sure?" He turned and faced her. "Miss Dear," he said
+to himself softly, "Miss Dear," and she saw that in his eyes which
+made the moment simpler for her to bear.
+
+She led the way into her drawing-room.
+
+"Light the candles," he said, "this firelight is too good to drown in
+a flood of electric light!"
+
+"Is that better?" she asked.
+
+They were standing before the fireplace; the embers had burned to a
+gentle glowing radiance. Of the four candles she had lighted, the wick
+of only one had taken fire and was burning. Nancy's breath caught in
+her throat, and she could not steady it. Collier Pratt took a step
+forward and held out his arms.
+
+"No, this is better," he said.
+
+"I thought there was some place in the world where I could
+be--comfortable," Nancy said, when she finally lifted her head from
+the shoulder of the shabby, immaculate black suit, "but I wasn't quite
+sure."
+
+"Are you sure now, you little wonder woman?" He held her at the length
+of his arm for a moment and gazed curiously into her face. Then he
+drew her slowly toward him again. She met his kiss bravely, so bravely
+that he understood the quality of her courage.
+
+"I didn't realize that this would be the first time," he said.
+
+"There couldn't have been any other time," Nancy breathed, "you know
+that."
+
+"I didn't know," Collier Pratt said thoughtfully. "Oh! you little
+American girls, with your strange, straight-laced little bodies and
+your fearless souls!"
+
+"Betty told you something," Nancy cried, scarcely hearing him, "but it
+wasn't true. There never has been anybody else." She put her head down
+on his shoulder again. "It is comfortable here," she said, "where I
+belong."
+
+She felt the sudden passion sweep through him,--the high avid wave of
+tenderness and desire,--and she exulted as all purely innocent women
+exult when that madness surges first through the veins of the man they
+love. He put his hands on her shoulders and pressed her into the
+armchair by the fire, and there she took his head on her breast and
+understood for all time what it means for a woman to be called the
+mother of men.
+
+"You wonder woman," he murmured again.
+
+She brushed the dark hair back from his forehead and kissed his eyes.
+"You dear," she said, "you boy, you little boy."
+
+Suddenly through the darkness came the sound of a shrill cry, and the
+thud of a fall in some room down the corridor.
+
+"It's Sheila," Nancy said, "she has those little nightmares and falls
+out of bed."
+
+"I know she does," Collier Pratt said, "but she picks herself up
+again."
+
+"Not always," Nancy said; "don't you want to come in and help me put
+her back?"
+
+"I do not," Collier Pratt said with unnecessary emphasis.
+
+Nancy was of two minds about picking the child up in her little white
+night-gown and bringing her out to her father, flushed and lovely with
+sleep as she was. It was Collier Pratt's baby she had in her arms; her
+charge, the child she loved, and the child of the man she loved, a
+part of the miracle that was slowly revealing itself to her; but a
+sudden sharp instinct warned her that her impulse was ill-timed.
+
+"I had forgotten the child was here," Collier Pratt said when she
+returned to him.
+
+"I hadn't," Nancy said happily.
+
+"I suppose she has to be somewhere, poor little wretch," he said.
+"She's an extraordinarily picturesque baby, isn't she?"
+
+Nancy crept nearer to him. He stood leaning against the mantel and
+frowning slightly, but he made no move toward her again.
+
+"She doesn't have nightmares often now," Nancy said with stiffening
+lips. "She used to have them almost every night, but by watching her
+diet carefully we have practically eliminated them."
+
+"The Hitty person doesn't like me," Collier Pratt said. "_Pas du
+tout_. She treats me as if I were a book agent."
+
+"She loves Sheila, she--she'd do anything for her."
+
+"The women who do not find me attractive are likely to find me quite
+conspicuously otherwise, I am afraid." He had been carefully avoiding
+Nancy's eyes, but her little cry at this drew his gaze. She was
+standing before him, slowly blanching as if he had struck her,
+absolutely still except for the trembling of her lips.
+
+"What am I," he said, "to hold out against all the forces of the
+Universe? Do you love me, Nancy, do you love me?"
+
+"You know," she whispered, once more in the shelter of the shabby
+shoulder.
+
+"This is madness," he swore as he kissed her; "we're both out of our
+senses, Nancy; don't you know it?"
+
+"The picture is done, anyhow," she said. "I don't know how I can ever
+bear to look it in the face, but I shall have to."
+
+"It's the best work I've ever done," he said.
+
+"I don't look like it now, do I?"
+
+He held her off to see.
+
+"No, by jove, you don't. It's gone, now--just that thing I painted."
+
+"How do I look now?"
+
+"Much more commonplace from the point of view from which I painted
+you. Much more beautiful though,--much more beautiful."
+
+"I'm glad."
+
+"I might paint you again,--like this. No, I swear I won't. I got the
+thing itself down on canvas. I'll never try to paint you again."
+
+"Is--that flattering?"
+
+"Supremely."
+
+"When am I going to have my picture?" she asked after another
+interlude. "Do you want me to send for it?"
+
+"I can't give you the picture," he said. "I intended to if I had done
+merely a portrait, but I can't part with this. It has got to make my
+fame and fortune."
+
+"I thought I was to have it," Nancy said. "I--I--" then she felt she
+was being ungenerous, unworthy, "but I couldn't take it, of course,
+it's too valuable."
+
+"Please God."
+
+"It would be wonderful, wouldn't it, if my picture did make you
+famous!"
+
+"I think it will."
+
+"I'm nothing but a grubby little working girl, and you're a great
+artist,--and you love me."
+
+"You're not a grubby little working girl to me," he said, "you're a
+glorious creature--a wonder woman. I ought to go down on my knees to
+you for what you've given me in that picture."
+
+"In the picture?" Nancy said. "I love you. I love you. That wasn't in
+the picture--I kept it out."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I won't marry him until he is ready for me," she said to herself at
+one time during the night. She lay perfectly quiet till morning, her
+hands folded upon her breast, and her little girl pig-tails pulled
+down on either side of the coverlet, wide-eyed and tranquil. She could
+not bear to sleep and forget for a moment the beautiful thing that had
+happened to her between dawn and dawn. "I'll take care of him and
+Sheila, and nourish him, and help him to sell my picture. It isn't
+every woman who would understand his kind of loving, but I understand
+it."
+
+At eight o'clock Hitty came in to her, and roused her from the light
+drowse into which she had fallen at last.
+
+"You was crying in your sleep again," she said, "your cheeks is all
+wet. I heard you the minute I put my key into the latch. You're as bad
+as Sheila, only I expect she suffers from something laying hard on her
+stummick. It's always something on your mind that starts you in."
+
+"There's nothing on my mind, Hitty," Nancy said, sitting up in bed,
+"nothing but happiness, I mean. In some ways, Hitty dear, this is the
+happiest day that I've ever waked up to."
+
+"Well, then, there's other ways that it isn't," Hitty said, opening
+the door to stalk out majestically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+BETTY
+
+
+"There's a lady waiting to see you, sir," Dick's man servant informed
+him on his arrival at his apartment one evening when he had been
+dining at his club, and was putting in a leisurely appearance at his
+own place after his coffee and cigar.
+
+"A lady?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she has been here since nine. She says it's not important,
+but she insisted on waiting."
+
+"The deuce she did."
+
+Dick's quarters were not, strictly speaking, of the bachelor variety.
+That is, he had a suite in one of the older apartment houses in the
+fifties, a building that domiciled more families and middle-aged
+married couples than sprightly young single gentlemen. Dick had fallen
+heir to the establishment of an elderly uncle, who had furnished the
+place some time in the nineties and when he grew too decrepit to keep
+his foothold in New York had retired to the country, leaving Dick in
+possession. Even if Dick had been a conspicuously rakish young
+gentleman, which he was not, the traditional dignity of his
+surroundings would have certainly protected him from incongruous
+indiscretion in their vicinity.
+
+Betty rose composedly from the pompous red velour couch that ran along
+the wall under a portrait of a gentleman that looked like a Philip of
+Spain, but was really Dick's maternal great grandfather.
+
+"Why, Betty," Dick said, "this isn't _convenable_ unless you have a
+chaperon somewhere concealed. We don't do things like this."
+
+"I do," Betty said. "I wanted to see you, so I came. In these
+emancipated days ladies call upon their men friends if they like. It's
+archaic to prattle of chaperons."
+
+"Still we were all brought up in the fear of them."
+
+"Mine were brought up in the fear of me. I like this place, Dicky. Why
+don't you give us more parties in it? You haven't had a crowd here for
+months."
+
+"Everybody's so busy," Dick said, "we don't seem to get together any
+more. I'm willing to play host any time that the rest want to come."
+
+"You mean Nancy is so busy with her old Outside Inn."
+
+"You are busy there, too."
+
+"I'm not so busy that I wouldn't come here when I was asked, Dicky."
+
+"Or even when you weren't?" Dick's smile took the edge off his
+obviously inhospitable suggestion.
+
+"Or even when I wasn't," Betty said impudently. "Won't you sit down,
+Mr. Thorndyke?"
+
+"Can't I call you a cab, Miss Pope?"
+
+"I don't wish to go away."
+
+"Betty, be reasonable," Dick said, "it's after ten o'clock. It is not
+usual for me to receive young ladies alone here, and it looks badly. I
+don't care for myself, of course, but for you it looks badly."
+
+"If it's only for me--I don't care how it looks. Come and sit down
+beside me, and talk to me, Dicky, and I'll tell you really why I
+came."
+
+Dick folded his arms and looked down at her. Betty's piquant little
+face, olive tinted, and pure oval in contour, was turned up to him
+confidently; under the close seal turban the soft brown hair framed
+the childish face, while the big dark eyes danced with mischief. She
+patted the couch by her side invitingly.
+
+"I'll go away in fifteen minutes, Dicky dear. It certainly wouldn't
+look well if you put me out immediately, after all your establishment
+knowing that I waited here an hour for you."
+
+Dick took out his watch.
+
+"Fifteen minutes, then," he said. "What's your trouble, Betty?"
+
+"Well, it's a long sad story," she temporized. "Perhaps I had better
+not begin on it now that our time is so short. You wouldn't like to
+hold my hand, would you, Dicky?"
+
+"I'm not going to, at any rate."
+
+"I thought you'd say that," she sighed. "Have you seen Nancy lately?"
+
+"Yesterday."
+
+"She's looking better, don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Preston Eustace is back."
+
+"Is that so? I didn't know he was here yet. I knew he was coming."
+
+"He's to be here six months, or so."
+
+"Have you seen him?"
+
+"No, Caroline told me." Her voice was carefully steadied but Dick
+noticed for the first time the shadows etched under the big brown
+eyes, and the flush of excitement splotched high on her cheek-bones.
+She had been engaged to Preston Eustace for three months succeeding
+her twentieth birthday.
+
+"On second thoughts I think I will hold your hand, Betty," he said,
+covering that childlike member with his own rather brawny one. "You
+are not a very big little girl, are you, Betty?"
+
+"My mother used to tell me that I was a very destructive child."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if you were that yet."
+
+"Don't let's talk about me. Let's talk about you, Dicky."
+
+"About me?"
+
+"Yes, please. I think you're a very interesting subject."
+
+Having arrived at some conclusion concerning this unprecedented attack
+upon his privacy, Dick was disposed to be kind to his unexpected
+visitor. The fact that Preston Eustace was in town and Betty had not
+seen him shed an entirely new light on her recklessness. Like every
+other incident in Betty's history her love-affair had been very
+conspicuously featured.
+
+"The interesting things about me just at present are--" he was just
+about to say "six shirts of imported gingham" but he bethought himself
+that she would be certain to demand to see them, so he finished lamely
+with--"my game of golf, and my new dogs."
+
+"What kind of dogs?"
+
+"Belgian police dogs."
+
+"Where do you keep them?"
+
+"I haven't taken them over yet."
+
+"I heard that you had bought a place up in Westchester, but I asked
+Nancy, and she said she didn't know. I don't think Nancy appreciates
+you, Dick."
+
+"That so often happens."
+
+"I mean that seriously."
+
+"It's a serious matter--being appreciated. The only person who I ever
+thought really appreciated me was Billy's old aunt. Every time she saw
+me she used to say to me, 'You're such a clean-looking young man I
+can't take my eyes off you.'"
+
+"You _are_ clean-looking, and awfully good-looking too."
+
+"Do you mind if I smoke, Betty?" Dick carefully disengaged his hand
+from her clinging fingers, and a look of something like intelligence
+passed between them, before Betty turned her ingenuous child's stare
+on him again.
+
+"Not if you'll give me a cigarette, too."
+
+Dick fumbled through his pockets.
+
+"It's awfully stupid, but I haven't any about me," he said, fingering
+what he knew that she knew to be the well filled case he always
+carried in his inner pocket. He did not approve of women smoking.
+
+But "Poor Dicky!" was all she said.
+
+"Your fifteen minutes are up, Betty," he said presently, taking out
+his watch.
+
+"Well, I suppose I'll have to go then."
+
+Dick rose politely.
+
+"You really don't care whether I go or stay, do you?" she sighed.
+
+"I would rather have you go, Betty," he said gravely.
+
+Betty's eyes filled with sudden tears, that Dick to his surprise
+realized were genuine.
+
+"I wanted you to want me to stay," she said incoherently.
+
+"I suppose you're just a miserable little thing that doesn't want to
+be alone," he concluded. "Come, I'll take you home."
+
+The telephone bell on the table beside him rang sharply.
+
+"I'm just going out," he said to Billy, on the wire. "Betty is here
+with a fit of the blues. I'm going to take her home. Ride up with us,
+will you?"
+
+"He'll meet us down-stairs in ten minutes," he said. "I'll order a
+taxi."
+
+"I don't want to see Billy," Betty said rebelliously. She rose
+suddenly, pulling on her gloves, and took a step forward as if about
+to brush by him petulantly, but as she did so she staggered, put her
+hand to her eyes, and fell forward against his breast.
+
+Dick picked up the limp little body, and made his way to the couch
+where he deposited it gently among the stiff red pillows there. Then
+he began to chafe her hands, to push back the tumbled hair from which
+the fur hat had been displaced, and finally fallen off, and to call
+out her name remorsefully.
+
+"Betty, dear, dearest," he cried, "I didn't know, I didn't dream,--I
+thought you were just trying it on. I'm so sorry, dear, I am so
+sorry."
+
+She moaned softly, and he bent over her again more closely. Then he
+gathered her up in his arms.
+
+"Betty, dear, Betty," he said again.
+
+She opened her eyes. Her two soft arms stole up around his neck, and
+she lifted her lips.
+
+"You little devil," Dick cried, almost at the same instant that he
+kissed her.
+
+"She deserves to be spanked," he told Billy grimly at the door. "She
+got in my apartment when I was out, and insisted on staying there till
+I came in, to make me a visit."
+
+"He doesn't understand me," Betty complained, as she cuddled
+confidingly in the corner of the taxi-cab, "when I'm serious he
+doesn't realize or appreciate it, and he doesn't understand the nature
+of my practical jokes."
+
+"I don't like--practical jokes," Dick said. "Have you seen Preston
+Eustace, Billy?"
+
+"I haven't seen Caroline," Billy said, as if that disposed of all the
+interrogatory remarks that might be addressed to him in the present or
+the future.
+
+"It's a nice-looking river," Betty said, looking out at the softly
+gleaming surface of the Hudson, as their cab took the drive. "It looks
+strange to-night, though, laden with all kinds of queer little boats.
+I wonder how it would feel to be drifting down it, or up it, on a
+barque or a barkentine--I don't know what a barkentine is--all dead
+like Elaine or Ophelia,--with your hands neatly folded across your
+breast?"
+
+"For heaven sake's, Betty," Billy cried, "I don't like your style of
+conversation. I'm in a state of gloom myself, to-night."
+
+"I didn't say I was in a state of gloom," Betty said. They rode the
+rest of the way in silence, but when Dick got out of the cab to open
+her door for her, she whispered to him, "I'm awfully ashamed, Dick,"
+before she fled up-stairs through the darkened hallway of her own
+home.
+
+"Queer little thing,--Betty," Billy said as Dick stepped back to the
+cab again, "you never know where you have her. Full of the deuce as
+she can stick. Unscrupulous little rascal, too, but made of good
+stuff."
+
+"Don't you think so?" Billy inquired presently as Dick did not
+answer.
+
+"Think what?"
+
+"That Betty's a queer sort of girl."
+
+Dick took his pipe out of his pocket and began stuffing it full of
+tobacco. When this was satisfactorily accomplished, he struck a match
+on his boot heel, and lit the mixture, drawing at it critically
+meanwhile.
+
+"Damn' queer," he admitted, between puffs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CLOUDS OF GLORY
+
+
+Nancy, trailing clouds of glory, took up the management of her Inn
+with renewed vigor. She had found her touchstone. The flower of love,
+which she had scarcely understood to be indigenous to the soil of her
+own practical little garden, had suddenly lifted up its head there in
+fragrant, radiant bloom. She was so happy that she was impatient of
+all the inadequate, inefficient manipulation of affairs in the whole
+world. She felt strong and wise to put everything right in a neglected
+universe.
+
+She loved. She was satisfied to live in that love for the present,
+with no imagination of the future except as her lover should construct
+it for her; and in him she had absolute faith. The things that he had
+said or left unsaid had no significance to her. Before she had dreamed
+of a personal relation with him he had singled her out as a creature
+made for the consummation and fulfilment of the greatest passion of
+all. The merest suspicion that there had been a man in the world who
+could have frustrated this beautiful potentiality in her had moved him
+profoundly. There was nothing in her experience to help her to
+differentiate between the sensibility of the artistic temperament and
+the manifestations of the more reliable emotions. The presence in the
+human breast of a fire that gave out light and not heat was a
+condition undreamed of in her philosophy. To doubt Collier Pratt's
+love for her in the face of his tacit pursuit of her, and the
+acceptance of the obligation she had chosen to put him under, would
+have seemed to her the rankest kind of heresy.
+
+She had been brought up on terms of comradely equality with boys and
+men, and she understood the rules of all the pretty games of fluffing
+and light flirtation that young men and women play with each other,
+but serious love-making--that was a thing apart. In the world of honor
+and fair dealing a man took a woman's kiss of surrender for one reason
+and one reason only----that she was his woman, and he so held her in
+his heart.
+
+Now that she was in this sort committed to her love for Collier Pratt,
+her one ambition was to put her life in order for him,--to pick up the
+raveling threads of her achievement and prove to him and to herself
+that she was the kind of woman who accomplishes that which she
+attempts. In the light of his indefatigable patience in all matters
+that pertained to his art--his clean-cut workmanship--his skill in
+handling his material--she blushed for the amateur spirit that
+animated all her undertakings, and for the first time recognized it
+for what it was.
+
+"Gaspard," she said one morning soon after her miracle had been
+achieved, "where do you think the greatest leak is? We spend a great
+deal too much money in running this place. As you know, that is not
+the most important matter to me. Getting my customers properly
+nourished with invitingly prepared food is the essential thing, but if
+there was a way to adjust the economical end of it, I should feel a
+great deal more comfortable in my mind."
+
+"But certainly, mademoiselle, I should like myself to try the pretty
+little economies. The Frenchman he likes to spend his money when it is
+there, but it hurts him in the heart to waste this money without
+cause."
+
+"Am I wasting money without cause, Gaspard, in your opinion?"
+
+"What else?"
+
+"How can I stop it?"
+
+"By calculation of the tall cost of living, and by buying what is good
+instead of what is expensive."
+
+"What do you mean, Gaspard?"
+
+Gaspard contemplated her for a moment.
+
+"We have had this week--squab chicken," he said, "racks of little
+unseasonable lambs, sweetbreads, guinea fowl and _filet du boeuf_. We
+have with them mushrooms, fresh string bean, cooked endive, and new,
+not very good peas grown in glass. We have the salted nuts, the
+radish, the olive, the celery, the _bon bon_, all extra without pay.
+Then you make in addition to this the health foods, and your bills are
+sky high up. Is it not?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is, Gaspard. I had no idea I was as reckless as all
+that."
+
+"But yes, and more of it."
+
+"What would you do if you were running this restaurant, Gaspard?"
+
+"I would give _ragout_, and rabbits--so cheap and so good too--stewed
+in red wine, and the good pot roast with vegetables all in the
+delicious sauce, and carrots with parsley and the peas out of the can,
+cooked with onion and lettuce, and macedoine of all the other things
+left over. Lentils and flageolet I should buy dried up, and soak them
+out.--All those things which you have said were needless.--In my way
+they would be so excellent."
+
+"You make my mouth water, Gaspard. I don't know whether it's a Gallic
+eloquence, or whether that food really would work. They might like it
+for a change anyhow."
+
+"I have many personal patrons now," Gaspard said with some pride; "all
+day they send me messages, and very good tips. I think what I would
+serve them they would eat.--But there is one thing--" he paused and
+hesitated dejectedly, "that, what you say, takes the heart out of the
+beautiful cooking."
+
+"What thing is that, Gaspard?"
+
+"Those calories."
+
+"Why, Gaspard, surely you're used to working with tables now. It must
+be almost second nature to you. My whole end and aim has been to serve
+a balanced ration."
+
+"I know, but the ration when he is right, he balances himself. These
+tables they are like the steps in dancing--to learn and to forget. I
+figure all day all night to get those calories, and then I find I have
+eight--and eight are so little--lesser than I would have had without
+the figuring, and if our customer he has taken himself one piece of
+sweetmeat outside, he has more than made it up."
+
+"I always have worried about what they eat between meals," Nancy
+said,--"but that, of course, we can't regulate."
+
+"Could I perhaps go to it, as you say, and cook like the _bourgeoisie_
+for a week or two of trials?"
+
+"Yes, I think you could, Gaspard," Nancy said thoughtfully. "Go to it,
+as we say, and I won't interfere in any way. Maybe they'd like it.
+Perhaps our food is getting to be too much like hotel food, anyway."
+
+She knew in her heart that the gradually increasing scale of luxury on
+which she had been running her cuisine had been largely due to her
+desire to provide Collier Pratt with all the delicacies he loved,
+without making the fact too conspicuous. The specially prepared dishes
+sent out to his table had become a matter of so much comment among the
+members of the staff, and the target of so much piquant satire from
+Betty that she had become sensitive on the subject, especially since
+Betty had access to the books, and knew in actual dollars and cents
+how much this favoritism was costing her. Now that matters had been
+settled between herself and her lover, she felt vaguely ashamed of
+this elaboration of method. It was so simple a thing to love a man and
+give him all you had, with the eyes of the world upon you, if
+necessary. She felt that she handled the matter rather unworthily.
+
+She had also a consultation with Molly and Dolly about the economic
+problem, and discovered that they agreed with Gaspard about the
+unnecessary extravagance of her management.
+
+"Them health foods," Dolly said,--she was not the more grammatical of
+the twins, "the ones that gets them regular gets so tired of them, or
+else they gets where they don't need them any more. There's one girl
+that crumbs up her health muffins and puts them on the window-sill
+every day when I ain't looking, so's not to hurt my feelings."
+
+"That accounts for all those chittering sparrows," Nancy said.
+
+"And some of those buttermilk men threatens not to come any more if I
+don't stop serving it to them."
+
+"What do you say to them, Dolly, when they object to it?"
+
+"Well, sometimes I say one thing, and sometimes another. Sometimes I
+say it's orders to serve it; and sometimes I say will they please to
+let it stand by their plate not to get me in trouble with the
+management; and sometimes I coax them to take it."
+
+"By an appeal to their better nature," Nancy said. "I'm glad Dick
+can't hear all this,--he'd think it was funny."
+
+"We don't have so much trouble with the broths," Molly said, "but so
+many people would rather have the cream soups Gaspard makes, that we
+waste a good deal."
+
+"It sours on us," Dolly elucidated.
+
+"What do you think would be the best way out of that?"
+
+"I think to charge for the invalid things," Dolly said; "people would
+think more of them if they was specials, and had to be paid good money
+for. Health bread, if you didn't call it that, would go good, if it
+cost five cents extra."
+
+"What would you call it?" Nancy asked.
+
+"California fruit nut bread, or something like that, and call the
+custards creme renverse, and the ice-cream, French ice-cream."
+
+"Oh, dear!" Nancy said, "that isn't the way I want to do things at
+all."
+
+"We can slip the ones that needs them a few things from time to time,
+can't we, Molly?" Dolly said.
+
+"We'll do it," Nancy said. "I hate the way that the most uninspired
+ways of doing things turn out to be the best policy after all. I don't
+believe in stereotyped philanthropy, but I did think I had found a way
+around this problem of feeding up people who needed it."
+
+"They get fed up pretty good if they do pay a regular price for it,"
+Dolly said. "You can't get something for nothing in this world, and
+most everybody knows it by now."
+
+"I'm managing my restaurant a little differently," she told Collier
+Pratt a few days later, as she took her place at the little table
+beside him, where she habitually ate her dinner. "If you don't like it
+you are to tell me, and I'll see that you have things you will like."
+
+"This dinner is good," he said reflectively, "like French home
+cooking. I haven't had a real _ragout_ of lamb since I left the
+pension of Madame Pellissier. Has your mysterious patroness got tired
+of furnishing _diners de luxe_ to the populace?"
+
+"Not exactly that," Nancy said, "but she--she wants me to try out
+another way of doing things."
+
+"I thought that would come. That's the trouble with patronage of any
+kind. It is so uncertain. There is no immediate danger of your being
+ousted, is there?"
+
+"No," Nancy said, "there--there is no danger of that."
+
+"I don't like that cutting you down," he said, frowning. "It would be
+rather a bad outlook for us all if she threw you over, now wouldn't
+it?"
+
+"Oh!--she won't, there's nothing to worry about, really."
+
+"It would be like my luck to have the only cafe in America turn me
+out-of-doors.--I should never eat again."
+
+"I promise it won't," Nancy said; "can't you trust me?"
+
+"I never have trusted any woman--but you," he said.
+
+"You can trust me," Nancy said. "The truth is, she couldn't put me out
+even if she wanted to. I--she is under a kind of obligation to me."
+
+"Thank God for that. I only hope you are in a position to threaten her
+with blackmail."
+
+"I could if anybody could," Nancy said. She put out of her mind as
+disloyal, the faintly unpleasant suggestion of his words. He owed her
+mythical patron a substantial sum of money by this time. He was not
+even able to pay Michael the cash for the nightly teapot full of
+Chianti that Nancy herself now sent out for him regularly. For the
+first time since her association with him she was tempted to compare
+him to Dick, and that not very favorably; but at the next instant she
+was reproaching herself with her littleness of vision. He was too
+great a man to gauge by the ordinary standards of life. Money meant
+nothing to him except that it was the insignificant means to the end
+of that Art, which was to him consecrated.
+
+They were placed a little to the left of the glowing fire--Nancy had
+restored the fireplace in the big central dining-room--and the light
+took the brass of the andirons, and all the polished surface of copper
+and pewter and silver candelabra that gave the room its quality of
+picturesqueness.
+
+"Some of those branching candlesticks are very beautiful," he said;
+"the impression here is a little like that of a Catholic altar just
+before the mass. I've always thought I'd like to have my meals served
+in church, _Saint-Germain-des-Pres_ for instance."
+
+"It is rather dim religious light." Nancy had no wish to utter
+this banality, but it was forced from her by her desire to seem
+sympathetic.
+
+"Can we go to your place for a little while to-night?"
+
+These were the words she had spent her days and nights hungering for;
+yet now she hesitated for a perceptible instant.
+
+"Yes, we can, of course. There is a friend of mine--Billy Boynton, up
+there this evening. He is not feeling very fit, and phoned to ask if
+he could go up and sprawl before my fire, so, of course, I said he
+could."
+
+"Oh! yes, Sheila's friend. Can't he be disposed of?"
+
+"I think so. We could try."
+
+But at Nancy's apartment they found not only Billy, but Caroline, and
+the atmosphere was like that of the glacial regions, both literally
+and figuratively.
+
+"Hitty had the windows open, and the fire went out, and I forgot to
+turn on the heat," Billy explained from his position on the hearth
+where he was trying to build an unscientific fire with the morning
+paper, and the remains of a soap box. There was a long smudge across
+his forehead.
+
+Caroline drew Nancy into the seclusion of her bedroom and clutched her
+violently by the arm.
+
+"I can't stand the strain any longer," she cried, "you've got to tell
+me. Are you or are you not going to marry Dick Thorndyke for his
+money, and is Billy Boynton putting you up to it--out of cowardice?"
+
+"No, I'm not and he isn't," Nancy said. "What's the matter with you
+and Billy anyway?"
+
+"I haven't seen him for weeks before. I just happened to be in this
+neighborhood to-night, and ran in here, and there he was."
+
+"Why don't you take him home with you?" Nancy said.
+
+"I don't want him to go home with me."
+
+"Don't you love him?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. That isn't the point."
+
+"It is the point," Nancy said; "there isn't any other point to the
+whole of existence. There's nothing else in the world, but love, the
+great, big, beautiful, all-giving-up kind of love, and bearing
+children for the man you love; and if you don't know that yet,
+Caroline, go down on your bended knees and pray to your God that He
+will teach it to you before it is too late."
+
+"I--I didn't know you felt like that," Caroline gasped.
+
+"Well, I do," Nancy said, "and I think that any woman who doesn't is
+just confusing issues, and taking refuge in sophistry. I wouldn't give
+_that_"--she snapped an energetic forefinger, "for all your silly,
+smug little ideas of economic independence and service to the race,
+and all that tommy-rot. There is only one service a woman can do to
+her race, and that is to take hold of the problems of love and
+marriage,--and the problems of life, birth and death that are involved
+in them--and work them out to the best of her ability. They _will_
+work out."
+
+"You--you're a sort of a pragmatist, aren't you?" Caroline gasped.
+
+"Billy loves you, and you love Billy. Billy needs you. He is the most
+miserable object lately, that ever walked the face of the earth. I'm
+going to call a taxi-cab, and send you both home in it, and when you
+get inside of it I want you to put you arms around Billy's neck, and
+make up your quarrel."
+
+"I won't do that," said Caroline, "but--but somehow or other you've
+cleared up something for me. Something that was worrying me a good
+deal."
+
+"Shall I call the taxi?" Nancy said inexorably.
+
+"Well, yes--if--if you want to," Caroline said.
+
+The fire was crackling merrily in the drawing-room when she stepped
+into it again after speeding her departing guests. Collier Pratt was
+walking up and down impatiently with his hands clasped behind his
+back.
+
+"You got rid of them at last," he said. "I was afraid they would
+decide to remain with us indefinitely."
+
+"I didn't have as much trouble as I anticipated," admitted Nancy
+cryptically.
+
+Collier Pratt made a round of the rose-shaded lamps in the room--there
+were three including a Japanese candle lamp,--and turned them all
+deliberately low. Then he held out his arms to Nancy.
+
+"We'll snatch at the few moments of joy the gods will vouchsafe us,"
+he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
+
+
+Sheila and Nancy were doing their Christmas shopping. The weather,
+which had been like mid-May--even to betraying a bewildered Jersey
+apple tree into unseasonable bloom that gave it considerable newspaper
+notoriety,--had suddenly turned sharp and frosty. Sheila, all in gray
+fur to the beginning of her gray gaiters, and Nancy in blue, a smart
+blue tailor suit with black furs and a big black satin hat--she was
+dressing better than she had ever dressed in her life--were in that
+state of physical exhilaration that follows the spur of the frost.
+
+"We mustn't dance down the avenue, Sheila," Nancy said, "it isn't
+done, in the circles in which we move."
+
+"It is you who are almost very nearly dancing, Miss Dear," Sheila
+said, "I was only walking on my toetips."
+
+"Oh! don't you feel good, Sheila?" Nancy cried.
+
+"Don't you, Miss Dear?"
+
+"I feel almost too good," Nancy said, "as if in another minute the top
+of the world might come off."
+
+"The top of the world is screwed on very tight, I think," said Sheila.
+"I used to think when I was a little girl that it was made out of blue
+plush, but now I know better than that."
+
+"It might be," Nancy argued, "blue plush and bridal veils. There's a
+great deal of filmy white about it, to-day."
+
+"It's a long way off from Fifth Avenue," Sheila sighed, "too far. I am
+not going to think about it any more. I am going to think hard about
+what to give my father. Michael said to get a smoking set, but I don't
+know what a smoking set is. Hitty said some hand knit woolen
+stockings, but I am afraid he would be scratched by them. Gaspard said
+a big bottle of _Cointreau_, but I do not know what that is either."
+
+"Couldn't we give him a beautiful brocaded dressing-gown and a Swiss
+watch, thin as a wafer, and some handkerchiefs cobwebby fine, and a
+dozen bottles of _Cointreau_, and--then get the other things as we
+think of them?"
+
+"Are we rich enough to do _that_?" Sheila asked, her eyes sparkling
+with excitement.
+
+"Rich enough to buy anything we want, Sheila," Nancy cried. "I had no
+idea it was going to be such a heavenly feeling. When you say your
+prayers to-night, Sheila, I hope you will ask God to bless somebody
+you've never heard of before. _Elijah Peebles Martin_, do you think
+you could remember that long name, Sheila?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Dear,--do you remember him in your prayers every night?"
+
+"Well, I haven't," Nancy said, "but I intend to from now on. Do you
+think Collier--father--would like to have a new pipe?"
+
+"I don't know," Shelia said; "wouldn't Uncle Dick like to have one?"
+
+"I don't know whether Uncle Dick is going to want a Christmas present
+from me or not, Sheila." Nancy answered seriously. "There may
+be--reasons why he won't come to see us for a while when he knows
+them."
+
+"Oh, dear," Sheila said, "but I can buy him a Christmas present
+myself, can't I? I don't want it to be Christmas if I can't."
+
+"Of course, dear. What shall we buy Aunt Caroline and Uncle Billy?"
+
+"Some pink and blue housekeeping dishes, I think."
+
+"I'm going to have trouble buying Caroline _anything_," Nancy said.
+"She's so sure I can't afford it. If I give a silver chest I'll have
+to make Billy say it came from his maiden aunt."
+
+"What shall we give Aunt Betty?"
+
+"I don't know exactly why," Nancy said, "but someway I feel more like
+giving her a good shaking than anything else."
+
+"For a little surprise," Sheila said presently, "do you think we could
+go down to see my father in his studio, after we have shopped? I feel
+like seeing my father to-day. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I
+think of Hitty and my breakfast, and the canary bird, and of you, Miss
+Dear, fast asleep where I can hear you breathing in your room--if I
+listen to it--and then other mornings I wake up thinking only of my
+father, and how he looks in his shirt-sleeves and necktie. I was
+thinking of him this morning like that. So now I should like to see
+him."
+
+"You shall, dear. I want him to see you in your new clothes. He'll
+think you look like a little gray bird with a scarlet breast."
+
+"Then I must open the front of my coat when I go in so he shall see my
+vest at once, mustn't I?"
+
+"Do you know how much I love you, Sheila?" Nancy cried suddenly.
+
+"Is it a great deal, Miss Dear?"
+
+"It's more than I've ever loved anybody in this world but one person,
+and if I should ever be separated from you I think it would break my
+heart--so that you could hear it crack with a loud report, Sheila."
+
+The little girl slipped her gray gloved hand into Nancy's and held it
+there silently for a moment.
+
+"Then we won't ever be separated, Miss Dear," she said.
+
+The shops were crowded with the usual conglomerate Christmas throng,
+and their progress was somewhat retarded by Sheila's desire to make
+the acquaintance of every department-store and Salvation Army Santa
+Claus that they met in their peregrinations. In the toy department of
+one of the Thirty-fourth Street shops there was a live Kris Kringle
+with animated reindeers on rollers, who made a short trip across an
+open space in one end of the department for a consideration, and
+presented each child who rode with him a lovely present, tied up in
+tissue and marked "Not to be opened until Christmas." Sheila refused a
+second trip with him on the ground that it would not be polite to take
+more than one turn.
+
+Nancy was able to discover the little girl's preferences by a tactful
+question here and there when they were making the rounds of the
+different counters. She wanted, it developed, a golden-haired doll
+with a white fur coat, a pair of roller skates, an Indian costume, a
+beaded pocketbook, with a blue cat embroidered on it, a parchesi board
+to play parchesi with her Uncle Dick, some doll's dinner dishes, a
+boy's bicycle, some parlor golf sticks, a red leather writing set, a
+doll's manicure set, a sailor-boy paper doll, a dozen small suede
+animals in a box, a drawing book and crayon pencils and several other
+trifles of a like nature. The things she did not want she rejected
+unerringly. It pleased Nancy to realize that she knew exactly what she
+did want, even though her range of taste was so extensive. Nancy had a
+sheaf of her own cards with her address on them in her pocketbook, and
+each time Sheila saw the thing her heart coveted Nancy nodded to the
+saleswoman and whispered to her to send it to the address given and
+charge to her account.
+
+They took their lunch in a famous confectionary shop, full of candy
+animals and alluring striped candy sticks and baskets. Here Sheila's
+eye was taken by a basket of spun sugar flowers, which she insisted on
+buying for Gaspard. By the time they were ready to resume their
+shopping tour, Sheila began to show signs of fag, so they bought only
+brooches for the waitresses, and the watch as thin and exquisite of
+workmanship as a man's pocket watch could be, for Collier Pratt.
+
+"I think we had better give it to him now, Miss Dear," Sheila decided.
+"I don't see how he can wait till Christmas for it--it is so
+beautiful. He has not had a gold watch since that time in Paris when
+we had all that trouble."
+
+"What trouble, Sheila dear?" Nancy said. She had tucked the child in a
+hansom, and they were driving slowly through the lower end of Central
+Park to restore Sheila's roses before she was exhibited to her
+parent.
+
+"When we lost all our money, and my father and some one I must not
+speak of, had those dreadful quarrelings, and we ran away. I do not
+like to think of it. My father does not like to think of it."
+
+"Well, then, you mustn't, dear," Nancy said, "but just be glad it is
+all over now. I don't like to realize that so many hard things
+happened to you and him before I knew you, but I do like to think that
+I can perhaps prevent them ever happening to you again."
+
+She closed resolutely that department of her mind that had begun to
+occupy itself with conjectures concerning the past of the man to whom
+she had given her heart. The child's words conjured up nightmare
+scenes of unknown panic and dread. It was terrible to her to know that
+Collier Pratt had the memory of so much bitterness and distress of
+mind and body locked away in the secret chambers of his soul. "Some
+one of whom I must not speak," Sheila had said, "and some one of whom
+I must not think," Nancy added to herself. It was probably some one
+with whom he had quarreled and struggled passionately maybe, with
+disastrous results. He could not have injured or killed anybody, else
+how could he be free and honorably considered in a free and honorable
+country? She laughed at her own melodramatic misgivings. It was only,
+she realized, that she so detested the connotation of the words "ran
+away." Nancy had never run away from anything or anybody in her life,
+and she could not understand that any one who was close to her should
+ever have the instinct of flight.
+
+The most conscientious objector to New York's traffic regulations can
+not claim that they fail to regulate. The progress of their cab down
+the avenue was so scrupulously regulated by the benignant guardians of
+the semaphores that twilight was deepening into early December evening
+before they reached their objective point,--the ramshackle studio
+building on the south side of Washington Square where the man she
+loved lived, moved and had his being, with the gallant ease and grace
+which made him so romantic a figure to Nancy's imagination.
+
+She had never been to his studio before without an appointment, and
+her heart beat a little harder as, Sheila's hand in hers, they tiptoed
+up the worn and creaking stairs, through the ill-kept, airless
+corridors of the dingy structure, till they reached the top, and stood
+breathless from their impetuous ascent, within a few feet of Collier
+Pratt's battered door.
+
+"I feel a little scared, Miss Dear," Sheila whispered. "I thought it
+was going to be so much fun and now I don't think so at all. Do you
+think he will be very angry at my coming?"
+
+"I don't think he will be angry at all," Nancy said. "I think he will
+be very much surprised and pleased to see both of us. Turn around,
+dear, and let me be sure that you're neat."
+
+Sheila turned obediently. Nancy fumbled with her pocket mirror, and
+then thought better of it, but passed a precautionary hand over the
+back of her hair to reassure herself as to its arrangement, and
+straightened her hat.
+
+"Now we're ready," she said.
+
+But Sheila put out her hand, and clutched at Nancy's sleeve.
+
+"There's some one in there," she said, "somebody crying. Oh! don't
+let's go in, Miss Dear."
+
+From behind the closed door there issued suddenly the confused murmur
+of voices, one--a woman's--rising and falling in the cadence of
+distress, the other low pitched in exasperated expostulation.
+
+"It's Collier," Nancy said mechanically, "and some woman with him."
+
+Sheila shrank closer into the protecting shelter of her arms.
+
+"Don't let's go in, Miss Dear," she repeated.
+
+"It may be just some model," Nancy said. "We'll wait a minute here and
+see if she doesn't come out."
+
+"I--I don't want to see who comes out," the child said, her face
+suddenly distorted.
+
+There was a sharp sound of something falling within, then Collier
+Pratt's voice raised loud in anger.
+
+"You'd better go now," he said, "before you do any more damage. I
+don't want you here. Once and for all I tell you that there is no
+place for you in my life. Weeping and wailing won't do you any good.
+The only thing for you to do is to get out and stay out."
+
+This was answered by an indistinguishable outburst.
+
+"I won't tell you where the child is," Collier Pratt said steadily.
+"She's well taken care of. God knows you never took care of her.
+There's nothing you can do, you know. You might sue for a restitution
+of conjugal rights, I suppose, but if you drag this thing into the
+courts I'll fight it out to the end. I swear I will."
+
+"You brute,--you--"
+
+At the first clear sound of the woman's voice the child at Nancy's
+side broke into sobs of convulsive terror.
+
+"Take me away, Miss Dear. Oh! take me away from here, quickly,
+quickly, I'm so frightened. I'm so afraid she'll come out and get me.
+It's my _mother_," she moaned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+GOOD-BY
+
+
+Nancy had no memory of her actions during the time that elapsed
+between leaving the studio building and her arrival at her own
+apartment. She knew that she must have guided Sheila to the beginning
+of the bus route at the lower end of the square, and as perfunctorily
+signaled the conductor to let her off at the corner of Fifth Avenue
+and her own street, but she could never remember having done so. Her
+first conscious recollection was of the few minutes in Sheila's room,
+while she was slipping off the child's gaiters, in the interval before
+she gave her over to Hitty for the night. The little girl was still
+sobbing beneath her breath, though her emotion was by this time purely
+reflexive.
+
+"I didn't understand that your mother was living, Sheila," she said.
+
+"She isn't very nice," the little girl said miserably. "We don't tell
+any one. She always cries and screams and makes us trouble?"
+
+"Did she live with you in Paris?"
+
+"Only sometimes."
+
+"Does she do--something that she should not do, Sheila?" Nancy asked,
+with her mind on inebriety, or drug addiction.
+
+"She just isn't very nice," Sheila repeated. "She is _histerique_; she
+pounded me with her hands, and hurt me."
+
+Nancy telephoned to the Inn that she had a headache, and shut herself
+into her room, without food, to gather her scattered forces. She lay
+wide-awake all the night through, her mind trying to work its way
+through the lethargy of shock it had received. She remembered falling
+down the cellar stairs, when she was a little girl, and lying for
+hours on the hard stone floor, perfectly serene and calm, without
+pain, until she tried to do so much as move a little finger or lift an
+eyelid, when the intolerable nausea would begin. She was calm now,
+until she made the attempt to think what it was that had so prostrated
+her, and then the anguish spread through her being and convulsed her
+with unimaginable distress of mind and body.
+
+By morning she had herself in hand again,--at least to the extent of
+dealing with the unthinkable fact that Collier Pratt, her lover, the
+man to whom she had given the lover's right to hold her in his arms
+and cover her upturned face with kisses, had a living wife, and that
+he was not free to make honorable love to any woman.
+
+Her life had been too sound, too sweet, to give her any perspective on
+a situation of the kind. It was inconceivable to her that a married
+man should make advances to an unmarried woman,--but gradually she
+began to make excuses for this one man whose circumstances had been so
+exceptional. Tied to an insane creature, who beat his child, who made
+him strange hectic scenes, and followed him all over the world to
+threaten his security, and menace that beautiful and inexplicable
+creative instinct that animated him like a holy fire, and set him
+apart from his kind; she began to see how it might be with him. She
+was still the woman he loved,--she believed that; he was weaker than
+she had thought,--that was all, weaker and not so wise. This being
+true, she must put aside her own pain and bewilderment, her own
+devastating disillusionment, and comfort him, and help him. She rose
+from her bed that morning firmly resolved to see him before the day
+was through.
+
+She breakfasted with Sheila, and made a brave attempt to get through
+the morning on her usual schedule, but once at the Inn she collapsed,
+and Michael and Betty had to put her in a cab and send her home again,
+where Hitty ministered to her grimly,--and she slept the sleep of
+exhaustion until well on into the evening, and into the night again.
+
+On the day following she was quite herself; but she still hesitated to
+bring about the momentous interview that she so dreaded, and yet
+longed for. She intended to take her place at the table beside Collier
+Pratt when he came for his dinner that night, but when the time came
+she could not bring herself to do it, and fled incontinently. Later in
+the evening he telephoned that he wanted to see her, and she told him
+that he might come.
+
+She faced him with the facts, breathlessly, and in spite of herself
+accusingly,--and then waited for the explanation that would extenuate
+the apparent ugliness of his attitude toward her, and set all the
+world right for her again. As she looked into his face she felt that
+it must come. She noted compassionately how the shadows under the dark
+eyes had deepened; how weary the pose of the fine head; and for the
+moment she longed only to rest it on her breast again. Even as she
+spoke of the thing that had so tortured her it seemed insignificant in
+light of the fact that he was there beside her, within reach of her
+arms whenever she chose to hold them out to him.
+
+"I regret that the revelation of my private embarrassments should have
+been thrust upon you so suddenly," he said, when she had poured out
+the story to him. "My marriage has proved the most uncomfortable
+indiscretion that I ever committed; and unfortunately my indiscretions
+have been numberless as the well-known leaves of Vallombrosa."
+
+"You always said that Sheila was motherless," Nancy said.
+
+"It is simpler than stating that she is worse than motherless."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me you were married?"
+
+Collier Pratt smiled at her--kindly it seemed to Nancy.
+
+"It hadn't anything to do with _us_," he said. "I should never want to
+marry again--even if I were free. The thought is horrible to me. You
+mean a great deal to me. _Think_, if you doubt that and think again. I
+have had in this little front room of yours the only real moments of
+peace and happiness that I have had for years. I value them--you can
+not dream or imagine how much--but surely it is understood between us
+that our relation can not be anything but transitory. I am an artist
+with a way to make for my art: you are a working woman with a career,
+odd as it is," he smiled whimsically, "that you have chosen, and that
+you will pursue faithfully until some stalwart young man dissuades you
+from it, when you will take your place in your niche as wife and
+mother, and leave me one more beautiful memory."
+
+"Surely," Nancy said, "you know it isn't--like that."
+
+"What is it like then?"
+
+Nancy felt every sane premise, every eager hope and delicate ideal
+slipping beyond her reach as she faced his mocking, tender eyes.
+
+"It can't be that you believe you have been--fair with me," she
+faltered.
+
+"I don't think I have been unfair," he said, "I have made no
+protestations, you know."
+
+Nancy shut her eyes. Curious scraps of her early religious education
+came back to her.
+
+"You have partaken of my bread and wine," she said.
+
+"It wasn't exactly consecrated."
+
+"I think it was," she said faintly. "Oh! don't you understand that
+that isn't a way for a man to think or to feel about a woman like
+me?"
+
+"Little American girl," Collier Pratt said, "little American girl,
+don't you understand that there is only one way for a woman to think
+or feel about a _man_ like _me_? I have had my life, and I haven't
+liked it much. I'm to be loved warmly and lightly till the flesh and
+blood prince comes along, but I'm never to be mistaken for him."
+
+"I don't believe you're sincere," Nancy cried; "women must have loved
+you deeply, tragically, and have suffered all the torture there is, at
+losing you."
+
+"That may be. Sincerity is a matter of so many connotations. You
+haven't known many artists, my dear."
+
+"No," said Nancy. "No, but I thought they were the same as other men,
+only worthier."
+
+"How should they be? He who perceives a merit is not necessarily he
+who achieves it. Else the world would be a little more one-sided than
+it is."
+
+"I can't believe those things," Nancy said. "I want to believe in you.
+You _must_ care for me, and what becomes of me. You have known so long
+what I was like, and what I was made for. All this seems like a
+terrible nightmare. I want you to tell me what it is you want of me,
+and let me give it to you."
+
+"I am proving some faint shadow of worthiness at least, when I say to
+you that I want absolutely nothing of you. I love, but I refrain."
+
+"You love," Nancy cried, "you _love_?"
+
+"Not as you understand loving, I am afraid. In my own way I love
+you."
+
+"I don't like your way, then," Nancy said wearily.
+
+"We're both so poor, little girl,--that's one thing. If I were free
+and could overcome my prejudice against matrimony, and could be a
+little surer of my own heart and its constancy,--even then, don't you
+see, practical considerations would and ought to stand in our way. I
+couldn't support you, you couldn't possibly support me."
+
+"I see," said Nancy. "Would you marry me If I were rich?" she said
+slowly.
+
+"I already have one wife," Collier Pratt smiled. Nancy remembered
+afterward that he smiled oftener during this interview than at any
+other. "But if somebody died, and left you a million, she might
+possibly be disposed of."
+
+For one moment, perhaps, his fate hung in the balance. Then he took a
+step forward.
+
+"Kiss me good night, dear," he said, "and let us end this bitter and
+fruitless discussion."
+
+"Kiss you good night," Nancy cried. "Kiss you good night. Oh! how dare
+you!--How dare you?" And she struck him twice across his mouth. "I
+wish I could kill you," she blazed. "Oh! how dare you,--how dare
+you?"
+
+"Oh! very well," said Collier Pratt calmly, wiping his mouth with his
+handkerchief. "If that's the way you feel--then our pleasant little
+acquaintanceship is ended. I'll take my hat and stick and my
+child--and go."
+
+"Your child?" Nancy cried aghast. "You wouldn't take Sheila away from
+me."
+
+"I don't feel exactly tempted to leave her with you," he said
+deliberately. "I don't mind a woman striking me--I'm used to that; it
+is one of my charming wife's ways of expressing herself in moments of
+stress--but I do object to any but the most purely formal relations
+with her afterward. There is a certain degree of intimacy involved in
+your having charge of my child. I think I will take the little girl
+away with me now."
+
+"Please, please, please don't," Nancy said. "I love her. I couldn't
+bear it now. You can't be so cruel."
+
+"Better get it over," Collier Pratt said. "Will you call Hitty, or
+shall I?"
+
+"Sheila is in bed," Nancy cried. "You wouldn't take her out of her
+warm bed to-night. I'll send her to you to-morrow at whatever hour you
+ask."
+
+"I ask for her now."
+
+There was no fight left in Nancy. She called Hitty and superintended
+the dressing of the little girl to its last detail. She could not
+touch her.
+
+"Won't you kiss me good night, Miss Dear?" Sheila said, drowsily, as
+she took her father's hand at the door.
+
+"Not to-night," Nancy said hoarsely. "I've a bad throat, dear, I
+wouldn't want you to catch it."
+
+"I don't know where I'm going," the little girl said, "but I suppose
+my father knows. I'll come back as soon as I can."
+
+"Yes, dear," Nancy said. "Good-by."
+
+Collier Pratt turned at the door and made an exaggerated gesture of
+farewell.
+
+"We part more in anger than in sorrow," he said.
+
+"Oh! Go," Nancy cried.
+
+As the door closed upon the two Nancy sank to her knees, and thence to
+a crumpled heap on the floor, but remembering that Hitty would find
+her there shortly, and being entirely unable to regain her feet
+unaided, she started to crawl in the direction of her own room, and
+presently arrived there, and pushed the door to behind her with her
+heel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TAME SKELETONS
+
+
+It was Sunday night, and New Year's Eve. Gaspard was preparing, and
+Molly and Dolly were serving a special dinner for Preston Eustace,
+planned weeks before on his first arrival in New York.
+
+Before the great logs--imported by Michael for the occasion--that
+blazed in the fireplace, a round table was set, decorously draped in
+the most immaculate of fine linen, and crowned with a wreath of holly
+and mistletoe, from which extended red satin trailers with a present
+from Nancy for each guest, on the end of each. All the impedimenta of
+the restaurant was cleared away, and a couch and several easy chairs
+that Nancy kept in reserve for such occasions were placed comfortably
+about the room. Only the innumerable starry candles and branching
+candelabra were reminiscent of the room's more professional aspect.
+
+Billy and Caroline were the first to arrive,--Caroline in pale
+floating green tulle, which accentuated the pure olive of her
+coloring, and transported Billy from his chronic state of adoration to
+that of an almost agonizing worship. Dick and Betty were next. He had
+realized the possible awkwardness of the situation for her, and had
+been thoughtful enough to offer to call for her. She was in defiant
+scarlet from top to toe, and had never looked more entrancing. Preston
+Eustace was to come in from Long Island where he was spending the
+holidays with a married sister. Michael received the guests and did
+the honors beamingly.
+
+"Where's Nancy?" Dick asked, as, divested of his outer garments, he
+appeared without warning in the presence of the lovers. "Don't bother
+to drop her hand, Billy. I don't see how you have the heart to, she's
+so lovely to-night."
+
+"We don't know where Nancy is," Caroline answered for him. "It seems
+to be all right, though. She's expected, Michael says."
+
+"Where's Nancy?" Betty asked, in her turn, appearing on the threshold
+with every hair most amazingly in place.
+
+"Coming," Dick reassured her.
+
+"Has anybody heard from her?" Betty asked.
+
+"Michael has, I think."
+
+"You aren't worried about her, are you?" Caroline asked.
+
+"Yes, I am," Betty said.
+
+"I thought you and Nancy were rather on the outs," Caroline suggested.
+"It seems odd to have you worrying about her like her maiden aunt."
+
+"You wait till you see her, you'll be worried about her, too."
+
+"What's wrong?" Dick asked quickly.
+
+"She's lost Sheila for one thing. That unspeakable Collier Pratt--I
+hope he chokes on his dinner to-night, and I hope it's a rotten
+dinner--has taken the child away."
+
+"The devil he has."
+
+There was a step on the rickety stair.
+
+"Hush! There she is now," Caroline cried.
+
+"No," Betty said quietly, listening. "That's not Nancy. That's your
+brother, Caroline."
+
+"I haven't heard his step for such a long time I've forgotten it,"
+Billy said.
+
+"I haven't heard it for a long time either," Betty said, her face
+draining of its last bit of color.
+
+"Promises to be one of those merry little meals when everybody present
+is attended by a tame skeleton," Billy whispered, "except us,
+Caroline."
+
+"I don't feel that we have any right to be so happy with the whole
+continent of Europe in the state it's in," Caroline whispered in
+reply.
+
+"I feel better about the continent of Europe than I did a while back,"
+Billy said, contentedly.
+
+"Hello, everybody," Preston Eustace said as Michael held the door for
+him. "How's everything, Caroline?"
+
+"All right," Caroline said. Then she added unnecessarily, "You--you
+know Betty, don't you?"
+
+"I used to know Betty," he said slowly.
+
+The two looked at each other, with that look of incredulity with which
+lovers sometimes greet each other after absence and estrangement.
+"This can't be you," their eyes seem to be saying, "I've disposed of
+you long since, God help me!"
+
+"How do you do, Preston?" Betty said, giving him her hand. Then she
+smiled faintly, and added with a caricature of her usual manner:
+"Lovely weather we're having for this time of year, aren't we?"
+
+"I'm very fond of you, Betty,"--Dick smiled as she sank into the chair
+beside him and Preston turned to his sister. "I think you're a little
+sport."
+
+"I don't know how you can, Dicky," she smiled at him forlornly. "I've
+got a bad black heart, and I play the wrong kind of games."
+
+"Well, I see through them, so it's all right. What's this about
+Nancy?"
+
+"I'll tell you later," Betty said; "there she comes now."
+
+Nancy, stimulated by massage and steam, her hair dressed by a
+professional; powdered, and for the first time in her life rouged to
+hide the tell-tale absence of her natural quickening color, came
+forward to meet her guests in supreme unconsciousness of the pathos of
+the effect she had achieved. She was dressed in snowy white like a
+bride,--the only gown she had that was in keeping with the holiday
+decorations, and she moved a little clumsily, as if her brain had
+found itself suddenly in charge of an unfamiliar set of reflexes. Her
+lids drooped over burning eyes that had known no sleep for many
+nights, and every line and lineament of her face was stamped with
+pain.
+
+"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting," she said. Her voice,
+curiously, was the only natural thing about her. "I've been scouring
+off every vestige of my work-a-day self, and that takes time. Thank
+you for the roses, Dick, but the only flowers I could have worn with
+this color scheme would have been geraniums."
+
+"I'll send you some geraniums to-morrow."
+
+"Don't," she said. "How do you do, Preston?"
+
+She gave him a cold hand, and he stared at her almost as he had stared
+at Betty. He was a tall grave-looking youth, with Caroline's straight
+features and olive coloring, and a shock of heavy blond hair.
+
+"I hope you'll like your party," Nancy hurried on. "Gaspard is
+bursting with pride in it. I think it would be a nice thing to have
+him in and drink his health after the coffee. He would never forget
+the honor."
+
+"My God!" Dick said in an undertone to Betty, "how long has she been
+like this?"
+
+"I'll tell you later," she promised him again.
+
+With the serving of the first course of dinner--Gaspard's wonderful
+_Puree Mongol_--an artist's dream of all the most delicate vegetables
+in the world mingled together as the clouds are mingled, the tensity
+in the air seemed to break and shatter about them in showers of
+brilliant, artificial mirth, which presently, because they were all
+young and fond of one another and their group had the habit of
+intimacy, became less and less strained and unreal.
+
+Nancy's tired eyes lost something of their unnatural glitter, and
+Betty seemed more of a woman than a scarlet sprite, while Caroline's
+smile began to reflect something of the real gladness that possessed
+her soul. Dick and Billy took up the burden of the entertainment of
+the party, and gave at least an excellent imitation of inspirational
+gaiety.
+
+"This _filet of sole_," Billy observed as he sampled his second course
+appreciatively, "is common or barnyard flounder,--and the shrimp and
+the oyster crab, and that mushroom of the sea, and the other little
+creature in the corner of my plate who shall be nameless, because I
+have no idea what his name is,--are all put in to make it harder."
+
+"Gaspard is using some of the simpler native products now instead of
+the high-priced imported ones," Nancy said eagerly, "and he is getting
+wonderful results, I think."
+
+"Flounder _a la Francaise_ is all right," Dick said.
+
+"Our restaurant has reformed," Betty said. "We're running it on a
+strictly business basis."
+
+"And making money?" Dick asked quickly.
+
+"We're not losing much," Betty said. "That's a great improvement."
+
+"Some of those little girls from the publishing houses look paler to
+me than they did," Nancy said. "I wish I could give them hypodermics
+of protein and carbohydrates."
+
+"Give me the name and address of any of your customers that worry
+you," Dick said, "and I'll buy 'em a cow or a sugar plum tree or a
+flivver or anything else they seem to be in need of."
+
+"Don't those things tend to pauperize the poor?" Caroline's brother
+put in gravely.
+
+"Sure they do," Billy agreed, "only Nancy has kind of given up her
+struggle not to pauperize them."
+
+"I started in with some very high ideals about scientific service,"
+Nancy explained. "I was never going to give anybody anything they
+hadn't actually earned in some way, except to bring up the average of
+normality by feeding my patrons surreptitious calories. I had it all
+figured out that the only legitimate charity was putting flesh on the
+bones of the human race,--that increasing the general efficiency that
+way wasn't really charity at all."
+
+"You don't believe that now?" Preston Eustace asked.
+
+"I don't know what I believe now."
+
+"What is scientific charity, anyhow?" Dick looked about inquiringly.
+
+"There ain't no such animal," Billy contributed.
+
+"It's substituting the cool human intellect for the warm human heart,
+I guess," Betty said dreamily.
+
+"But that so often works," Caroline said.
+
+"I was never going to make any mistakes," Nancy said. "I was going
+to keep my fists scientifically shut, and my heart beatifically
+open." She hesitated. "I--I was going to swing my life, and my
+undertakings--right." It became increasingly hard for her to
+speak, and a little gasp went round the table. "I've--I've made
+nothing--nothing but mistakes," she finished piteously.
+
+"But you've rectified them," Betty put in vigorously. "Nancy, dear,
+I've never known you to make a mistake that you haven't rectified, and
+that is more than I can say of any other person in the world."
+
+"Sirloin and carrots," Caroline said, as the next course came in.
+"I'll wager you've cut the price of this dinner in two by judicious
+ordering."
+
+"There's nothing else but field salad," Nancy said, still piteously,
+"and raspberry _mousse_."
+
+"Nancy, you'll break my heart," Betty said, wiping her eyes frankly,
+but Nancy only looked at her wonderingly, wistfully, preoccupied and
+remote, while Preston Eustace gazed at Betty as if he too would find a
+welcome relief in shedding a heavy tear or two.
+
+"Collier Pratt has broken her heart, Dick," Betty told him in the
+limousine on the way home. "It's been going on ever since the first
+time she saw him. Down at the restaurant we've all known it. She's
+been eating at his table every night for months, and Gaspard and
+everybody else in the place, in fact, has been a slave to his lightest
+whim. I've always disliked him intensely, myself."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me before, Betty?"
+
+"It wasn't my business to tell you. I thought it was coming off, you
+know."
+
+"What was coming off?"
+
+"Their affair. I thought it was past my meddling."
+
+"Do you mean to say that you thought Nancy was going to marry Collier
+Pratt--_Nancy_?"
+
+"Why, yes, if I hadn't I--I wouldn't have acted up the way I did in
+your rooms that night."
+
+But Dick neither heard nor understood her.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you think Collier Pratt has been making love
+to her?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"But the damned scoundrel is married."
+
+"Oh!" Betty cried. "_Oh!_--I didn't know that."
+
+"I've known it--I've always known it," Dick said. "I never dreamed
+that Nancy had any special interest in him."
+
+"Well, she had. She's going through everything, Dick, even Sheila--you
+know how she loved Sheila?"
+
+"I know," Dick said grimly. "Do you mind going on home alone, Betty?
+You'll be perfectly safe with Williams, you know."
+
+"Of course not. What are you going to do, Dick? Are you going to
+Nancy?"
+
+"No, I'm not going to Nancy."
+
+Betty, looking at him more closely, realized for the first time that
+she was sitting beside a man in whom the rage of the primitive animal
+was gaining its ascendency. His breath was coming in short stertorous
+gasps, his hands were clinched, the purplish color was mounting to his
+brows, but he still went through the motions of a courteous
+leave-taking.
+
+"Where are you going, Dick?" she asked again, as he stood on the curb
+where he had signaled Williams to leave him, with the door of the car
+in his hand, staring down at it, and for the moment forgetting to
+close it.
+
+"I'm going to find Collier Pratt," he said thickly. Then with a slam
+that splintered the hinge of the door he was holding he crashed it in
+toward the car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+OTHER PEOPLE'S TROUBLES
+
+
+Nancy was trying conscientiously to interest herself in other people's
+troubles. After the first great shock of pain following her loss at a
+blow of her lover and Sheila, she began automatically to try to work
+her way through her suffering. The habit of application to the daily
+task combined with her instinct for taking immediate action in a
+crisis stood her in good stead in her hour of need. She decided what
+to occupy herself with, and then devoted herself faithfully to the
+prescribed occupation.
+
+The Inn did not need her. With Betty to guide him economically Gaspard
+was able to superintend all the details of the establishment
+adequately and artistically. Sheila was gone. She packed up several
+trunks of dresses and toys and other childish belongings and sent them
+to Washington Square, but even without these constant reminders of
+her, the hunger for the child's presence did not abate. The little
+girl was curiously dissociated from her father in Nancy's mind. She
+had seen so little of the two together that they seemed to belong to
+entirely different compartments of her consciousness. It was only the
+anguish of losing them that linked them together.
+
+Nancy decided to devote a certain proportion of her days and nights to
+remedying such evils as lay under her immediate observation;--to
+helping the individuals with whom she came into daily contact--the
+dependents and tradespeople with whom she dealt. She had always been
+convinced that the people who ministered to her daily comfort in New
+York should occupy some part in her scheme of existence. It was one of
+her favorite arguments that a little more energy and imagination on
+the part of New York citizens would develop the communal spirit which
+was so painfully lacking in the soul of the average Manhattanite.
+
+So the milkman and the corner grocer, the newspaper man, and Hitty's
+small brood of grand nieces and nephews, to say nothing of the Italian
+fruit man's family, and her laundress's invalid daughter, were all
+occupying a considerable place in Nancy's daily schedule. In a very
+short interval she had the welfare of more than half a dozen families
+on her hands, and was involved in all manner of enterprises of a
+domestic nature,--from the designing of confirmation gowns to the
+purchase of rubber-tired rolling chairs, and heterogeneous woolen
+garments and other intimate necessities.
+
+She was a little ashamed of her new line of activities, and still hurt
+enough to shun the scrutiny of her friends, and thereby succeeded in
+mystifying and alarming Billy and Dick and Betty and Caroline almost
+beyond the limit of their endurance by resolutely keeping them at
+arm's length. She was supremely unconscious of anything at all
+remarkable in her behavior, and believed that they accepted her
+excuses and apologies at their face value. She had no conception of
+the fact that her tortured face, with tragedy looking newly out of her
+eyes, kept them from their rest at night.
+
+Sheila wrote to thank her for sending the trunks.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My dear, _ma chere_, Miss Dear," she said. "_Merci beaucoup pour_ my
+clothes and other beautiful things. I like them. _Je t'aime--je t'aime
+toujours_. My father will not permit me to go back. _Comme_--how I
+desire to see you! My father has been sick. He fell down or was hurt
+in the street. There was blood--a great deal. Are they well--the
+others? Tell Monsieur Dick I give him _tout mon coeur_. Come to see me
+if it is _permit_. No more. You could write _peut-etre_. _Je
+t'aime_."
+
+                                                       "Yours,
+                                                           "SHEILA."
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nancy read this letter, in the quaint childish hand, with a great wave
+of dumb sickness creeping over her--a devastating, disintegrating
+nausea of soul and body. The most significant fact in it, however,
+that Collier Pratt had fallen down "or been hurt in the street," of
+course escaped her entirely, except to stir her with a kind of dim
+pity for his distress.
+
+In one of her long night vigils Preston Eustace's face came back to
+her oddly. She remembered suddenly the strange sad way he had stared
+at Betty on the evening of her party at the Inn. She reconstructed
+Betty's love-story, and its sudden breaking off, three years before,
+and with her new insight into the human heart, decided that these two
+loved each other still, and must be helped to the consummation of
+their happiness. She telephoned to them both the next day that they
+could be of service to her; and made an appointment to meet them at a
+given hour the next evening at her apartment.
+
+She expected and intended to be there herself to give the meeting the
+semblance of coincidence, and to offer them the hospitality of her
+house before she was inspired with the excuse that would permit her an
+exit that left them alone together; but she found herself in the slums
+of Harlem by an Italian baby's bedside at that hour, and decided that
+even to telephone would be superfluous, as once finding each other the
+lovers would be oblivious to all other considerations.
+
+What actually happened was that Preston Eustace, exactly on time as
+was his habit, had been waiting some ten minutes on Nancy's hearth-rug
+when Betty, delayed by the eccentricities of a casual motor-bus
+engine, and frantic with anxiety for her friend, burst in upon him. So
+full was she of the most hectic speculations concerning Nancy's sudden
+appeal to her that she scarcely noticed who was waiting there to greet
+her, and when she did notice, scarcely heeded that recognition.
+
+"Where's Nancy?" she demanded breathlessly.
+
+"I don't know, Betty," Preston Eustace said.
+
+"Doesn't Hitty know?"
+
+"She says she doesn't!"
+
+"How did you happen to be here?"
+
+"She sent for me."
+
+"She's probably sent for everybody else," Betty said. "She's killed
+herself, I know she has."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"Her heart is broken, she's been suffering terribly."
+
+"I don't think she would have sent for me if she had been going to
+kill herself," Preston Eustace said, a little as if he would have
+added, "We are not on those terms."
+
+"I don't suppose she would," Betty said. "But oh, Preston, I'm so
+worried about her. I don't know where she is or anything. I tell you
+her heart is broken."
+
+"I didn't know you believed in hearts--broken or otherwise, Betty."
+
+"I believe in Nancy's heart."
+
+"You never believed in mine."
+
+"You never gave me much reason to, Preston. You--you let me give you
+back your ring the first time I threatened to."
+
+"Of course I did."
+
+"You never came near me again."
+
+"Of course I didn't."
+
+"You let three years go by without a word."
+
+"Of course--"
+
+"If you say 'of course I did' again I'll fly straight up through this
+roof. If you'd ever loved me you wouldn't have gone away and left
+me."
+
+"If I hadn't loved you I wouldn't have gone away."
+
+"Oh, dear," Betty sighed. "I don't see how you can stand there and
+think about yourself with Nancy out in the night--we don't know
+where."
+
+"Ourselves, Betty--did you ever really love me?"
+
+"It doesn't make any difference whether I did or not," Betty said. "I
+hate men."
+
+"I think I'd better be going," Preston Eustace said, his face dark
+with pain. He was rather a literal-minded young man, as Caroline's
+brother would have been likely to be.
+
+Betty buried her face in her hands.
+
+"My head aches," she said, "and I was never in my life so mad and so
+miserable. I can't understand why everything and everybody should
+behave so--devilishly. You and every one else, I mean. I just simply
+can't bear to have Nancy suffer so. My head aches and my heart aches
+and my soul aches." She lifted her head defiantly.
+
+"I think I had better be going," Preston Eustace repeated, looking
+down at her sorrowfully.
+
+"Oh! don't be going," Betty said. "What in the name of sense do you
+want to be going for?" Then without warning or premeditation she
+hurled herself at his breast. "Oh! Preston, if there is anything
+comforting in this world," she said, "tell it to me, now."
+
+Preston Eustace gathered her to his breast with infinite tenderness.
+
+"I love you," he said with his lips on her brow. "Doesn't that comfort
+you a little?"
+
+"Yes," she admitted, "yes," winding her arms about his neck, "but you
+have no idea what a little devil I am, Preston."
+
+"I don't want to have any idea," he said, still holding her hungrily.
+
+"No, I don't think you do," Betty said. "Oh! kiss me again, dear, and
+tell me you won't ever let me go now."
+
+When Nancy came in she found the lovers so oblivious to the sound of
+her key in the latch or her footstep in the corridor that she decided
+to slip into bed without disturbing them, and did so, without their
+ever realizing that for the latter part of the evening at least, they
+had a hostess within range of the sound of their voices--indeed, she
+was obliged to stuff the pillow into her ears to prevent herself from
+actually hearing what they were saying.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first her freedom--her release from the monotonous constraint of
+her daily confinement at the Inn--the unaccustomed independence of her
+new activities which justified her most untoward goings and
+comings--was very soothing to her. She liked the feeling of slipping
+out of the house at night, accountable to no one except the
+redoubtable Hitty to whom she presented any explanation that happened
+to occur to her,--however wide its departure from the actual
+facts--and losing herself in the resurgent town. But after a while her
+liberty lost its savor. She began to feel uncared for and neglected.
+The unaccountable anguish in her breast was neither assuaged nor
+mitigated by the geographical latitude she permitted herself. She kept
+doggedly on with her personally conducted philanthropies, but she
+began to feel a little frightened about her capacity for endurance.
+Her body and brain began to show strange signs of fatigue. She was
+afraid that one or the other might suddenly refuse to function.
+
+One night, on coming out into the heterogeneous human stream on Avenue
+A, after a visit to a Polish family in the model tenements on
+Seventy-ninth Street, she ran into Dick.
+
+"Why, Dick," she said, "what an extraordinary place to find you!"
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" he said. "My business often brings me up this way."
+
+"Your business? What business?" she asked incredulously.
+
+"I don't know exactly what business it is. The ministering business, I
+guess." He motioned toward the basket on her arm: "Let me carry that,
+and you, too, if you'll let me, Nancy. You look tired."
+
+"I am tired, Dick," she said. "Have you got a car anywhere around?"
+
+"I can phone for it in two shakes," he said. "Here in this ice-cream
+parlor. Can I buy you a cone while you're waiting?"
+
+"Buy cones for that crowd of children and I'll watch them eat them.
+Doesn't that little girl in the pink dress look like Sheila, Dick?"
+
+She sank down on a stool in the interior of the candy shop and rested
+her elbows on the damp marble table in front of her, splotched and
+streaked still with the refreshment of the last customer who occupied
+the seat there and watched the horde of dirty clamorous street
+children devouring ice-cream cones and cheap sweets to the limit of
+their capacity.
+
+"I didn't know you believed in this promiscuous feeding of children
+between meals," Dick said, when she was settled comfortably at last
+among the cushions of his car, which had arrived on the scene with an
+amazing, not to say, suspicious promptness.
+
+"I don't," Nancy said, "in the least; but I don't _really_ believe in
+the things I believe in any more."
+
+"Poor Nancy!" Dick said.
+
+"I've had some trouble, Dick. I'm shaken all out of my poise. I can't
+seem to get my universe straight again."
+
+"I'm sorry for that," he said. "Anything I can do?"
+
+"Stand by; that's all, I guess."
+
+"You couldn't tell me a little more about it, could you?"
+
+"No, I couldn't, Dick."
+
+"I'm not even to guess?"
+
+"You couldn't guess. It's the kind of thing that's entirely outside
+of--of the probabilities. I think it's outside of the range of your
+understanding, Dick. I don't think you know that there is exactly that
+kind of trouble in the world."
+
+"And you think you'd better not enlighten me?"
+
+"I couldn't, Dick, even if I wanted to. Funny you happened to be in
+this part of town to-night just when I really needed you."
+
+He smiled. Every night of his life he followed her, watching over her,
+dodging down dark alley ways, waiting at squalid entrances until she
+came out. To-night he had ventured to speak to her only because he
+knew her to be in need of actual physical assistance.
+
+"Awfully glad to be anywhere around when you need me," he said; "still
+I hope you don't mind my suggesting that this is a Gehenna of a place
+for either of us to be in."
+
+"Haven't you any feeling for the downtrodden?" Nancy asked, with a
+faint reflection of what Billy referred to as her "older and better
+manner."
+
+"I'm downtrodden myself, Nancy."
+
+She smiled in her turn.
+
+"You don't look very downtrodden to me," she said. "_You've_ got
+everything to live for."
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Well, money and freedom and--and--"
+
+"Money is the only thing I've got that you haven't, and that doesn't
+mean much unless you can share it with the person you love."
+
+"No, it doesn't, does it?" Nancy said unexpectedly. "What's that scar
+on your forehead?"
+
+"That's a scratch I got."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Shaving or fighting, or something like that."
+
+"_Was_ it fighting, Dick?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who were you fighting with?"
+
+"I wasn't fighting. I was assaulting and battering."
+
+"Why, Dick!"
+
+"If it's any satisfaction to you to know it I made one grand job of
+it."
+
+"Why should it be any satisfaction to me?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Why, Dick!" Nancy said again. "I didn't know you had any of that kind
+of brutality in you."
+
+"Didn't you?"
+
+"What happens to a man when he--does a thing like that?"
+
+"He gets jugged."
+
+"Did he get jugged?"
+
+"Well, that wasn't the part that interested me."
+
+An odd picture presented itself to Nancy's mind of the men of the
+world engaged in one grand melee of brawling; struggling, belaying one
+another with their bare fists, drawing blood; brutes turned on
+brutes.
+
+"Men are queer things," she said.
+
+Dick's face was turned away from her. It was not at the moment a face
+she would have recognized. The eyes were contracted: the nostrils
+quivering: the teeth set.
+
+"I'm always at your service, Nancy," he said presently. "Is there
+anything in the world you want that I can get for you?"
+
+"The only thing I want is something you can't get?"
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"Sheila."
+
+"No," Dick said. "I can't get Sheila for you. I'm sorry. I suppose
+that's the whole answer to you," he went on musingly. "You want
+something, somebody to mother--to minister to. It doesn't make so much
+difference what else it is, so long as it's--downtrodden. That's why
+I've never made more of a hit with you. I've never been downtrodden
+enough. I didn't need feeding or nursing. I've always sort of
+cherished the feeling that I liked to be the one creature you didn't
+have to carry on your back. I thought that to stand behind _you_ was a
+pretty good stunt, but you've never needed anything yet to fall back
+on."
+
+"I don't think I ever shall," Nancy said. "Not,--not in the way you
+mean, Dick."
+
+"So be it," he said, folding his arms. "But there's still one thing
+you'll take from me, and that's the thing I've got that you
+haven't--money. I never have cared much about it before, but now that
+there are so many things I can't put right for you, I know you won't
+be selfish enough to deny this one satisfaction. Let me make over to
+you all the money you need to get you out of your difficulties with
+the Inn. Let me hand out a good round sum for all these charities of
+yours. If you knew how everything else in connection with you had
+conspired to hurt me,--how this being discounted and losing out all
+around has cut into me, you wouldn't deny me this one privilege. You
+don't want _me_, you wouldn't take me, but for God's sake, Nancy, take
+this one thing that I can give you."
+
+They had just swung into the lower entrance of the Park, and the big
+car was speeding silently into the deepening night, low hung with
+silver stars, and jeweled with soft lights.
+
+"You're awfully good to me, Dick," Nancy said, "and I appreciate every
+word you've been saying. I'd take your money, not for myself, but for
+the things I'm doing, if I needed it, but I don't, you know." She
+looked out into the coolness of the evening, lulled by the transition
+to a region of so much airiness and space, soothed by the soft motion,
+and the presence of a friend who loved her. The conversation in which
+she was engaged suddenly became trivial and unimportant to her. She
+was very tired, and she found herself beginning to rest and relax. "I
+don't need it," she repeated vaguely. "I've got plenty of money of my
+own. Over a million, Billy says now. Uncle Elijah left it to me. I
+didn't want him to, but perhaps it was all for the best." She put her
+head back against the cushions and shut her eyes. "I'm terribly
+sleepy," she said, "and as for the Inn--that's making money, too, you
+know. Last month we cleared more than two hundred dollars."
+
+And Dick saying nothing, but continuing to stare into space--the
+panoramic space fleeting rhythmically by the car window,--she let
+herself gradually slip into the depths of sudden drowsiness that had
+overtaken her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+HITTY
+
+
+Hitty put on her bonnet--she had worn widow's weeds for twenty-five
+years--and went out into the morning. She finally succeeded in
+boarding a south-bound Sixth Avenue car,--though since it was her
+habit to ignore the near side stop regulation, she always had
+considerable trouble in getting on any car,--and in seating herself
+bolt upright on the lengthwise seat, her black gloved hands folded
+indomitably before her.
+
+At Fourth Street she descended and made her way east to the square,
+and thence to the top floor of the studio building to which Collier
+Pratt had taken his little daughter on the memorable occasion when he
+had plucked her from her warm nest of blankets and led her, sleepy and
+shivering, into the cold of the night. She had been at some pains to
+secure the address without taking Nancy into her confidence.
+
+She took each creaking stair with a snort of disgust, and reaching the
+battered door with Collier Pratt's visiting card tacked on the smeary
+panel on a level with her eye, she knocked sharply, and scorning to
+wait for a reply, turned the knob and walked in.
+
+Collier Pratt was making coffee on a small spirit lamp, set on the
+wash-stand, which was decorously concealed during the more formal
+hours of the day behind a soft colored Japanese screen. He was wearing
+a smutty painter's smock, and though his face was shining with soap
+and water, his hair was standing about his face in a disorder eloquent
+of at least a dozen hours' neglect. Sheila, in a mussy gingham dress,
+was trying to pry off the pasteboard covering of a pint bottle of milk
+with a pair of scissors, and succeeding only indifferently. They both
+turned on Hitty's entrance, and the milk bottle went crashing to the
+floor when the little girl recognized her friend, but after one
+terrified look at her father she made no move at all in Hitty's
+direction.
+
+"And to what," Collier Pratt ejaculated slowly and disagreeably, as is
+any man's wont before he has had his draught of breakfast coffee, "am
+I to attribute the pleasure of this visit?"
+
+"It ain't no pleasure to me," Hitty said, advancing, a figure of
+menace, into the center of the dusty workshop, strangely uncouth and
+unprepossessing in the cold morning light,--"and if it's any pleasure
+to you, that's an effect that I ain't calculated to produce. I've come
+here on business--the business of collecting that poor neglected child
+there, and taking her back where she belongs, where there's folks that
+knows enough to treat her right."
+
+"Another of Miss Martin's friends and well-wishers, I take it. These
+American girls are given to surrounding themselves with groups of warm
+and impulsive associates. Do you by any chance happen to know a young
+lawyer by the name of Boynton, Hitty? A collection lawyer?"
+
+"I'll thank you to call me Mrs. Spinney, if you please, or if you
+don't please. Mrs. Spinney is the name I go by when I'm spoken to by
+them that knows their manners. If Billy Boynton thinks he can collect
+blood out of a stone he's welcome to try, but I should think he was
+too long headed to waste his time."
+
+"I gave him my I. O. U.," Collier Pratt said wearily. "If you don't
+mind, Hitty,--I really must be excused from your inexcusable
+surname--I am going to drink a cup of coffee before we continue this
+interesting discussion--_cafe noir_, our late unfortunate accident
+depriving me of _cafe au lait_ as usual. Sheila, get the cups."
+
+"You don't mean to say that you feed that peaked child with full
+strength coffee, do you? It'll stunt her growth; ain't you got the
+sense to know that?"
+
+"I don't like _big_ women," Collier Pratt said. "She's very fond of
+coffee."
+
+"Well! I've come to get her and take her away where you won't be in a
+position to stunt her growth, whatever your ideas on the subject is."
+
+Collier Pratt seated himself at the deal table that Sheila had set
+with the coffee-cups and a big loaf of French bread, and began slowly
+consuming a bowl of inky fluid, strong of chicory, into which from
+time to time he dipped a portion of the loaf. Sheila imitated his
+processes with less daintiness and precision, since she was shaken
+with excitement at Hitty's appearance.
+
+"I should spread a newspaper down if I was you," Hitty said, "before I
+et my vittles off a table that way. If a table ain't scrubbed as often
+as twice a day it ain't fit to be et off."
+
+"I know your breed," Collier Pratt said. "You'd be capable of taking
+your breakfast off _The Evening Telegram_ if no more appropriately
+colored sheet were at hand. Tell me, did Miss Martin send you here
+this morning, or was the inspiration to come entirely your own?"
+
+"Nobody had to send me. Wild horses wouldn't have kept me away from
+here."
+
+"Nor drag you away from here, I suppose, until your gruesome visit is
+accomplished. What makes you think that I would give up Sheila to
+you?"
+
+"I don't _think_ you would. I know you're a-goin' to."
+
+"Indeed."
+
+"We want the child. You don't want her, and you can't pretend to me
+that you do. Even if you did want her you can't take care of her in no
+way that's decent."
+
+"There's a great deal in what you say, Hitty."
+
+"What you're going to do is to sign a paper giving up your claim to
+her, and then Nancy can adopt her when she sees fitting to do so."
+
+"What would you suggest my doing about the child's mother? She has a
+mother living, you know."
+
+"Well, I didn't know," Hitty said, "but now I do know I guess I ain't
+going to have so much trouble as I thought I was. You're just a plain
+low-down yellow cur that any likely man I know would come down here
+and lick the lights out of."
+
+"Well, don't send any more of them, Hitty," Collier Pratt protested.
+"My work won't stand it."
+
+"You 'tend to the child's mother then, and I'll 'tend to you. You'd
+better let Sheila come away peaceable without any more trouble."
+
+"What do you propose doing to me if I don't?"
+
+"There's so many different things I could use," Hitty said thoughtfully,
+"that I don't know which one to hold over your head first."
+
+"I don't see how you could use anything you've got."
+
+"I'd just as soon use something I hadn't got," Hitty said grimly. "I'd
+sue you for breach o' promise myself ruther than lose what I come
+after."
+
+"I don't doubt you're capable of it," Collier Pratt said, surveying
+her ruefully. "That certainly would ruin my reputation. But seriously,
+supposing I were to give my consent to Sheila's going back to Miss
+Martin--Sheila's fond of her, and I should be very glad to do Miss
+Martin a service--little as you may be inclined to believe it of me.
+I'm fond enough of the child, but she is a considerable embarrassment
+to a man situated as I am. Supposing I should consent to giving her up
+as you suggest, how can a woman situated as Miss Martin is situated
+undertake such a charge permanently? How could she afford it? What
+kind of a future should I be surrendering my little girl to? One has
+to think of those things. Miss Martin is a poor girl--"
+
+"It's a lucky thing that you didn't know it before," Hitty said
+deliberately. "What you don't know that a woman's got, you wouldn't be
+trying to get away from her. Nancy's Uncle Elijah that died last year
+left her a million dollars in his will."
+
+"The devil he did--"
+
+"I guess if anybody's going to talk about devils it had better be me,"
+Hitty said dryly. "Does the child go or stay?"
+
+"Oh! she goes," Collier Pratt said. "I'm sorry you didn't come after
+me too, Hitty."
+
+"Nobody from up our way is ever coming after you. You can put that in
+your pipe and smoke it. Put on your bonnet, Sheila."
+
+"In some ways that is more of a relief than you know, Hitty. Some of
+the young men from up your way are so violent."
+
+"It ain't generally known yet," Hitty said as a parting shot when,
+Sheila's hand in hers, she stood at the door preparatory to taking her
+triumphal departure. "But Nancy is going to marry considerable money
+in addition to what she's inherited."
+
+Nancy finding it impossible to spend an hour of her time idly and with
+no appointments before noon that day, was engaged in darning a basket
+full of slum socks that she had brought home from the tenements to
+occupy Hitty's leisure moments. She was not very expert at this
+particular task, and the holes were so huge, and their method of
+behaving under scientific management so peculiar--it is hardly
+necessary to say that Nancy knew the theory of darning perfectly--that
+she was becoming more and more dissatisfied with her progress. Hitty's
+unprecedented and taciturn donning of her best bonnet in the early
+morning hours, followed by her abrupt departure without explanation or
+apology, was also a little disconcerting to any one acquainted with
+her habits. Nancy was relieved to hear her key in the lock again, and
+put down her work to greet her.
+
+The door opened and Sheila stood on the threshold. Hitty was close
+behind her, but Nancy had eyes only for the child.
+
+"Don't cry, Miss Dear," Sheila said, in her arms. "I cried hard every
+night when I was gone from you, but now I have come back. My father
+does not want me, and he says that you can have me."
+
+"He signed a paper," Hitty said. "I've got it in my bag with my specs.
+If ever he shows his face around here we can have the law on him."
+
+"Can I really have Sheila?" Nancy cried. "I can't believe that--her
+father would let her go. I can't understand it."
+
+"He's a kind of a poor soul," Hitty said. "He ain't got no real
+contrivance. He's glad enough to get rid of her."
+
+"Did he say so?"
+
+"Well, nearabout. He has a high-falutin way of talking but that was
+the amount of it. He knows which side his bread is buttered. He ain't
+nobody's fool. I'll say that for him."
+
+"I can't say that you make him out a very pleasant character," Nancy
+said. "But he's an artist, Hitty. Artists don't react to the same set
+of laws that we do. They're different somehow."
+
+"They ain't so different, when it comes to that," Hitty said dryly.
+"They won't take a hint, but the harder you kick 'em the better for
+all concerned. Don't you go sticking up for that low-down loon. He
+ain't worth it."
+
+"I suppose he isn't," Nancy said; "he's a pretty poor apology for a
+man as we understand men, Hitty, but there's something about him,--a
+power and a charm that you can't altogether discount, even though you
+have lost every particle of your respect for him."
+
+"He has a kind of way," Hitty conceded, "but I ain't one o' them kind
+o' women that hankers much for the society of a man that's once shown
+himself to be more of a sneak than the average."
+
+"I don't think that I am, either," Nancy said gravely.
+
+"I want to be your little girl always," Sheila announced, "if I may
+talk now, may I? And Monsieur Dick's, too, and sit on a cushion and
+sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream. I want
+to see Monsieur Dick. Where is he?"
+
+"He's been sick," Nancy said, "but he's getting better now, I think. I
+haven't seen him for some time, myself."
+
+"Don't you love him very much and aren't you very sorry?"
+
+"He probably isn't very sick," Nancy said. "I don't think he could
+be--but if he were I should be sorry, of course."
+
+"I don't want him to be sick," Sheila said, making herself a nest in
+Nancy's lap, and curling around in it like a kitten. "If he was I
+should be very, very unhappy, and I am tired of being unhappy, Miss
+Dear."
+
+Nancy's arms closed tight about her little body, which was lighter in
+her arms than she had ever known it. "Oh! I'm going to make such a
+strong well, little girl of you," she cried, "and we're going to have
+so many pleasant times together. I'm tired of being unhappy, too,
+Sheila, dear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+LOHENGRIN AND WHITE SATIN
+
+
+Dick, having la grippe, and doing his bewildered best to get pneumonia
+and gastritis by creeping out of bed when his temperature was highest,
+and indulging in untrammelled orgies of food and drink and exposure to
+draughts, had finally succeeded in making himself physically very
+miserable indeed. His mind had been out of joint for weeks. He reached
+the phase presently of refusing all nourishment and spiritual
+consolation, indiscriminately, and finding himself unbenefited by
+these heroic methods, decided in his own mind that all was over with
+him.
+
+He knew nothing about sickness, having led a charmed life in that
+respect since the measles period, and the persistent misery in his
+interior, attacking lung and liver impartially,--to say nothing of the
+top of his head and the back of his neck, and as his weakness
+increased, his cardiac region where there was a perpetual palpitation,
+and the calves of his legs which set up an ache like that of a
+recalcitrant tooth,--persuaded him that such suffering as his must be
+a certain indication of the approaching end. He had dismissed his
+doctor after the first visit, and denying himself to visitors, found
+himself alone and apparently in a desperate condition, with no one to
+minister to him but paid dependents. It was then that the loss of
+Nancy began to assume spectral proportions. He had been so long
+accustomed to think of himself as the strong silent lover, equipped
+with the patience and understanding that would outlast all the
+vagaries of Nancy's adventurous tendencies, that it was difficult to
+readjust himself to a new conception of her as a woman that another
+and even less worthy man had so nearly won,--under his nose.
+
+He had never thought much of his money until it began to acquire the
+virtue of an alkahest in his mind, an universal solvent that would
+transmute all the baser metals in Nancy's life and the lives of the
+people in whom Nancy was interested, into the pure gold of luxury and
+ease. He knew that the conventional fairy gifts would mean very little
+to her, but he had dreamed, when she was ready, of working out with
+her some practicable and gracious scheme of beneficence. There was one
+power she coveted that he could put in her hands,--one way that he
+could befriend and relieve her even before she conceded him that
+prerogative. When he learned that she had a fortune of her own his
+hopes came tumbling about his head, and he lay disconsolate among the
+ruins. His creeping physical disability seemed significant of the
+cataclysmic overthrow of all his dreams and desires. From having
+secretly and in some terror arrived at the conclusion that death was
+imminent, he began to look upon such a solution of his misery with
+some favor.
+
+It was a very gaunt and hollow-eyed caricature of the Dick she had
+known that confronted Nancy, when instigated by Betty, who had his
+illness heavily on her mind, she forced her way unannounced into the
+curious Georgian living-room of the suite wherein he was incarcerated.
+He had been stretched in an attitude of abandon on the couch when she
+opened the oak paneled door, but he jumped to his feet in a spasm of
+rage and alarm when he discovered that he had a visitor.
+
+"Go away," he said, "I am not able to see anybody. There's a mistake.
+I gave strict orders that nobody at all was to be admitted."
+
+"I know, Dick," Nancy said gently, "don't blame your faithful
+servitors. I thought I should have to use a gun on them, but I
+explained to them that you must be looked after."
+
+"I don't want to be looked after. I'm all right, thank you. Are you
+alone?"
+
+"No, Hitty's outside. Betty simply insisted on my bringing her,--I
+don't know why, but she said you'd be kinder to me if I did. I don't
+think you're very kind."
+
+A flicker of a smile crossed Dick's face, which seemed to say that if
+anything could bring back a momentary relish of existence the mention
+of Betty's name would be that thing. Nancy saw the expression and
+misinterpreted it.
+
+"I don't want to see anybody," Dick repeated firmly. "Will you be good
+enough to go away and leave me to my misery?"
+
+"No, I won't," Nancy said, "I never left anybody to their misery yet,
+and I'm not going to begin on you. Of course, if you'd rather see
+Betty, I'll send for her. She seems to know a good deal about your
+habits and customs. You look like a monk in that bathrobe. I'm glad
+you're not a fat man, Dick. It's so very hard to calculate just how
+much to cut down on starches and sweets without injury to the health.
+What are you feeding up on?"
+
+"You know very well that I'm not feeding up on anything, but if you
+think you can come around here, and dope out one of your darned health
+menus for me, and sit around watching me eat it, you are jolly well
+mistaken. I wish you'd go home, Nancy. I don't like you to-day. I
+don't like myself or anybody in this whole universe. I'm not fit for
+human society--don't you see I'm not?"
+
+"You're awful cross, dear."
+
+"Don't call me dear. I'm not Sheila or one of your sick waitresses,
+you know."
+
+"Sheila's back."
+
+"Is she?"
+
+"Don't you care?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose so."
+
+"She loves you."
+
+"She's unique."
+
+"You told me once there were other girls, Dick."
+
+"They're all over it by now."
+
+"Dick, can't I do something for you?"
+
+"Yes, leave me alone."
+
+"I've never seen you like this before."
+
+"No, thank God."
+
+"I didn't know you were ever anything but sort of smug and superior."
+
+"Grand description."
+
+"You ought to be in bed, dear--I didn't mean to call you dear, it
+slipped out, Dicky,--and taking nourishment every hour or so. What
+does the doctor say?"
+
+"Nothing, he's given me up as a bad job."
+
+"Given you up?"
+
+"Yes, there's nothing he can do for me."
+
+"Why, Dick, my dear, what is it?"
+
+"Oh! lungs or liver or something. I don't know."
+
+"What are you taking, Dick?"
+
+"I tell you I can't take anything," he said, misunderstanding her. "It
+makes me sick to eat. Every time I try to eat anything I feel a lot
+worse for it."
+
+"When did you try last?"
+
+"Oh, yesterday some time. Now what in the name of sense makes a woman
+shed tears at a simple statement like that? I'm not in shape to stand
+this. Once and for all, Nancy, will you get out and leave me? I tell
+you I never wanted to see you less in my life. I'll write you a letter
+and apologize if you'll only go, now."
+
+"Oh, I'll go," Nancy said. "I couldn't really believe that you wanted
+me to,--that's all."
+
+She started for the door--but Dick, weakened by lack of food, tortured
+beyond his endurance by the sudden assault on his nerves made by
+Nancy's appearance, gave way to his relief at her going an instant too
+soon. Like a small boy in pain he crooked his elbow and covered his
+face with his arm.
+
+Nancy ran to him and knelt at his side, taking his head on her
+breast.
+
+"Dear," she said, "you do want me. We want each other. You love me,
+Dicky, and I am going to love you--if you'll only let me look after
+you and nurse you back to health again."
+
+"I don't want to be nursed," Dick blubbered, his head buried in her
+bosom, "I want to look out for you, and take care of you, and--and now
+look at me. You'll never love me after this, Nancy."
+
+"Yes, I shall, dear," Nancy said. "I've always loved you somehow.
+It'll--it'll be the saving of me, Dick."
+
+"Well, then I do want to be nursed. I--I haven't cried before since I
+had the measles, Nancy."
+
+"I'm glad you cried, now, then," Nancy said.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I suppose you'll want to be married in the courtyard of the Inn,"
+Dick said some weeks later, when they were conventionally ensconced in
+Nancy's own drawing-room; Hitty happily rattling silverware in the
+butler's pantry in the rear, "with old Triton blowing his wreathed
+horn above us, and all the nymphs and gargoyles and Hercules as
+interested spectators. Well, go as far as you like. I haven't any
+objection. I'll be married in a Roman bath if you want me to, and eat
+bran biscuit and hygienic apple sauce for my wedding breakfast."
+
+"Betty and Preston are going to be married at the Inn," Nancy said;
+"you know her mother's an invalid, and they can't have it at home. Do
+you know what I'd like to give them as a wedding present?"
+
+"I don't."
+
+"Well, you know, Preston's firm has gone out of existence. The war
+simply killed it. They haven't much money ahead, and he may have a
+harder time than he thinks getting located again."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I thought I'd like to give them Outside Inn for a wedding present.
+Besides, I don't see what else there is to do with it. It's making
+several hundred a month, now, and promises to make more."
+
+"Good idea," Dick said.
+
+"You don't seem exceedingly interested."
+
+"Oh, I am," Dick said, "I'm more interested in our wedding than
+Betty's wedding present, but that doesn't imply a lack of merit in
+your idea. _You'll_ want to be married at the Inn, I take it?"
+
+"You'd let me, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Sure I'd let you. When a man marries a modern girl with all the
+trappings and the suits of modernity, he ought to be prepared to take
+the consequences cheerfully."
+
+"Then I'm going to surprise you. I don't want anything modern at all
+about my wedding. I want it in church with a huge bridal bouquet and
+_Lohengrin_ and white satin; Caroline for my matron of honor and Betty
+for my bridesmaid, and Sheila for flower girl. I want a wedding
+breakfast at the Ritz and rice and old shoes--just all the old
+traditional things."
+
+"Gee whiz," Dick ejaculated, "is this straight, or are you only making
+it up to sound good to me? You can have it anyway you like it, you
+know."
+
+"That's the way I like it," Nancy said. "It's good to be a modern
+girl, but I really prefer to be an old-fashioned wife--with
+reservations," she added hastily.
+
+"That's what we all come to in the end," Dick said, "no matter how we
+feel or think we feel about it--being modern with reservations."
+
+"I saw Collier Pratt to-day," Nancy said suddenly, as she watched a
+log split apart in the fireplace and scatter its tiny shower of
+sparks, "on the avenue."
+
+Dick carefully stamped out two smoldering places on the rug before he
+answered.
+
+"Did you?" he said.
+
+"He had a cheap little creature with him, dark haired in messy
+cerise."
+
+"It may have been his wife. I hear that she's living with him again."
+
+"Is she?"
+
+"Nancy," Dick said with an effort, after a few minutes of silence,
+"are you all over that? Is it really fair and right of me to take you?
+I've been puzzling over that lately. I want you on any terms, you
+know, as far as I am concerned, but I'm a sort of monogamist. If a
+woman has once cared for a person, no matter who or what that person
+is, can she ever care again in the same way for any one? Isn't it pity
+you feel for me, after all?"
+
+"No it isn't pity," Nancy said slowly. "I cared for that man until I
+found that he was the shadow and not the substance. He isn't fit to
+black your shoes, Dick.--Besides--if--if it was pity," she added
+irrelevantly, "that's the way to get me started, you know."
+
+"If I only have got you started--really."
+
+Nancy crossed the two feet of space between them and sank at his feet,
+leaning her head back against his knee while he stroked her hair
+silently.
+
+"There's one way of proving," she said presently, "if--if you've made
+a woman really care for you. I should think you'd know that. I told
+you how you'd made me feel about the bridal bouquet and _Lohengrin_."
+
+"Does that prove something?"
+
+"Doesn't it?"
+
+"I suppose it does. You mean it proves that a woman truly loves a man
+if he's made her feel that she wants to be an old-fashioned wife--"
+
+"And mother, Dick," Nancy finished for him bravely.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Outside Inn, by Ethel M. Kelley
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