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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32988-8.txt b/32988-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f402141 --- /dev/null +++ b/32988-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10223 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ewing's Lady, by Harry Leon Wilson + +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: Ewing's Lady + +Author: Harry Leon Wilson + +Release Date: June 27, 2010 [EBook #32988] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EWING'S LADY *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +EWING'S LADY + + _B_y + HARRY LEON WILSON + + Author of "The Spenders" + + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + NEW YORK + 1907 + + + COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + + COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY + AINSLEE MAGAZINE COMPANY + + _Published, November, 1907_ + + + + +To N. B. T. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I.--EWING'S KID 1 + + II.--A LADY LOSES HERSELF 12 + + III.--A PRIVATE VIEW 20 + + IV.--A PORTRAIT 32 + + V.--INTO THE PAST AND OUT 43 + + VI.--THE LADY AND THE PLAN 55 + + VII.--TWO SLEEPERS AWAKEN 64 + + VIII.--THE JOURNEY WONDER 71 + + IX.--A DINNER AT SEVEN-THIRTY 83 + + X.--THE WAY OF THE LITTLE MAN 97 + + XI.--A NIGHT AT THE MONASTERY 105 + + XII.--THE NEW MEMBER 124 + + XIII.--SEARCHING THE WILDERNESS 131 + + XIV.--THE TRICK OF COLOR 140 + + XV.--FLESH OF HER FLESH 147 + + XVI.--TEEVAN AS SPECIAL PROVIDENCE 156 + + XVII.--AN ELUSIVE VENUS 164 + + XVIII.--MRS. LAITHE IS IN 174 + + XIX.--THE UNBLAZED WAY 185 + + XX.--A LADY BLUSHES 196 + + XXI.--THE DRAMA IN NINTH STREET 203 + + XXII.--A REVOLT 211 + + XXIII.--THE LITTLE LAND 222 + + XXIV.--EWING INTERRUPTS 231 + + XXV.--MRS. LAITHE IS ENLIGHTENED 247 + + XXVI.--THE SUNSET TRAIL 256 + + XXVII.--THE HILLS OF REST 262 + + XXVIII.--THE WHITE TIME 273 + + XXIX.--THE AWAKENING 279 + + XXX.--THE HARDEST THING 290 + + XXXI.--THE MISSION OF EWING 304 + + XXXII.--THE TURNING OF COONEY 313 + + + + +EWING'S LADY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +EWING'S KID + + +Two weeks of instructive contact with the Bar-7 school of gallantry had +prepared Mrs. Laithe to be amazed at her first encounter with Ewing's +kid. Riding out from the ranch one afternoon and turning, for coolness, +up the wooded mesa that rises from the creek flat, she overwhelmed him +at a bend in the trail. Stricken motionless, he glared at the lady with +eyes in which she was compelled to believe that she read more horror +than admiration. There was a moment of this; then her pony neighed a +greeting to the statue--of dusty bronze--as if to say that things were +not so bad as they seemed, and the gazing youth broke the spell his +vision had laid upon him. He bowed his head doggedly and vanished beyond +some low-growing cedars that lined the way. + +As he fled the lady laughed softly, yet was silent, with face austerely +set as she passed the point of his evanishment. His behavior recalled +that of a deer she had terrorized one day in this same green isle of the +woods; and she had laughed the same furtive laugh, as if in confidence +to herself, when the creature tossed its head in challenge, pawed the +earth with a dainty bravado, and then fled in such an ecstasy of panic +that she could hear it crashing through the underbrush long after it had +vanished. But this human woods-creature had gone silently; and no great +way, she suspected--far enough only to screen himself while his eyes +still held her through some opening in the green curtain. Wherefore let +us comprehend the mien of austerity as she passed. + +Elusiveness in the male, be it bluntly said, was confounding to the +experience of Mrs. Laithe since she had ventured into the San Juan +Mountains under the nominal care of an inattentive brother, and her +belief was still firm that the men about her suffered little from +shyness. This latest specimen would be a single variation from type and +of slight value in determining the ways of his kind. + +As her pony picked its way up the trail she mused over the not +unpleasant picture of the youth at bay. It was a thing to be caught at +the moment, for she would find him otherwise, she believed, at their +next meeting. She would come on him some day at Bar-7, or at one of the +ranches neighboring it, and find him quite like his fellows, rigidly +respectful, but with a self-confidence and a simple directness in his +gallantry that had entertained her not a little as practiced by local +courtiers. He would be like the others, from Beulah Pierce, owner of +Bar-7, down to Shane Riley, humble helper in the cookhouse. + +An hour later, refreshed by the balsam-laden air of the upper reaches, +she left the woods at the foot of the mesa and rode out on the willow +flat, lush with grass for Bar-7's winter feeding. From the first bench +above the creek she descried the figures of two men in front of the +ranch house. One she saw to be Beulah Pierce, his incredible length +draped lazily over the gate that opened into his wife's flower garden. +Outside this gate, under the flow of his talk (Pierce would surely be +talking) stood one whom the lady, riding nearer, identified as the youth +who so lately had shirked a meeting with her. At this sight she warmed +with a little glow of pride in her powers of prophecy. Truly he had +waited no long time. His hat was off and he leaned restfully against the +withers of a saddled horse, a horse that drooped, head to the ground, in +some far low level of dejection. + +She laughed again, comprehending the fellow at last. His variation from +type had been but seeming, due to an erratic but not constitutional +embarrassment. Brazenly enough now he contrived to await her coming, +craftily engaging the not difficult Pierce in idle talk. And Pierce, as +she rode up, would perform, with stiff importance, the orthodox ceremony +of presentation. Whereupon the youth would bow with visible effort, +shake her hand with a rigid cordiality, once up, once down, and remark, +after swallowing earnestly, "Pleased to meet you, ma'am!" or perhaps, +"Glad to make your acquaintance!" Then, tactfully affecting to ignore +her, he would demand if Pierce had seen anything of that buckskin mare +and colt that strayed off last Tuesday; or if anyone had brought mail up +from Pagosa Springs lately; or if Pierce happened to need two thousand +hemlock shakes. This query he would follow with a popular local +witticism concerning sheepmen or the Colorado climate--nominally +addressed to Pierce but intended for her own refreshment. And, in +readjusting the silk kerchief at his throat, he would manage a quick +side glance at her to see how she relished the jest. For Mrs. Laithe had +learned their ways in two weeks, and this was one of them--to favor one +another with witty sallies in her presence, and solely in her behalf. +All the men of Bar-7 practiced this amiable strategy. When a group of +them assembled within her hearing the swift exchange of repartee, +accompanied by the inevitable side glance, was a thing to wonder at. + +Indeed, the lady had learned their ways. Even before she neared the gate +Alonzo Pierce, son of Beulah, appeared round the corner of the ranch +house to take her pony, sauntering with a flagrant _ennui_, in full +knowledge that Sandy Goodhue had started violently on the same gallant +mission, but from the farthest corral. Shane Riley, chained by his +labors to the doorway of the cookhouse, smirked genially out over a pot +that he polished; and Red Phinney, star rider at Bar-7, seated himself +on the step before the front door, so that he might have to arise with +flourishing apologies--a performance that would move the lady to ask +about his sprained wrist, now in bandage. + +This familiar assembling of her court, professedly casual, was swiftly +detected by Mrs. Laithe. But she saw now, being near the gate, a quick +turning toward her of the strange youth. It was a brief, impersonal +survey that seemed not to disengage her from the background of gray road +and yellowish-green willows; but clearly it sufficed. With a curt nod to +Pierce he was mounted; in another breath his amazed and indignant horse, +spurred viciously from its trance, raged with protesting snorts over the +road to the east. As Mrs. Laithe reined up at the gate she beheld, +through a nimbus of dust, the rider's boots groping pathetically for +their stirrups. + +She repressed a little gasp of astonishment in which the natural woman +might have betrayed her view of so headlong a retreat, although, had +Beulah Pierce been alone at the gate, she might have descended to speech +with him about this strangely retiring youth. But as 'Lon Pierce waited +for her pony, with a masterly taunt for Sandy Goodhue, who came up +breathless but late, and as Red Phinney had already risen from his +obstructive seat in the doorway, his wrist held cunningly forward to +provoke solicitous inquiry, the lady passed in with only such easy words +as the moment demanded. She was reflecting, with agreeable interest, +that the young man's avoidance of her would presently begin to seem +pointed. + +This conjecture was to be abundantly confirmed. Returning from her ride +the following afternoon, she saw that the youth must pass her on the +public highway. They were out on the flat, with no arboreal sanctuary +for the timid one. The lady looked forward with genial malice to a +meeting which, it appeared, he was now powerless to avoid. But the +youth, perceiving his plight, instantly had trouble with a saddle girth. +Turning well out of the road, he dismounted on the farther side of his +horse and busied himself with the mechanics of proper cinching. As Mrs. +Laithe rode by she saw only the top of a wide-brimmed gray hat above the +saddle. + +The day following, when, in an orderly sequence of events, they should +have met at the ford, he turned with admirable promptness down the +stream, where no trail was, sharply scanning the thinned edge of a wood +in the perfect manner of one absorbed in a search for lost stock. +Clearly, his was a mind fertile, if not subtle, in resource. + +Not until a day later did he come truly to face her, and then only by +the circumstance of his being penned by her within the high-walled +corral where Red Phinney broke green horses to ride, work or carry. +Returning this day earlier than was her wont, and finding no one at the +front of the house to take her pony, she had ridden back to the corrals. +Here she delivered the animal to Phinney, but not before the timid one +had been compelled to pass her. He did this, she thought, only after +swiftly calculating the height of the walls that pent him. And though +his hat was doffed as he hurtled by, his eyes were on the ground. Mrs. +Laithe, feeling thus at liberty to stare brutally at him, felt a +prodigious heightening of that tower of amazement he had been rearing +within her mind, for she saw him blush most furiously; beheld it under +the brown of his beardless face. + +Yet there was more in the young face than this flaunted banner of +embarrassment; and scanning it intently, she resolved forthwith to know +him. + +Late that day she was pleased to come upon Beulah Pierce alone in the +big living room of the ranch house. Smoking a last pipe before the call +to supper, Beulah relaxed on the "lounge" after a toilsome season of +ditch-making. + +"Oh, him?" he answered, luxuriously extending legs that seemed much too +long for any reasonable need of man, and pulling at his ragged red +mustache. "Why, that's Ewing's kid." + +"Ewing?" retorted Mrs. Laithe, provocatively, winningly. + +"Ewing," affirmed Pierce, with unaccustomed brevity, his mind at +dalliance with other matters. + +"Ewing's kid," murmured the lady, as if in careless musing. + +"Sure, Ewing's kid--Hi Mighty! I struck one o' them willow roots to-day, +on that piece o' ditch over on the west forty, an' say! it yanked me +clean over the plow handles. It did, fur a fact--straightened me out +like a whiplash. It scraped all the wall paper off'n this left shoulder +o' mine when I landed, too, say nothin' o' the jounce it give me. Ma, +whur's that embrycation fur man _and_ beast?" And Beulah laid a gentle +hand on the abraded member. + +"After you've et a bite," called his wife from the next room. "Shane has +the things all on, so come along an' set up." + +Beulah erected himself with an unctuous groan and spoke his favorite +jest: "Wa'al, le's go out an' see what the neighbors has brought in." + +The meal over, Mrs. Laithe again found herself with Pierce in the living +room. She sat on the bearskin before the open fire, her hands clasped +about her knees. Through the dancing jets of flame she observed the kid +of Ewing with his downward, troubled face. Pierce, tucking shreds of +tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, glanced toward her, the light of +coming talk in his eyes. + +"How'd you like that there little red roan you're ridin', Mis' Laithe?" +he began. + +"Cooney? Oh, Cooney's a dear, generally. Sometimes he's stubborn and +pretends to know the way better than I do." + +"Sound and kind, though, I bet you." + +"Oh, yes; but when I want to ride down the east side of the valley, why +does he always try to go up that steep trail to the left? Sometimes I've +quite a struggle to keep him in the valley road." + +"Wa'al, you see I bought him off'n Ewing's kid an' he wants to git back +home. Sure's ever we dast let him loose with the saddle band, he's over +to Ewing's place, come sun-up. You give him his head any time--he'll +carry you straight there." + +"He will?" + +"Surest thing _you_ know! When that kid breaks a pony he gits it all +gentled up so's it hones to git back to him." + +"How interesting!" + +"Naw--makes lashin's o' trouble fur them that buys off'n him. Say, Mis' +Laithe, you was askin' about Ewing's kid." + +"Was I?" She looked politely blank. + +"Sure you was--jest 'fore supper. Wa'al, Ewing's kid is the son of a man +named--now hear me _talk_! Course he's his father's son. Wa'al, anyway, +this man Ewing comes in here with this kid about fifteen, sixteen year +ago, an' takes that place over there by the lake to git cured up o' the +consumption. He was a painter, painted pitchers an' all sech, +understand?--puts up a big stoodio with a winder in it six feet high to +paint by. But he was puny. He couldn't fat up none. You never seen a +critter so gaunted as he was. Some said he never got over losin' his +wife. Anyway, 't wa'n't no surprise when he was took off, seven, eight +year ago. An' since he died that there kid has sort o' half run the +place along with a feller named Ben Crider that the old man had got fur +help. O' course we all kind o' looked in on the boy at first to make +sure he wa'n't in need, an' done a day's work now an' then, an' they +raised a few horses an' a few cattle an' one thing an' another. Trouble +with that boy, though, he's always putterin' round with his dad's paint +brushes, an' talkin' about portrayin' art an' all like that, understand? +I've told that kid time an' time again, 'Kid,' I says, 'never _you_ mind +about portrayin' art an' depictin' the linnerments an' the varied +aspecks o' nature,' I says; 'you jes' burn up them foolish little +long-shanked paint brushes in your Charter Oak cookstove,' I says, 'an' +ten' to portrayin' a good little bunch of cattle an' depictin' Ben +Crider to work also, an' you'll _git_ somewhur's,' I says. But him--why, +he jes' moons along. An' Ben Crider ain't much better. Ben ain't no +_stimulant_ to him. Ben had ort to been the only son of a tenderhearted +widow lady of means. That's what he'd ort to been. You give him a new +coon song out of a Sunday supplement an' his guitar, an' Ben's fixed fur +half a day at least. _He_ ain't goin' to worry none about a strayed +yearlin' or two. Why, one time, I rec'lect----" + +"Then young Mr. Ewing is a painter, too?" she interrupted. + +"Wa'al"--Pierce became judicial--"yes an' _no_. He ain't a reg'ler one, +like you might say--not like his pa was. Still, he can do hand +paintin'--if you want to call it that. Made a pitcher o' me this summer, +bein' buckjumped by old Tobe. Tobe was cert'n'y actin' high, wide an' +handsome, comin' down with his four hoofs in a bunch, an' me lookin' +like my works was comin' all apart the next minute. A _lively_ +pitcher--yes; but, my Lord! it wa'n't a thing you could show! It made me +out that reediculous. Course, I ain't Mrs. Langtry, but you got to draw +the line somewhurs, hain't you? Now there"--Beulah pushed an informing +thumb toward crayon portraits of himself and Mrs. Pierce that graced the +opposite wall in frames of massive gilt, one on either side of the +organ--"that's what you can call art--drawn by a reg'ler one down to +Durango--everything showin' like it ort to, expressions _an'_ all, even +down to Ma Pierce's breastpin an' my watch chain, made out o' my own +mother's hair. They're _decent_ pitchers. That other one was plumb +indecent, I can tell you. Ma she up an' hid it away, quick as she seen +it." + +"And has he done other things?" + +"Hey?" + +"Painted other pictures?" + +"Slathers--horses an' animals an' Ben Crider with his gun an' all sech, +an' deer. Say now, I seen another artist down to the Durango fair last +fall that was a genuine wonder an' no mistake. He was writin' callin' +cards at a little table, an' he could draw a runnin' deer all in +flourishes an' curlycurves, without liftin' his pen from the card, all +slick an' natural as you'd want to----" + +"Did you know his mother?" + +"No-o-o--didn't even know him. I jest stopped to look an' he drawed a +fine big bird right while I watched, havin' a ribbon in its bill with my +name on it in red ink; about as tasty a thing as you'd care to see, fur +a quarter of a dollar. It's round the house somewhur now, I reckon, if +you----" + +"Ewing's kid's mother?" + +"Hey? Oh, no, I never knew that lady. She passed away sommers off up the +state before these other parties moved in." + +"Does the boy resemble his father?" + +"Ewing? Wa'al, not to _say_ resemble. In fact he didn't favor him, not +at all, that I can rec'lect. He must of been most like his ma." + +The lady had been speaking as from a distance, staring fixedly into the +fire, with the distraction of one engaged in some hopeless feat of +memory. So intently aloof was she that Pierce had to repeat his next +remark. + +"I say, you don't never want to let Cooney git you started up that trail +you was speakin' about. First place, it's steeper'n the side of a house. +Next place, ever let him git you to the top, he'd land you slambang over +to Ewing's, spite of all you could do." + +"Thank you! I'll be sure to remember that. Good night!" + +She left him, still with the far-centered, puzzled look on her face--the +shadow of some resemblance, indefinite, nameless, but insistent. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A LADY LOSES HERSELF + + +Only a few miles separate Bar-7 from the Ewing place; but they are +interesting miles and at least one of them will be found exciting by the +town-bred novice. There is a stretch where the trail leaves the valley +road and zigzags up the face of the east bench to a height from which +one may survey the whole sleeping valley of the Wimmenuche as through a +reducing glass. The way seems no broader than one's hand, and to Mrs. +Laithe, who approached it from across the flat and studied it for the +first time as a practicable thoroughfare, it looked to be impossibly +perpendicular; a climb that no horse in its right mind would attempt, an +angle of elevation that no rider could sustain. + +Brought to incredulity by this survey, she pulled Cooney to a walk as +she neared the parting of the ways. Then, indecisively, she let the +bridle rein fall on his neck. The little horse loitered on, splashing +through the creek with a few leisurely sips of its icy water (taken +merely in the spirit of a connoisseur), and a moment later halted where +the bench trail turned out. At the beginning of his intimacy with his +present rider he had adopted rushing tactics at this point, leaping at +the trail in a fine pretense that no other way could have been thought +of, and showing a hurt bewilderment when the sudden pull brought him +about and into the valley road. For that was a road that led nowhere, +since it led away from his home. Day after day he had played this game, +seemingly with an untouched faith that some time he would win. Day after +day had he exercised all his powers of astonished protest when the +frustrating tug was felt. But these tugs had become sharper, to betoken +the rider's growing impatience, and it may be surmised that on this day +Cooney had lost his faith. If it were inevitable that one should be +whirled back into the broad, foolish way, one might save effort by +omitting that first futile rush; one might stop and let evil come. +Cooney stopped now, drooping in languid cynicism. + +His rider waited, wishing that he had not stopped; wishing he had rushed +the trail as always before. She felt the need of every excuse for daring +the hazards of that climb. Cooney waited--and waited--morosely +anticipating the corrective jerk of a rider who refused to guide him +properly by pressing a rein across his neck. The shock was delayed. +Cooney thrilled, aspiring joyously. He waited still another uncertain +moment, bracing his slim legs. At last, with a quick indrawing of +breath, he sprang up the only desirable trail in all the world, with an +energy of scurrying hoofs that confined his rider's attention wholly to +keeping her seat. She hardly dared look down even when the little horse +stopped on a narrow ledge to breathe. Nor did Cooney tarry. Still +fearful, perhaps, of that deadly backward jerk, he stopped but once +again before the summit was reached. Doubtless he suspected that the +most should be made of this probably fleeting mood of compliance in one +who had hitherto shown herself inveterately hostile to his most +cherished design. + +Looking back over the ascent while the stanch little animal panted under +her, Mrs. Laithe discovered that the thing had been worth while. The +excitement had been pleasurable and the view was a thing to climb for. +On the north the valley narrowed to a cañon, its granite sides muffled +in clouds of soft green spruce. To the south it widened away until, +beyond a broad plain, quickened with flying cloud shadows, a long, +low-lying range of blue hills showed hazily, far over the New Mexico +border. Straight before her, across the valley, were mountains whose +rough summits leaped gray and barren above their ragged hemming of +timber--mountains not to be seen from the ranch because of the +intervening mesa. + +But the picture was not long to be enjoyed--no longer a time than Cooney +needed to recover his wind. He was presently off through a sparse grove +of aspen, breaking by his own will into a lope as they crossed a wide, +grassy meadow, level between the wooded hills that sloped to its edge on +either side. And this was the horse who, when he bore her lazily up and +down the valley, constantly cropped the good green stuff to right and +left, a horse always before willing to loiter, or to stand motionless +for an hour with his bridle rein on the ground, while she adventured +beyond him on foot. The rider caught his new spirit and laughed as she +felt herself hurried to the consummation of this mild adventure; hurried +up the long ridge, over a cross system of sudden gullies, through +another wide meadow of the mountains where strange cattle paused to +regard her rather disconcertingly; on through the gloom of other woods, +the trail worrying itself up another ascent, and then out upon an open +summit that looked down upon a tiny lake set in a cup of the hills. On +one side the water, its shining surface pierced only by the heaps of +hungry trout, flashed the green of chrysoprase up to the spruce trees +that crept to its edge; on the other it mirrored a scarred wall of rock +that rose sheer from the water to some far, incalculable height, its +summit carved into semblances of buttressed castles with gray and +splendid battlements. + +But Cooney was still loath to linger over mere scenery. He hurried his +rider down the ridge and out on a flat of marshy grass, thickly starred +with purple gentians. Here he delayed only to recall, as it later +appeared, a duty familiar to him in the days before he was sold into +bondage. Standing across the trail where it neared the margin of the +lake, a sedate-looking cow grazed and was at peace with the world. + +Looking up as the horse bore down upon her, and observing that she was +expected to move, the cow did so with but slight signs of annoyance in +the shaking of her head. The incident, however, was not thus simply to +be closed, for now began that which enabled the lady to regard the day +as one of red adventure. Cooney swerved from the trail with a suddenness +that was like to have unseated his rider. Then as the cow halted, head +down and forefeet braced, he swerved once more, heading so obviously for +the beast that she turned and trotted off on the trail, mumbling +petulant remonstrance. With a knowing shake of his head Cooney fell in +behind her. + +His intention might no longer be mistaken. He meant to drive the cow. +Did she turn aside, Cooney turned aside, ever alert for her slightest +deviation. The trail now lay through a grove of spruce and balsam +that had been partially cleared, but the trees were still too many +for the lady to relish being hurtled among them by a volatile and +too-conscientious cow pony. She found herself eying their charge as +alertly as did Cooney himself, praying that the driven beast might +prove less reluctant. When she did break from the trail Mrs. Laithe +braced herself to meet Cooney's simultaneous detour, and thereafter, +until the indignant animal was again in the beaten way, the rider was +engaged in avoiding fearful impact with trees and entanglement with +low-growing branches. She debated the wisdom of dropping from the saddle +and abandoning herself to the more seemly fate of starvation in this +wooded fastness. To be sure, there was a chance that Cooney would rush +on to find his late master, who might return to solve the problem of the +empty saddle. But even so, that young man would only glance at her and +run swiftly away, after he had blushed. Moreover Cooney, whom she now +believed to be demented, had increased his speed, despite her +restraining pulls, while the cow, in a frenzy of desperation, became +more daring in her sorties. + +Then, to the glad relief of the rider, an opening showed through the +trees close ahead, and in another moment Cooney had galloped her out +into an extensive clearing. Swiftly about its edge he circled, to thwart +a last dash of his prey for the glad, free grazing life from which she +had so summarily been withdrawn. Half round the clearing they went in +the startled gaze of a person who had been at work over a deer hide in +the shade of a mighty hemlock. Then, with lightning swerve pursued and +pursuers fled straight and swiftly across the clearing--Cooney close on +the flanks of his prize--into the astounded vision of Ewing's kid, who +had sauntered to the open door at the sound of flying hoofs. + +Hereupon the little roan abandoned his task, halting before the figure +in the doorway. The halt was so abrupt that Mrs. Laithe never knew +whether she dismounted or was thrown. + +They looked at each other helplessly, the lady's eyes still wide with +the dismay that had been growing in them since Cooney's mysterious +seizure. She felt herself trembling and she tried to smile. The young +man released the arm he had seized to support her and stepped back, +putting a hand up to Cooney, who had been mouthing his sleeve with +little whinnies of rejoicing. + +Then the lady heard the voice of Ewing's kid, heard him say with quick, +embarrassed utterance, "It's too bad you went to all that trouble. We're +not milking Clara any more." + +Still breathing rapidly, she turned half away, confused by this cryptic +utterance. + +"Clara?--I didn't know--I don't--I beg your pardon, but I'm afraid I +don't understand." + +"Yes, we don't drive her in any more. Midge came in fresh a few weeks +ago, and we let Clara run along with her calf again." + +Pondering this item, she put her hands to her head. One of them found +her cap which a low branch had raked awry; the other grasped a tangle of +hair that muffled the other side of her head, regrettably out of place. +From this surprising touch of things she divined the picture she must be +making. More, she saw herself dash into this sylvan opening apparently +in mad pursuit of a frenzied cow; for, as a requisite to keeping her +seat in the saddle, she had been compelled to seem as eager in the chase +as Cooney himself. She sank--collapsed, rather--upon the broad slab of +stone before the door, laughing weakly. + +The youth looked down at her with puzzled eyes in which she saw alarm +rising. + +"But I didn't try to chase your cow--I didn't want to," she broke out. +"It was your horse; _his_ idea, his alone." + +There was such fine, shy commiseration in his face as she rose that she +laughed again. + +"Of course it must have been Cooney's fault," he said. "I might have +known that. He used to have to drive her in every day." He regarded her +for a moment with a sort of dumb chivalry, then politely offered his +hand, saying, with a curious little air of taught formality: "I'm very +glad to see you. Thank you so much for coming!" + +In avoiding each other's eyes, as their hands fell apart, they both +looked out to the person who stooped busily over a deer hide in the +shade of the big hemlock. His view of the circumstance was revealing +itself. Only his rounded back could be seen, but this rose and fell in +the rapid, rhythmic convulsions of silent laughter. They turned quickly +back to each other and smiled in a sudden sympathy with his mirth. + +"If I may have a glass of water--" she suggested, as a device for +establishing ease between them. + +"Of course!" He called to the person under the tree, arresting the back +at the height of one of its recurrent spasms. The face turned upon them +was rigidly sad, a face of almost saturnine solemnity, the face of one +who has been brought to view life as an engine of woe. As he ambled +dejectedly toward them, his head bowed from his work-bent shoulders, the +lines of grief in his face seemed to deepen, and a gnarled hand tugged +at the already drooping ends of his long mustache, as if he would be +assured that they, also, testified to the world's objectionableness. + +"Mr. Crider, this is Mrs. Laithe--she has come to see us." The youth +achieved this with austere formality. The sad one nodded and put forth +his hand with a funereal "Glad to know you, ma'am!" as if they met at +the open grave of a friend. + +"Ben, won't you go to the spring and get her some fresh water? She's +thirsty. She's had a hard ride." + +The other turned quickly away, and there was a sound as if he had +manfully stifled a sob. Ewing faced his guest with eyes that twinkled a +bit, she thought, beneath their apologetic droop. + +"I'd be glad to have you come inside," he ventured. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A PRIVATE VIEW + + +From the first room, a kitchen and general living room, such as she had +learned to know in the other ranch houses, he conducted her up two steps +to a doorway, from which he pushed aside a Navajo blanket with its rude +coloring of black and red. There was disclosed beyond this an apartment +of a sort with which she was more familiar, a spacious studio with its +large window giving to the north. In the clear light her eyes ran +quickly over its details: the chinked logs that made its walls, the huge +stone fireplace on one side, the broad couch along the opposite wall, +covered with another of the vivid Navajo weaves, the skins of bear and +lynx and cougar on the stained floor, the easel before the window, a +canvas in place on it; the branching antlers over the fireplace, +contrived into a gun rack; a tall, roughly made cabinet, its single +shelf littered with half-squeezed tubes of paint, a daubed palette, and +a red-glazed jar from which brushes protruded. Above the couch were some +shelves of books, and between it and the fireplace was a table strewn +with papers, magazines, a drawing board with a sheet of paper tacked to +it, and half a dozen sharpened pencils. + +He indicated the couch. "It will be a good thing for you to rest a +little," he said. She seated herself with a smile of assent. He rashly +began to arrange the pillows for her, but left off in a sudden +consciousness of his temerity, withdrawing a few paces to regard her. +He was still apprehensive, but his boy's eyes were full of delight, +amusement, curiosity, and, more than all, of a wistfulness like that of +a dumb creature. He stepped to the door for the pitcher of water and +glass that Ben now brought. + +She had studied him coolly as he spoke--the negligent out-of-doors +carriage of the figure, not without a kind of free animal grace, the +grace of a trampling horse rather than that of soft-going panthers. The +floor boards reëchoed to his careless, rattling tread, and occasionally, +his attention being drawn to this reverberation, he was at great pains +for a moment to go on tiptoe. He was well set up, with a sufficient +length of thigh. Mrs. Laithe approved of this, for, in her opinion, many +a goodly masculine torso in these times goes for nothing because of a +shortness of leg. His hair was a lightish brown and so straight that a +lock was prone to come out behind and point uncompromisingly toward +distant things. This impropriety he wholly disregarded, whereas the more +civilized man would have borne the fault in mind and remembered +occasionally to apply a restrictive hand. His face was a long, browned +square, with gray eyes, so imbedded under the brow that they had a look +of fierceness. His lips showed only a narrow line of color, and trembled +constantly with smiles. These he tried to restrain from time to time, +with an air of pinning down the corners of his mouth. + +She had noted so much while he poured out the water, and now he came to +her, walking carefully so as not to thunder with his boots. + +"You must have been frightened," he said, and his eyes sought hers with +a young, sorry look. + +"Not after we left the woods; it wasn't funny among those trees." + +He brightened. "I'd always thought women don't like to look funny." + +"They don't," said the lady incisively, "no more than men do." + +"But you can laugh at yourself," he insisted. + +"Can you?" She meditated a swift exposure of his own absurdity at their +meetings in the valley, but forbore and spoke instead of his pictures. + +"You must show me your work," she said. + +For a moment it seemed that she had lost all she had gained with him. He +patently meditated a flying leap through the door and an instant +vanishing into the nearest thicket. She had an impulse to put out a hand +and secure him by the coat. But he held his ground, though all his +geniality was suddenly veiled, while he vibrated behind the curtain, +scheming escape, like a child harried by invading grown people in its +secret playhouse. + +She looked cunningly away, examining a rip in her glove. + +"I tried to paint a little myself once," she essayed craftily. Nothing +came of it. He remained in ambush. + +"But it wasn't in me," she continued, and was conscious that he at least +took a breath. + +"You see, I hadn't anything but the liking," she went on, "and so I had +the sense to give it up. Still, I learned enough to help me see other +people's work better--and to be interested in pictures." + +"Did anyone try to teach you?" he asked. + +"Yes, but they couldn't make me paint; they could only make me see." + +"Perhaps you could tell me some things," he admitted at last, "if you've +tried." He paltered a little longer. Then, "Ben Crider says this is the +best thing I've ever done," and he quickly took a canvas from against +the wall and placed it on a chair before her. + +She considered it so quietly that he warmed a little, like a routed +animal lulled once more into security by the stillness. + +"Do you get the right light?" he asked anxiously. + +She nodded, and managed a faint, abstracted smile, indicative of +pleasure. She heard him emit a sigh of returning ease. He spoke in +almost his former confiding tone. + +"That's our lake, you know, painted in the late afternoon. Ben is set on +my sending it down to the Durango fair next month." + +It was the lake, indeed, but, alas! an elaborate, a labored parody of +it. The dead blue water, the granite wall evenly gray in shadow, +garishly pink where it caught the sun, the opaque green of the trees, +the carefully arranged clouds in the flat blue sky--all smirked +conscious burlesque. It recalled the things in gilt frames which Mrs. +Laithe remembered to have seen in front of "art emporiums," on +Fourteenth Street, tagged "Genuine Oil Painting," the "$12.00" carefully +crossed out and "$3.98" written despairingly below to tempt the alert +connoisseur. + +She knew the artist's eyes were upon her in appeal for praise. She drew +in her under lip and narrowed her eyes as one in the throes of critical +deliberation. + +"Yes, I should recognize the spot at once," she dared to say at last. +"How well you've drawn the rock." + +"I hoped you'd like it. I don't mind telling you I put in a lot of time +on that thing. I 'carried it along' as my father used to say. I don't +believe I could better that. And here are some others." + +He displayed them without further urging, his shyness vanished by his +enthusiasm, in his eye a patent confusion of pride and anxiety. She +found them in quality like the first. In one the valley of the +Wimmenuche from the east bench was as precisely definite as a +topographical map; in another the low-lying range of hills to the south +had lost all their gracious and dignifying haze. + +"They are immensely interesting," observed his critic with animation, +"It may be"--she searched for a tempering phrase--"it is just possible +there's a trick of color you need to learn yet. You know color is so +difficult to convict. It's shifty, evasive, impalpable. I dare say that +lake isn't as flatly blue as you've painted it, nor that cliff as flatly +pink in sunlight. And those hills--isn't there a mistiness that softens +their lines and gives one a sense of their distance? Color is _so_ +difficult--_so_ tricky!" + +She had spoken rapidly, her eyes keeping to the poor things before her. +Now she ventured a glance at the painter and met a puzzled seriousness +in his look. + +"You may be right," he assented at last. "Sometimes I've felt I was on +the wrong track. I see what you mean. You mean you could reach over a +mile and pick up the ranch house at Bar-7--that it's like a little +painted doll's house; and you mean you could push your finger into those +hills, though they're meant to be a hundred miles away. Well, it serves +me right, I guess. My father warned me about color. And I never saw any +good pictures but his, and that was years ago. I've forgotten how they +ought to look. He sold all his when I was young--all but one." + +"You've done well, considering that." + +"He said I must learn to draw first--really to draw--and he taught me to +do that. I _can_ draw. But black and white is so dingy, and these colors +are always nagging you, daring you to try them. If I could only learn to +get real air between me and those hills. I wonder, now, if my colors +seem like those Navajo blankets to you." He flung himself away from the +canvases like an offended horse. + +"Let me see your black-and-whites," she suggested hastily. + +"Oh, those! They don't amount to much, but I'll show you." He thrust +aside the canvases and opened a portfolio on the chair. + +She saw at a glance that he had been right when he said he could draw. +She let her surprise have play and expanded in the pleasure of honest +praise. She had not realized how her former disappointment had taken her +aback. But he could draw. Here were true lines and true modeling, not +dead, as he had warned her, but quick with life, portrayed not only with +truth but with a handling all his own, free from imitative touches. He +had achieved difficult feats of action, of foreshortening, with an +apparently effortless facility--the duck of a horse's head to avoid the +thrown rope; the poise of the man who had cast it; the braced tension of +a cow pony holding a roped and thrown steer while his rider dismounted; +the airy grace of Red Phinney at work with a stubborn broncho, coming to +earth on his stiff-legged mount and raking its side from shoulder to +flank with an effective spur. There was humor in them, the real feeling +in one of the last. Mrs. Laithe lingered over this. + +"It's Beulah Pierce's wife in that flower garden of hers," the artist +explained. "It seems kind of sad when she goes out there alone +sometimes. You know how tired she generally is, and how homesick she's +been for twenty years or so--'all gaunted up,' as Ben says, like every +ranchman's wife--they have to work so hard. And in the house she's apt +to be peevish and scold Beulah and the boys like she despised them. But +when she goes out into that garden----" + +"Tell me," said his listener, after waiting discreetly a moment. + +"Well, she's mighty different. She stands around mooning at the +hollyhocks and petunias and geraniums and things, the flowers that grew +in her garden back East, and I reckon she kind of forgets and thinks +she's a girl back home again. Her face gets all gentled up. I've watched +her when she didn't notice me--she's looking so far off--and when she +goes into the house again her voice is queer, and she forgets to rampage +till Shane Riley lets the stew burn, or Beulah tracks mud into the front +room, or something. I tried to show her there, looking soft, just that +way." He sounded a little apologetic as he finished. + +"It's delightful," she insisted, "and they're all good--I can't tell you +how good. You must do more of them, and"--she paused and shot him a +careful glance to determine how wary it behooved her to be--"and I +believe you should let color alone for awhile, until you've had a +teacher show you some things. You must learn the trick." + +"Oh, I'd try to learn fast enough, if I had the chance." His eyes +lighted with a kind of furtive wistfulness, as if he would not have her +wholly fathom his longing. + +"Of course you could learn. I believe you can do something--something +fine." + +She rose from the couch and glanced over his books, with an air of +wishing to touch other matters before they dwelt long on this. She +noticed with some surprise a set of Meredith. + +"Do you read these?" she asked, taking down one of the volumes. + +There was an instant return of his former shyness, a hint of the child +and the invaded playhouse. But she knew what to do. Without further +remark she calmly lost herself in "Diana." + +"Those books were my father's," he said at last, with the air of +addressing an explanation to some third person. She ignored this, not +even glancing at him. "But I've read them," he added, still as if to +another person. + +At last, after studying her face a bit, he ventured, "Have you read them +all?" He spoke low, so as not to interrupt her too pointedly. She did +not look up, but nodded, with a smile that said confidentially, "Well, I +should think so!" He edged nearer then, like one who would be glad, if +pressed, to share his secrets. + +"I was sorry when I reached the last one," he began. "It was another +world. Oh, he's a great writer. He writes as if he was thinking all the +time in fireworks, and he makes you do the same thing. Every page or two +he sets off a bunch of firecrackers in your mind that you didn't know +you had there. But he writes as if he didn't care whether anybody +understood him or not. It's a blind trail, lots of the way, and on some +pages I just bog down." + +She smiled sympathetically. "Many of us have that trouble with him." She +put "Diana" back on the shelf and held up the poems of Robert Browning. + +"And this?" + +"Oh, do you read that, too?" he counterquestioned with sparkling +curiosity. She could see that he was enlivened beyond his +self-consciousness for the moment. "Well, I do, too, in spots. He's +pretty good in spots. But other times he's choppy and talky and has a +hard time getting into the saddle. Why, sometimes when Ben Crider is +talking to himself, it would sound just like Browning, if you broke it +up into poetry lengths and gave it a good title." + +"And this you like, too?" She was opening a volume of Whitman. + +"_Sure!_" he rang out. "Don't you? There's the man." He began walking +about with a fine smile that was almost a friendly grin. She felt +suddenly sure that he had never talked about the books before, and that +it was a kind of feast day for him. + +"Yes," he continued easily; "when I get to feeling too much alone up +here I pretend I see him striding in off the trail, his head up, +sniffing the air, his eyes just _eating_ these big hills, and he'd march +right in and sit down. Only I can't ever think of what we'd say. I +reckon we'd sit here without a word. He must have had wonderful eyes. +He's good in winters when you're holed up here in the snow and get on +edge with nothing to do for five or six months but feed the stock and +keep a water hole open. Sometimes I wonder if Ben and I won't come out +crazy in the spring, and then I read old Whitman and he makes me feel +all easy-like and sure of myself." + +He paused again, but she only waited. + +"I had a funny thought last winter," he pursued. "It seemed to me that +if people turn into other things when they die--the way some folks +believe, you know--that Whitman must have become a whole world when _he_ +died, whirling away somewhere off in space; a fine, big, fresh world, +with mountains and valleys and lakes, with big rivers and little ones, +and forests and plains and people, good people and bad people, he just +liked all sorts--it didn't seem to make much difference to him what they +were, so they were people--and he'd carry them all on his back and +breathe in and out and feel great." + +He laughed as if the idea still delighted him, and she laughed with him. + +"I'd like to have told him that," he continued, almost meditatively. +"But I'll bet he often thought of it himself. I guess he wouldn't be +satisfied with anything less than that." + +When he stopped they stood a moment smiling at each other. Then she went +back to the couch with rather a businesslike air. + +"How old are you?" she asked. + +"I'm twenty-four. How old are you?" + +She smiled, quite disarmed by the artlessness of this brutality. + +"I am twenty-seven." + +"That's pretty old, isn't it?" he commented, gravely. "I shouldn't have +said you were older than I am. Some ways you look younger. And what a +lot you must have seen out yonder!" + +"You should go there yourself, to work, to study." She felt that he was +curiously watching her lips as she spoke rather than listening to her. + +"Now I see it's only your profile that's sad," he began in the same +detached, absent way he had spoken of the books, the way of one talking +in solitude. "Your full face isn't sad; it's full of joy; but there's a +droop to the profile. Here--I'll show you." He took a sketch-book from +the table. + +"I'll show you this, now we're such good friends. I could only draw the +profile because--well, that was the only thing I could look at much." + +She looked and saw herself on three pages of the book, quick little +drawings, all of the side face. + +"I didn't dream you had seen me enough," she said. "And you have +everything from cap to boots, and Cooney----" + +"I knew Cooney, and I've--well--I've watched you some when you didn't +know." + +"Certainly you never watched me when I did know," she retorted. + +"I should think not!" He laughed uneasily. "But you see the sadness +there. I tried to locate it, but I couldn't. I only knew it was there +because I found it in the sketches when they were done. I think I caught +the figure pretty well in that one. Stand that way now, won't you?" + +She rose graciously. + +"Here's your quirt, and catch your skirts the way you've done +there--that's it. Yes, I got that long line down from the shoulder. It's +a fine line. You are beautiful," he continued critically. "I like the +way your neck goes up from your shoulders, and your head has a perky +kind of a tilt, as if you wouldn't be easy to bluff." + +She smiled, meditating some jocose retort, but he still surveyed her +impersonally, not seeing the smile. She dropped to the couch rather +quickly. + +"Let us talk about you," she urged. But he did not hear. + +"Your face, though--that's the fine thing--" He was scanning it with +narrowed eyes. But a protesting movement of hers restored him to his +normal embarrassment. He writhed in uncomfortable apology before her. +"I'd 'most forgot you were really here," he explained. "I've seen you +that way so often when you _weren't_ here. There now--I see that +sadness; it's in the upper lip. It showed even when you laughed then." + +"Really, this must stop," she broke in. "People don't talk this way." + +"Don't they? Why don't they? I'm sorry--but all that interested me." The +wave of his hand indicated the fluent grace of the lady impartially from +head to foot. + +"Of course," he added, "I knew there must be people like you, out there, +but I never dreamed I'd have one of them close enough to look at--let +alone get friendly with. I hope you won't hold it against me." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A PORTRAIT + + +Though she had made him tingle with an impulse to flee from her, he was +at the edge of the east bench early the next afternoon. He might see her +from a distance. If she came close upon him--well, it was worth risking; +he had a good horse. Her eyes were the best of her he thought, big gray +things under black brows, with a dark ring, well defined, about the +iris. He had seen no such eyes before. And how they lighted her face +when she spoke. Her face needed lighting, he thought. It was pale under +the dark hair--her hair stopped short of being black, and was +lusterless--with only a bit of scared pink in her cheeks, after that +ride of the day before. He thought of her hands, too. They were the +right hands for her, long, slender, and strong, he did not doubt, under +a tricky look of being delicate. It was not possible that they could +ever talk together again so easily. He could not make that seem true, +but he could look at her. He had hoped she would promise to come again, +but they had parted abruptly the afternoon before. Riding back with her, +as they breasted the last slope leading to the ranch, he had rejoiced +boldly at the chance that had led her up the lake trail that morning. +Then Beulah Pierce had hailed them from his station at the bars, hailed +them in a voice built to admirable carrying power by many cattle +drives. His speech began, "Didn't I _tell_ you where that upper trail +would----" + +Whereupon the lady turned to dismiss her escort rather curtly. + +"Thank you for riding back with me. I shall not trouble you any +further." And he, staring suddenly at her with the wild deer's eyes +again, had fled over the back trail. + +He thought if there had been more time she might have said, "I will come +again soon--perhaps to-morrow." He liked to think she might have said +that, but he could not give it much reality. + +He sprawled easily in the saddle, leaning his crossed arms on the pommel +and gazing out over the sun-shot valley to the group of buildings and +corrals at Bar-7. At least she rode somewhere every afternoon, and he +would see her leave. If she turned down the valley road or up the +cañon--well, that emergency could be met. He thought of speeches to make +it plain that he had not followed her, daring to approach her in his +mind, but knowing well that he would probably hide at sight of her. + +A half hour he waited so, beholding visions of their accidental meeting. +Then his pulses raced. He saw the stocky-barreled Cooney led from the +corral to the front of the house by Red Phinney. He could almost discern +the Sabbath finery of Red across that crystal mile--for this was the +breathing day of the week, when faces were rasped cruelly by indifferent +razors, and fine raiment was donned, black trousers and gay, clean +shirts and neckerchiefs of flaming silk. + +He could not see her mount. The ranch house hid that spectacle. But she +rode into view presently, putting Cooney first to his little fox trot +and then to a lope, as the road wound among the willows. + +He straightened in the saddle as she reached the creek. He was eager to +retreat, yet feared to have his cowardice detected. And when Cooney +halted midway of the stream, pawing its rocky bed and making a pretense +of thirst, the woman looked up and saw her watcher on the trail. She +waved the gauntleted hand that held her quirt, and he found himself +holding his hat in his hand with an affectation of ease. Then each +laughed, and, though neither could hear the other, it was as if they had +laughed together in some little flurry of understanding. He could still +pretend to have happened there at that moment, he reflected. And this +brought him courage as he saw her give Cooney his way where the trail +branched. When the little horse had carried her to the summit and stood +in panting gratitude, the waiting youth evolved a splendid plan for +hiding his fright. He dismounted and forced himself to go coolly and +take her hand. Perhaps it was as well that he had not trusted himself to +remain in the saddle at that first moment. But when the thing was really +over he no longer made a secret of his delight at her coming. His first +anxious look at her face had shown him the cordial friendliness of the +preceding day. She was amused by him, he could see that, and did not +resent it; but she was kind, and in his joy at this he babbled, at +first, with little coherence. + +"I rode right over here to make sure I would see you," he began, "and +then if you rode down the valley, or up, I was going to loaf along and +find you by accident, and pretend I was hunting a colt. I was going to +be afraid the mountain lions had got it." He laughed immoderately at +this joke. "And while I waited for you I kept trying to think how fine +it would have sounded last night if you had said, 'I think I shall go +over and look at your place again to-morrow.' I couldn't make your voice +sound true, though. It's a good thing we needn't try to paint voices." + +They were riding together over the first stretch of meadow. It seemed to +have been agreed without words that they should ride to the lake cabin. + +"To paint voices?" she queried. + +"Voices, yes; how could yours be painted? It couldn't. You'll see that. +I thought of a jumble of things--wine and velvet, for instance; some +kind of rich, golden wine and purple velvet, and then, warm flickers of +light in a darkened room, and a big bronze bell struck with something +soft that would muffle it and yet make everything about it tremble. You +see, don't you?" he concluded with a questioning look of deep +seriousness. + +His own voice was low and eager, with its undernote of wistfulness. +Already he had renewed upon her that companionable charm which she had +felt the day before, a charm compounded of half-shy directness, of +flashes of self-forgetfulness, of quick-trusting comradeship. She +rejected a cant phrase of humorous disclaimer that habit brought to her +lips. It would puzzle or affront his forthrightness. + +"Very well, we'll agree that my voice can't be painted," she said at +last. "So let us talk of you." + +"I guess I should like that pretty well," he answered after a moment's +pondering. "I don't believe I've ever talked much; but now I feel as if +I could tire you out, talking as we did yesterday. Queer, wasn't it?" + +He fell silent, however, when the trail narrowed to climb the long +ridge, as if the acknowledgment of his desire to speak had somehow +quenched it. She fell in ahead, half turning in her saddle to address +him from time to time, but he would talk only about things of the +moment. In a marshy spot at the edge of the meadow he pointed out a bear +wallow, and farther on a deer lick. "It's a sulphur spring," he +exclaimed, "and deer come from miles around to drink there." + +"Do you shoot them?" she asked. + +"We always have fresh meat when we need. Ben Crider says he won't let a +deer come up and bite him without trying to defend himself." + +"It's like murder, isn't it?" + +"Well, I never murdered anyone myself, but I hit the first deer I ever +shot at, and I felt as if I'd lain in wait at a street corner and killed +a schoolboy on his way home. But I missed the next three or four, and +that made me blood-thirsty. I guess if you carried that feeling back far +enough a man could go out and shoot his little sister if he'd had to +still-hunt her over rough ground all day, and especially if he'd missed +two or three cousins or an uncle in the meantime. I think that would +raise the savage in him enough." + +They were skirting the lake now, a glinting oval of sapphire in its +setting of granite. Beyond this they rode through the thinned +timber--where Cooney was dissuaded, not without effort, from pursuing +his ancient charge, and emerged into the glare of the clearing. + +As they dismounted at the door of the cabin a melancholy of minor chords +from a guitar came to their ears, and a voice, nasal, but vibrant with +emotion, sang the final couplet of what had too plainly been a ballad of +pathos: + + "While they were honeymooning in a mansion on the hill, + Kind friends were laying Nellie out behind the mill." + +"That's one of Ben's best songs," said Ewing, with so genuine a gravity +that he stifled quite another emotion in the lady as she caught his +look. + +"Indeed! I must hear him sing more," she managed with some difficulty. + +The sorrowful one arose as they entered, hastily thrusting aside his +guitar as might an assassin have cast away his weapon. His face was +shaven to a bitter degree; in spots it was scarified. But the drooping +lines of woe unutterable were still there in opposition to his Sabbath +finery--a spreading blue-satin cravat, lighted by a stone of impressive +bulk, elegant black trousers, and suspenders of red silk embroidered +with pansies and a running vine of green. He greeted the visitor as one +who would say, "Yes, it's a sad affair--wholly unexpected," and, cocking +an eye of long-suffering negation on Ewing, he went out to the horses. + +As they entered the studio Mrs. Laithe saw that the easel had been +wheeled into the light from the big window and that a woman's portrait +had been placed upon it. Had Ewing looked at her on the instant he might +have detected that her face seemed to ripple under some wind of emotion. +But his own eyes had been on the portrait. + +"That's my mother," he said, unconsciously hushing his voice. + +"I should have known it," she answered, with a kind of spurious +animation. "The face is so much like yours. It is a face one seems to +have known before, one of those elusive resemblances that haunt the +mind. It is well done." She ended the speech glibly enough. + +"She was beautiful. My father did it. He had that trick of color, as you +call it, or he could never have painted her. She was so slight, but she +had color. And she was quick and fiery. I used to see her rage when I +was very small. I believed there were coals in her eyes, and that +something blew on them inside to make them blaze. I wouldn't know what +it was about, only that it wasn't us she raged at--not my father or me. +I could go up and catch her hand even when she frightened me. And +sometimes, after a while, my father would get excited, too. He was +slower to take fire, but he burned longer. And at last she would become +afraid and grow quiet herself and try to soothe him. I never could tell +what they were at war with." + +They looked in silence at the vivid young face on the canvas, a thin, +daring, eager face, a face of delicate features, but strong in a perfect +balance. The eyes were darkly alive. + +"You were young when she died?" the woman asked at last. + +"Too young to understand. I was eight, I think. There was a lot I shall +never understand. Sometimes my father would tell me about their life +here in the West, but never of the time before they came here. It always +seemed to me that either he or she had quarreled with their people. They +were poor when they came here. We lived in Leadville when I first +remember. My mother sang in a church choir and made a little money and +nights--you'll think this queer--my father played a piano in a dance +hall. They had to live. Days, he painted. He had studied abroad in Paris +and Munich, but he wasn't selling his pictures then. It took him years +to do much of that. Sometimes they were hungry, though I didn't know +it." He paused, overwhelmed by a sudden realization that he was talking +much. + +"Tell me more," she said very quietly. "I wish to hear the rest." + +"Well, at the last my mother was in bed a long time, and my father +worked hard to get things for her, things she must have. But one night +she died--it was a cold night in winter. He and I were alone with her. +I'll not soon forget that. I sat up on the cot where I slept and saw my +father sitting on the bed looking down at my mother. They were both +still, and he wouldn't answer or turn his head when I spoke. Then I +cried, for it was cold in the little cabin and my father's stillness +scared me. But I don't think he heard me crying. He kept looking down at +my mother's face, even when I called to him as loud as I could. Then I +was afraid to see him that way any longer, so I pulled the blankets over +my head and I must have cried myself to sleep. + +"He was sitting the same way when I woke in the morning, still looking +at my mother's face. Even when the people came to take her away he kept +silent--and while they put her in the ground in a great, snowy field +with little short waves all over it. And when we were back in the cabin +not a word could I get from him, nor a look. He just sat on the bed +again, looking at her pillow. + +"In the evening some one brought a letter. I lighted a candle and took +this letter to him, crowding it into his hand. I wanted him to notice +me. I saw him study the envelope, then tear it open and look at a little +slip of green paper that fell out. It was money, you understand, for +pictures he had sent to New York. I knew this at once. I'd heard them +talk of its coming and of wonderful things they'd do with it when it +did come. I was glad in an instant, for I thought that now we could get +my mother back out of the ground. I was sure we could when he held the +green slip close to the candle and began to laugh. It wasn't the way he +usually laughed, it was louder and longer, but it was the first sound +I'd heard from him, and it made me happy. I began to laugh myself as +loud as I could, and danced before him, and his laugh went still higher +at that. I ran for my jacket and mittens and cap. I wanted him to stop +laughing and hurry along. I pulled his arm and he stopped laughing and +looked down at me. I shouted 'Hurry--let's hurry and bring her back--let +me carry the money!' He caught my shoulder and looked so astonished, +then he burst into that loud laugh again, after he'd made me say it +over. I ran for his overcoat, too, but when I came with it I saw he +wasn't laughing at all. He was crying, and it was so much like his laugh +that I hadn't noticed the change." + +He had kept his eyes on the portrait while he spoke. He stopped abruptly +now, turning to the listening woman, searching her face with new signs +of confusion. + +"I--I didn't know I was telling you all that." + +She did not answer at once. + +"And you came here after that?" she said at last. + +"Yes; my father found this place. He wanted to be alone. I think he +began to die when my mother went. He couldn't live without her. He +taught me what he could, about books and pictures, but I couldn't have +been much to him. I think it hurt him that I looked like her--he said I +looked like her. He worked on that portrait to the very last, even on +the morning of the day he died." + +"What was your father's name?" + +"Gilbert Denham Ewing. I was named for him." + +"And your mother's name before marriage was----" + +"I'm ashamed that I never knew. It must have been spoken often, but I +was so young; it never stayed in my mind. And a little while before he +died my father burned all his letters and papers. I've wondered about +their life long ago before I came, but I think my father meant me not to +know. He had some reason." + +"I am glad you have told me all you did know," she said. + +"But you have made _me_ glad," he assured her, returning to his livelier +manner. + +"Your mother's first name"--she asked--"what did your father call her?" + +"Oh, that--Katharine. He called her Kitty." + +"Kitty!" She repeated it after him, softly, as if she spoke it in +compassion to the portrait. + +"But see," he continued, "it's late. Stay and eat with us and I'll take +you back by moonlight. I've ordered a fine, big, silver moon to be set +up in the sky at seven, and Ben is already getting supper." + +He pulled aside the blanket portiére, and through the doorway she could +see the saturnine one--a man fashioned for tragedies, for deeds of +desperate hazard--incongruously busied with a pan of soda biscuits and a +hissing broiler. + +When they rode back to Bar-7 the hills were struck to silver by the +moon. They were companionably silent for most of the ride, though the +youth from time to time, when the trail narrowed to put him in the rear, +crooned stray bits of a song with which Ben Crider had favored them +while he prepared the evening meal. The lines Mrs Laithe remembered +were: + + "Take back your gold, for gold it cannot buy me; + Make me your wife, 'tis all I ask of you." + +When they parted she said, "You must think about leaving here. It's time +you rode out into the world. I think my brother will be back from his +cattle-driving trip to-morrow, and I mean to bring him to see your +pictures very soon. Perhaps he will suggest something for you." + +"This moonlight does such wonderful things to your face," he remarked. + +"Good night! I'm sorry you have so far to go." + +"It isn't far enough," he answered, still searching her face. "Not half +far enough--I have so much thinking--so much thinking to do." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +INTO THE PAST AND OUT + + +It was not without concern that Mrs. Laithe awaited the return of her +brother the following day. The cattle drive that had beguiled him from +habits of extreme and enforced precision had occupied a fortnight, and +she understood the life to be sorely trying to any but the rugged. +Earnestly had she sought to dissuade him from the adventure, for +insomnia had long beset him, and dyspepsia marked him for its plaything. +Eloquently exposed to him had been the folly of hoping for sleep on +stony ground after vainly wooing it in the softest of beds with an air +pillow inflated to the nice degree of resiliency. And the unsuitability +of camp fare to a man who had long been sustained by an invalid's diet +had been shrewdly set forth. None the less he had persisted, caught in +the frenzy of desperation that sometimes overwhelms even the practiced +dyspeptic. + +"It can't be worse, Sis," he had tragically assured her at parting. "If +I've got to writhe out my days, why, I shall writhe like a gentleman, +that's all. I can at least chuck those baby foods and perish with some +dignity." + +"But you're not leaving your medicines, those drops and things?" she had +asked, in real alarm. + +"Every infernal drop. I've struck all along the line--not another morsel +of disinfected zwieback nor sanitary breakfast food nor hygienic prunes +nor glutenized near-food--not even one pepsin tablet. It's come to where +I'd sooner have no stomach at all than be bullied night and day by one." + +With which splendid defiance he had ridden desperately off, a steely +flash in his tired gray eyes and a bit of fevered color glowing in his +sallow cheeks. + +When Mrs. Pierce loudly announced the return of the men early in the +afternoon, therefore, the invalid's sister was ready to be harrowed. +There would be bitter agonies to relate--chiefly stomachic. She had +heroically resolved, moreover, not immediately to flaw the surface of +her sympathy with any gusty "I told you so!" That was a privilege sacred +unto her, and not to be foregone; but she would defer its satisfaction +until the pangs of confession had been suffered; until the rash one +should achieve a mood receptive to counsel. + +At the call of Mrs. Pierce she ran down the flower-bordered walk to join +that lady at the gate, and there they watched the cavalcade as it jolted +down the lacets of the mesa trail--four horsemen in single file, two +laden pack animals, another horseman in the rear. The returning invalid +was equal, then, to sitting a horse. The far-focused eyes of Mrs. Pierce +were the first to identify him. As the line advanced through the willow +growth that fringed the creek she said, pointing, "There's Mr. +Bartell--he's in the lead." + +"But Clarence doesn't smoke; the doctors won't let him," his sister +interposed, for she could distinguish a pipe in the mouth of the +foremost horseman. "And, anyway, it couldn't be Clarence; it's too--" On +the point of saying "too disreputable," she reflected that the person +in front looked quite like the run of Mrs. Pierce's nearest friends and +might, indeed, be of her own household. + +"It's sure your brother, though," insisted Mrs. Pierce, as the riders +broke into a lope over the level, "and he _don't_ look quite as--" Mrs. +Pierce forbore tactfully in her turn. She had meant to say "dandified." + +"And I tell you, Mis' Laithe, he does look husky, too. Not no ways so +squammish as when he started. My suz! Here we've et dinner and they'll +be hungry as bears. I must run in and set back something." + +The other men turned with the packhorses off toward the corrals, but +Bartell came on at a stiff gallop to where his sister waited. When he +had pulled his horse up before her with perilous but showy abruptness, +he raised himself in the saddle, swung his hat, and poured into the +still air of the valley a long, high yell of such volume that his sister +stepped hastily within the gate again. She had heard the like of that +yell as they passed through Pagosa Springs, rendered by a cowboy in the +acute stage of alcoholic dementia. + +"Why, Clarence, _dear_!" she gasped, fearing the worst. But he hurriedly +dismounted and came, steadily enough, to kiss her. She submitted +doubtfully to this, and immediately held him off for inspection. He was +frankly disreputable. The flannel shirt and corduroy trousers were torn, +bedraggled, gray with the dust of the trail; his boots were past +redemption, his hat a reproach; his face a bronzed and hairy caricature; +and he reeked of the most malignant tobacco Mrs. Laithe had ever +encountered. Only the gold-rimmed spectacles, the nearsighted, peering +gray eyes, and a narrow zone of white forehead under his hat brim served +to recall the somewhat fastidious, sedate, and rather oldish-looking +young man who had parted from her. + +He smiled at her with a complacency that made it almost a smirk. Then he +boisterously kissed her again before she could evade him, and uttered +once more that yell of lawless abandon. + +"Clarence!" she expostulated, but he waved her to silence with an +imperious hand. + +"Quickest way to tell the story, Nell--that's my pæan of victory. Sleep? +Slept like a night watchman. Eat? I debauched myself with the rowdiest +sort of food every chance I got--fried bacon, boiled beans, +baking-powder biscuit, black coffee that would bite your finger +off--couldn't get enough; smoked when I wasn't eating or sleeping; drank +raw whisky, too--whisky that would etch copper. Work? I worked harder +than a Coney Island piano player, fell over asleep at night and got up +asleep in the morning--when they kicked me the third time. And I +galloped up and down cliffs after runaway steers where I wouldn't have +crawled on my hands and knees two weeks before. And now that whole bunch +of boys treat me like one of themselves. I found out they called me +'Willie Four-eyes' when I first came here. Now they call me 'Doc,' as +friendly as you can imagine, and Buck Devlin told me last night I could +ride a streak of lightning with the back cinch busted, if I tried." + +He broke off to light the evil pipe ostentatiously, while she watched +him, open eyed, not yet equal to speech. + +"Now run in like a good girl and see if Ma Pierce has plenty of +fragments from the noonday feast. Anything at all--I could eat a deer +hide with the hair on." + +Wavering incredulously, she left to do his bidding. As he led his horse +around to the corral he roared a snatch from Buck Devlin's favorite +ballad, with an excellent imitation of the cowboy manner: + + "Oh, bur-ree me _not_ on the lone prai-_ree-e_--" + +After he had eaten he slouched into a hammock on the veranda with +extravagant groans of repletion, and again lighted his pipe. His sister +promptly removed her chair beyond the line of its baleful emanations. + +"Well, Sis," he began, "that trip sure did for me good and plenty. Me +for the high country uninterrupted hereafter!" + +She regarded him with an amused smile. + +"I'm so glad, dear, about the health. It's a miracle, but don't overdo +it, don't attempt everything at once. And the trip 'sure' seems to have +'done' you in another way--how is it--'good and plenty'? You walk like a +cowboy and talk and sing and act generally like one----" + +"Do I, really, though?" A sort of half-shamed pleasure glowed in his +eyes. "Well, you know they're good, companionable fellows, and a man +takes on their ways of speech unconsciously. But I didn't think it would +be noticed in me so soon. Do I seem like the real thing, honestly, now?" + +She reassured him, laughing frankly. + +"Well, you needn't laugh. It's all fixed--I'm going to be one." + +"But, Clarence, not for long, surely!" + +"It's all settled, I tell you. I've bought a ranch, old Swede Peterson's +place over on Pine River; corking spot, three half sections under fence +and ditch, right at the mouth of a box cañon where nobody can get in +above me, plenty of water, plenty of free range close at hand." + +"Clarence Bartell, you're--what do you call it?--stringing." + +"Not a bit of it. Wait till I come on in about two years, after selling +a train load of fat steers at Omaha or Kansas City--sashaying down +Fifth Avenue and rounding into Ninth Street with my big hat and +long-shanked spurs and a couple of forty-fours booming into the air. +_You'll_ see, and won't dad say it's deuced unpleasant!" + +"But I'll not believe until I see." + +He spoke ruminantly between pulls at the pipe. + +"Lots of things to do now, though. Got to go down to Pagosa this week to +pay over the money, get the deed, and register my brand. How does +'Bar-B' strike you? Rather neat, yes? It'll make a tasty little monogram +on the three hundred critters I start with. I'm on track of a herd of +shorthorns already." + +"And a little while ago you were off to the Philippines, and before that +to Porto Rico, and last summer you were going on one of those +expeditions that come back and tell why they didn't reach the North +Pole, and you came out here to be a miner and you've----" + +There was an impatient, silencing wave of the pipe. + +"Oh, let all that go, can't you?--let the dead past bury its dead. I'm +fixed for life. You and dad won't laugh at me any more. Come on out now +and see me throw a rope, if you don't believe me. I've been practicing +every day. And say, you didn't happen to notice the diamond hitch on +that forward pack horse, did you? Well, I'm the boy that did most of +that." + +She followed him dutifully to the corrals and for half an hour watched +him hurl thirty feet of rope at the horned skull of a steer nailed to +the top of a post. When the noose settled over this mark his boyish +delight was supreme. When it flew wide, which was oftener, his look was +one of invincible determination. + +As his sister left him he was explaining to Red Phinney, who had +sauntered up to be a help in the practice, that the range of Bar-B had a +lucky lie--no "greaser" could come along and "sleep" him. + +She went back to her chair and book, shaping certain questions she would +put to this brother. But it was not until after the evening meal that +she could again talk with him, for the ardent novice found occupation +about the stable and corrals the rest of the afternoon, and even sat for +a time with the men in the evening, listening avidly to their small talk +of the range, watchful to share in it. When he dared ask a question +knowingly, or venture a swift comment couched in the vernacular, he +thrilled with a joy not less poignant because it must be dissembled. + +But conscience pricked him at length to leave those fascinating +adventurers in the bunkhouse and to condescend for an interval to mere +brotherhood. He found his sister alone in the "front" room, ensconced on +the bearskin rug before a snapping and fragrant fire of cedar wood. + +He drew up the wooden rocker and remarked that the fire smelled like a +thousand burning leadpencils. He would have gone on to talk of his great +experience, but the woman wisely forestalled him. + +"Clarence," she began directly, "I've been thinking over that old affair +of Randall Teevan and his wife, Kitty Lowndes, you know. Do you happen +to recall the name of the man--the man Kitty went away with?" + +"Lord, no! That was before I'd learned to remember anything. If you want +to rake that affair up, ask Randy Teevan himself. I'll wager he hasn't +forgotten the chap's name. But why desecrate the grave of so antique a +scandal? Ask me about something later. I remember he had a cook once, +when I was six----" + +"Because--because I was thinking, just thinking. Are you certain you +remember nothing about it, not even the man's name, nor what sort of man +he was, nor what he did, nor anything?" + +"I only know what you must know. Randall Teevan's wife decided that the +Bishop had made two into the wrong one. I doubt if I ever heard the +chap's name. I seem to remember that they took Alden with them--he was a +baby of four or five, I believe, and that Randy scurried about and got +him back after no end of fuss. I've heard dad speak of that." + +"Did Kitty and that man ever marry?" + +"No; you can be sure Teevan saw to that. He took precious good care not +to divorce her. They manage those things more politely nowadays; +everything formal, six months' lease of a furnished house in Sioux +Falls, with the chap living at a hotel and dropping in for tea every day +at five; and felicitations from the late husband when the decree is +granted in the morning and the new knot tied in the afternoon--another +slipknot like the first, so that the merest twitch at a loose end +will----" + +"Please don't! And did you never know anything more about them, where +they lived or how they ended?" + +"Never a thing, Sis. It's all so old, everybody's forgotten it, except +Teevan. Of course he'd not forget the only woman who ever really put a +lance through his shirt-of-mail vanity." + +"You forget Kitty's mother. She remembers." + +"That's so, by Jove. Teevan got what was coming to him, he got his +'cone-uppance' as the boys say; but old Kitty--yes, it was rough on her. +But she's always put a great face on it. No one would know if they +_didn't_ know." + +"She's proud. Even though she's been another mother to me she rarely +lets me see anything, and she's tried so hard to find comfort in Kitty's +boy, in Alden. She's failed in that, though, for some reason." + +Her brother glanced sharply at her. "I'll tell you why she's failed, +Nell. Alden Teevan wasn't designed to be a comfort to anyone, not even +to himself. There was too much Teevan in him at the start, and too much +Teevan went into his raising." + +"They're back in town, you know." + +"Yes; Teevan must have realized that old Kitty is getting on in years, +and has a bit of money for Alden. Say, Sis, I hate to seem prying, but +you don't--you're not thinking about Alden Teevan seriously, are you? +Come, let's be confidential for twenty seconds." + +She mused a moment, then faced him frankly. + +"There's something I like in Alden, and something I don't. I know what I +like and I don't know what I don't like--I only feel it. There!" + +He reached over to take one of her hands. + +"Well, Sis, you trust to the feeling. You couldn't be happy there. And +you deserve something fine, poor child! You deserve to be happy again." +His inner eye looked back six years to see the body of poor Dick Laithe +carried into the Adirondack camp by two silent guides who had found him +where a stray bullet left him. + +She turned a tired, smiling face into the light. + +"I _was_ happy, so happy; yet I wonder if you can understand how vague +it seems now. It was so brief and ended so terribly. I think the shock +of it made me another woman. Dick and I seem like a boy and girl I once +knew who laughed and played childish games and never became real. I find +myself sympathizing with them sometimes, as I would with two dear young +things in a story that ended sadly." + +He awkwardly stroked and patted the hand he still held. + +"Come and live with me, Nell. There's only a one-room cabin at that +place now, with a carpet of hay on the dirt floor. But I'll have a +mansion there next summer that will put the eye out of this shack at +Bar-7. I believe in getting back to Nature, but I don't want to land +clear the other side of her. You'd be comfy with me. And it's a great +life; not a line of dyspepsia in it. And think of _feeling_ yourself +sliding off to sleep the moment you touch the pillow, as plainly as you +feel yourself going down in an elevator. That reminds me, I'm going to +bed down with the boys in the bunkhouse to-night. I'm afraid to trust +myself in that bed upstairs again--I've lain awake there so many +nights." + +For a time she lost the thread of his rambling talk, busied with her own +thoughts. She was faintly aware that for luncheon he had been eating a +biscuit, a thick, soggy, dangerous biscuit, caught up in the hurry of +the morning's packing, wrenched in half and sopped in bacon grease. +There was a word about shooting. He was learning to "hold down" the +Colt's 44, and had almost hit a coyote. Later, words reached her of a +cold night on the divide, when ice formed in the pail by the cooking +fire. What at last brought her back was a yawn and his remark that he +must "hole up" for the night. + +"Clarence," she began, looking far into a little white-hot chamber +between two half-burned logs, "listen, please, and advise me. If you +were going to do something that might, just possibly, and not by any +means certainly, rake up rather an ugly mess, in a sort of remote +way--that might make some people uncomfortable, you understand--I mean +if you saw something that ought to be done, because the person deserved +it, and it was by no means that person's fault, not in the least, and +the person didn't even know about it nor suspect anything, would you +stop because it might be painful to some one else--just possibly it +might--or to a number of people, or even to the person himself, after he +knew it? Or would you go ahead and trust to luck, especially when +there's a chance that it mightn't ever come out?--though I'm quite sure +it's true, you see, and that's what makes it so hard to know what to +do." + +She looked up at him with bright expectancy. Clutching his head with +both hands, he stared at her, alarm leaping in his eyes. + +"Would you mind repeating that slowly?" he began, in hushed, stricken +tones. "No, no--I shouldn't ask that. One moment, please--now it all +comes back to me. I see in fancy the dear old home, and hear faithful +Rover barking his glad welcome. Ah, now I have the answer; I knew it +would come. It's because one is a toiler of the sea and the other is a +soiler of the tea--then the ball is snapped back for a run around the +end and the man on third must return to his base." + +"I might have known you couldn't understand," she said regretfully; "but +I can't possibly be more explicit. I thought if I stated the case +clearly in the abstract--but I dare say it's a waste of time to ask +advice in such matters." + +"You've wasted yours, my child, if that's the last chance I get. Do you +really want help about something?" + +"No, dear, it wasn't anything. Never mind." + +"All right, if you say so. And now, me for the blankets!" + +When he had gone she stepped out into the night under the close, big +stars. She breathed deeply of the thin, sharp air and looked over at the +luminous pearl of a moon that seemed to hang above the cabin where +Ewing's kid would doubtless be dreaming. Her lips fell into a little +smile, half cynical, half tender. + +"I'll do it anyway!" The inflection was defiant, but the words were +scarcely more than a whisper. She said them again, giving them tone. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE LADY AND THE PLAN + + +They were chatting the next morning over the late breakfast of Mrs. +Laithe. Her brother, summoned from the branding pen, where tender and +terrified calves were being marked for life, had come reluctantly, ill +disposed to forego the vivacity of that scene. He had rushed in with the +look of a man harassed by large affairs. His evil beard was still +unshorn, his dress as untidy as care could make it. He drew a chair up +to the oilcloth covered table and surveyed the meager fare of his sister +with high disapproval. + +"What you need is food, Nell," he began abruptly. "Look at me. This +morning I ate two pounds of oatmeal, three wide slices of ham, five +chunks of hot bread, about two thousand beans, and drank all the coffee +I could get--and never foundered. How's that, against one silly glass of +malted milk two weeks ago? And I slept till seven. I woke up for just +eight seconds at four-thirty to hear the boys turning out. Oh, it was +gray and cold in that bunkhouse--with me warm in the blankets. That was +the one moment of real luxury I've ever known--not to turn out if I +didn't choose. And I did _not_ choose--if anyone should ride up hastily +and inquire of you. When we were on the drive I had to turn out with the +rest of the bunch and catch horses and unbuckle frosty hobbles with +stiff fingers, and fetch pails of ice water and freeze and do other +things, but this morning I just grinned myself asleep again. That was +worth living for, my girl." + +But his sister was for once unresponsive. She had not seemed to hear +him. + +"Clarence," she began, as if reciting lines she had learned, "there's a +chap over on the next ranch--Ewing's his name--that ought to have +something done for him. He's young, twenty-four, I believe, and boyish +even for that age, but he draws; draws well. His father was a painter +who died here years ago, and the boy has lived in these mountains ever +since. His father taught him to draw, but he has had no chance to study, +and he's reached a point where he must learn more or lose all he has. +I'm almost certain he can make something of himself. He ought to go to +New York, where he can study and see pictures and find out things. Now, +please advise me about it." + +"How's his health--his stomach?" + +"I believe we've never spoken of it. That's hardly the point." + +"Well, I call it a big point. Suppose he went off to New York and got +plumb ruined, the way I did--no eats, no sleeps. If you want my advice, +he ought to stay right here where everybody's healthy. He shouldn't be +foolish." + +"Clarence!" Her eyes shone with impatience. "It isn't whether he's to go +or not. He's _going_, and he's to have money to keep him there till he +makes himself known. It's on that point I need advice." + +"Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn't savvy at first. You're to tell me what +to advise and I'm to advise it? Well, tell me what to say." + +"Don't be stupid, dear--just for a moment, please. You're bound to +agree with me when you see his work. And you might offer to lend him the +money--my money, though he's not to know that. Or perhaps you ought to +buy his pictures. I'm sure you'll want some of those things he has. Of +course that's the better way. It will let him feel independent. There, +it's fixed. It was simple, after all." She flashed him a look of +gratitude. "You're a help after all, dear, when you choose to be." + +"But--one moment, my babe! Perhaps after listening to my advice so +meekly you'll let the poor chap say a word for himself. Perhaps he'd +rather stay right here in God's own country if he eats and sleeps well +now." + +"Please, please, let's not be so--so foody! Of course he wants to go!" + +"But what in Heaven's name would you ever have done without my help, +poor mindless child that you are?" + +But she was oblivious to this subtlety. + +"Yes, dear, you're always a comfort. We'll ride over this afternoon and +tell him he's to go. It will be a fine thing to do--he's so promising." + +"Look here, Nell"--he glanced at her shrewdly--"is this to be his picnic +or yours?" + +She burned with a little inner rage to feel her cheeks redden, but the +black fringe of her eyes did not fall before him. + +"We'll ride over after luncheon," she repeated, "and I do wish, +Clarence, that you'd shave and wear a collar or a stock, and throw that +unspeakable coat away, and have your boots cleaned, and send for some +cigars." + +He looked complacently down over the objectionable attire, pulled +sputteringly at the condemned pipe, then grinned at her. + +"Say, Sis, if it's going to be _that_ much fun for you, I'll rope and +throw him, and send him on tied if he acts rough." + +Late that evening the two inmates of the lake cabin sat before the big +fireplace in the studio to talk of a wondrous thing. They had survived +the most exciting half day in the life of either, and the atmosphere of +the room was still electrical with echoes of the big event. Through +their supper Ewing, unable to eat, had sat staring afar, helpless in the +rush of the current, inert as a bowlder in the bed of a mountain stream. +He, so long at rest, was to be swept down from the peace of his hill +nook to the ocean, to life itself. It was a thing to leave one aghast +with a consternation that was somehow joyous. Since supper he had stared +into the fire in dumb surrender to the flood, with intervals of dazed +floor-pacing, in which he tried to foresee his course. + +Ben Crider, submerged by the waters of the same cloudburst, was giving +stouter battle to the current. His face drawn to more than its wonted +dejection, he strove to play the beacon. Between snatches of worldly +counsel he read with solemn inflection certain gems of guidance from +authors in whose wisdom he had long felt a faith entire. His ready mind +harked forward to direful emergencies, and he submitted devices for +meeting these. + +"Remember what that says, Kid," he urged impressively, and he read once +more a saving passage from his well-thumbed "Guide to Polite Behavior." +"'If you cannot sing a song or tell a mirth-provoking story at an +evening ball or party you may well perform a few tricks in legerdemain. +The following are among the simplest and, when deftly performed never +fail to provoke loud applause and win you the undying gratitude of your +hostess.' Are you a-hearin' me? Well, I've turned down the pages at that +one with the coin and the hat, and the one where you must tell the right +card by a simple act of mind-readin'. And don't forget what he says +here, 'the hand is quicker'n the eye.'" + +"Yes, Ben; I'm listening." + +"Well, listen to this here other book. It's more serious." + +He took up his treasured "Traps and Pitfalls of a Great City," and again +became a voice in the wilderness, waving a forefinger to punctuate and +warn. + +"'It is the habit of these gentry to lie in wait for their intended +victims when they alight at the principal railway stations, and where, +by their plausible and insinuating advances, they ingratiate themselves +into the _confidence_ of those whom it is their purpose to fleece; hence +the name, "confidence men." Only by constant watchfulness and a thorough +knowledge of their methods may the stranger in the great city hope to +escape their wiles, since their ways of approach are manifold.' You hear +that, Kid--their ways is manifold. Here's a pitcher of one of 'em +tacklin' a countryman. See what an oily-lookin' feller he is, stovepipe +hat, fancy vest, big watchchain, long coat, striped pants. You'd say he +was a bank president. Oh, I bet they're slick ones. They'd have to be to +tog out like that every day in the week. Now remember, if one o' them +ducks comes up to you and starts to butter you up with fine words and +wants to carry your satchel, you just let out a yell for the police and +hand him over. That's the way to settle 'em!" + +"I'll surely remember, Ben." + +"And there's thugs and footpads. Always keep your coat buttoned over +your watch, it says, and if you're goin' along Broadway or Fifth Avenue +after dark, get out and walk in the middle o' the street, so's they +can't spring around a corner and slug you. And don't talk to strangers, +and don't look into store windows ner up at the high buildin's, else +they'll spot you fer a greeny and give you the laugh." + +"I can't believe it yet, Ben." He rose to walk the floor again, his +hands sunk deep in his pockets, his head bent low. + +"And don't git into no card game on the train with a couple o' smooth +strangers that ain't ever met each other before and want to pass away +the time pleasantly. And don't bet you can open the patent lock after +you think you found the secret spring. And don't buy any o' that money +you can't tell from real, that was printed from stolen Gov'ment plates." + +"Think of his giving a hundred dollars for that drawing of 'Lon Pierce +on the pinto, throwing a steer, and all that money for the others." + +"Serves him right!" Ben hissed this vindictively, having first +reluctantly laid aside "Traps and Pitfalls." "Serves him dead right! +That feller puts on a wise look that's about sixty-five years beyond his +real age, as I'd cal'late it. I tell you, son, it sure takes all kinds +o' fools to make a world." + +"But he said they were worth the money," Ewing pleaded. "He said I would +do even better, some day." + +"Sure--_sure_ he said it! An' didn't he ask me if I had dyspepsia, an' +did I sleep at night, an' I'd better remember to live an outdoor life of +activity if I ever got that a-way. An' he thinks he's learned how to +grain a deer hide after watching me do it three minutes, an' he's goin' +to pick up a live skunk next chanct he gits, because I told him jest how +to grab it. Oh, he _said_ things all right! He said a variety o' +things!" He glared at Ewing as he rounded out this catalogue of follies. + +"I'm torn in two, Ben. I shan't be glad to leave here, and yet I'll be +glad to go. I've dreamed it so long. It seems as if I'd dreamed it so +hard I'd made it come true." + +"Always pin your money to the inside of your vest, like I told you," +came the voice of warning. + +"I will, I will. But things _do_ happen, don't they? This is like a +fairy tale." + +"Fairy tale!" The wise one uttered this with violent scorn. "Likely you +was the sleepin' beauty, an' this here princess comes along with an +alarm clock!" + +"Not a princess, Ben." He laughed boyishly. "She's a sure-enough queen." + +"Jest remember they's knaves in the deck. That's all _I_ ask." + +"You like her don't you?" + +Ben made an effort to be fair. + +"Well, I do an' then I don't. She's saddle stock, fur looks, that lady +is, but she ain't serious. No, sir! When her eyes is on me I know as +well's I want to she's snickerin' inside; makes no difference if her +face does look like it was starched. You'll find, when all's said an' +done, that she's plumb levitous, an' levitous folks is triflin'." + +"Have you seen how sorrowful she looks sometimes, a sort of glad-sorry, +as if she felt sorry for herself and glad for other people? She makes +me feel old when she looks that way--as if I must protect her." + +"Yes, an' other times she's stiffer'n Lot's wife!" + +"Other times she seems older than all the world, a woman who has always +lived and always will." + +"Well, son, when you git put afoot there, you write on an' I'll manage +to scare up a git-away stake fur you." + +"It's wonderful to think of going out into the world that _they_ knew, +Ben--my father and mother. It seems as if they must be out there now, +and that I'm going to meet them very quietly and naturally some day. I +think it wouldn't astonish me." + +"Look a-here, Kid! That'll be about enough o' _that_! You go to bed." + +The other smiled a little wanly. + +"I can't. I'm afraid to. I'm going to sit here awhile and think, and +when the moon gets up I'm going outside to think. The hills haven't +heard the news yet, and the trail over to the lake doesn't know about +it. I've got to spread it before I sleep. You see, when I do sleep, I'm +afraid I'll wake up and find it was stuff I dreamed." + +"Shucks, Kid, what's the use o' talking like that? It ain't no dream. +It's true as God made little apples." There was, at the moment, a +noticeable relaxation from the speaker's habitual austerity. An awkward +smile of affection melted the hardness of his face as he held out a hand +to Ewing. "An' I'm doggoned if I'd be so _all-fired_ amazed if +everything come out fur the best. Yes, sir, blame me, Kid, if I don't +almost half b'lieve you'll make good!" + +"You can bet I'll try, Ben!" + +"That's right; you do your damndest--'angels can do no more,' as the +feller said." + +As he lighted a candle his face was grim once more--savagely grim, even +as he sang, in going to his rest: + + "Oh, 'twas on a summer's eve when I first _metter_, + Swingin' on the garden ga-a-ate!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +TWO SLEEPERS AWAKEN + + +It now befell that the imminent adventure of Ewing should bring him a +double rapture. The day after Mrs. Laithe secretly played special +Providence to that unsuspicious youth her brother found profit of his +own in the plan. + +"I've a world of things to do here, Nell," he said. "I ought to stay +here this winter. I'd be that much forwarder with my work next spring." + +"I shall be quite safe alone," she answered. + +"Why go alone? If you insist on robbing the cradle, why not take the +innocent with you? Of course you'll have to see that he doesn't walk off +the train, or lose his hat out of the window, or eat too much candy, or +rough-house the other children on the way, but he'll serve every purpose +of a man and brother." + +"To be sure!" she broke in with enthusiasm. "I worried last night about +his going. We'll put it that I'm in his charge, and he will really be in +mine." + +"That's it. He'll feel important, and you'll be the tidy nurse. And with +both of you off my mind I can start those chaps to getting out logs for +the Bar-B mansion. I'll camp over there till a good tracking snow comes, +then I'll have an elk hunt--I want a good head for the dining room--then +I'll hole up here at Pierce's for the winter and learn how to handle my +stock. So that's settled." + +Mrs. Laithe rode over to apprise Ewing of this plan. The little clearing +slept vacant in the sunlight. She left Cooney "tied to the ground" by +throwing the bridle rein over his head, and knocked on the open door of +the cabin with the handle of her quirt. There was no response save +echoes from the empty living room. Crossing this she drew aside the +blanket that curtained the door of the studio. The big room lay before +her in strange disorder. Pictures and hangings were gone from the wall. +Two yawning trunks stood by the door; canvases and portfolios lay about; +loose drawings and clothing littered the chairs and floor. Beyond this +disarray stood the easel, still holding the mother's portrait. In the +light from the window the eyes looked livingly into her own through the +silence. She was struck by some new glint of meaning in them, something +she read as an appeal, almost a prayer. Her own eyes fell and then she +first noticed the room's living occupant. + +On the couch, in the shadow of the half-drawn curtain, Ewing lay asleep. +He had sprawled there easily, half turned on his side, one arm flung +about his head, the other hanging over to the floor. Now that she saw +him she heard his measured breathing. Some new, quick-born +interest--curiosity, sympathy, she knew not what--impelled her to scan +the sleeping face more closely. She stepped lightly across to the couch +and looked down at him, with a little air of carelessness against his +sudden awakening. It was the first time she had studied his face in +repose. Lacking the ready, boyish smile, it was an older face, revealing +lines of maturity she had not suspected in the arch of brow above the +deep-set eyes, in the lean jaws and sharply square chin, and in the +muscled neck, revealed by the thrown-back head. It was a new face, for +the unguarded faces of the sleeping, like the faces of the dead tell +many secrets. Ewing's face was all at once full of new suggestion, of +new depths, of unsuspected complexities. As she gazed, scarce breathing, +she was alive to a new consciousness of him. He had been a boy, winning +from her at once by his fresh, elemental humanness a regard that came +partly from the mother lying alert in her, and partly from the joyous, +willing and even wistful comrade which this woman was fitted to be. Now, +bending over the unmasked face, she divined with swift alarm that her +old careless attitude toward the sleeper might never be recovered. What +her new attitude must be she could not yet know, but she was conscious +of being swept by a great wave of tenderness for him; swept, too, by +fear of him; and the impact of these waves left her trembling before +him. Some flash of portent, some premonition born of instinct, warned +her with a clearness that was blinding. Tenderness and fear rolled in +upon her, though her reason weighed them as equal absurdities. Then her +look rose to the mother's portrait and she saw that the eyes had +followed her: they seemed now to challenge, almost fiercely. Only the +briefest of moments could she endure their gaze, a gaze that in some way +drew life to itself from the breathing of the sleeper. Instinctively she +brushed her hand before her own eyes, drew herself up with a little +flinching shudder and moved slowly backward to the door. + +Then she was happily out in the sunlight, breathing deep of the +pine-spiced air, gratefully eying the familiar boundaries of the +clearing, the stumps, the huge pile of cut wood, and the fenced-in +vegetable garden. Over the line of green to the north a gray, bare +mountain shot above the lesser hills, rising splendidly from its +timbered base to a peak hooded in snow. It swam in her vision at first, +but presently something of its grounded sureness, something of the peace +that slept along its upper reaches, fell upon her own soul and her +serenity was restored. + +Not pausing to review those amazing moments of inner tumult, she stepped +again to the door and with her old, careless, mildly amused laugh she +beat upon it, loudly this time. She heard an inarticulate call from the +studio, and again she assaulted the panel. Then the curtain was drawn +aside and Ewing stared at her from the doorway. + +"I believe you were sleeping," she started to say, but he came quickly +to her with something between a laugh and a shout. + +"Then it's true, it _is_ true--you're real! I just dreamed that you +became Ben Crider and made me walk in the middle of the street." He +fairly rushed her into the studio and waved excitedly to the open +trunks. + +"There! I began to pack last night so I could see it when I woke up and +have a proof that things were true. I didn't sleep at all till about +eight this morning." + +She sat on the couch, feeling that she was foolish beyond measure to +avoid the eyes of the portrait. Then she smiled at him with an effort to +recover the amused ascendancy of their first meetings. + +"It's all true, I assure you, and I wonder if you'd mind taking charge +of me when you go East. My brother has suggested it, and I'll promise +not to be a trouble." + +His look of wondering delight was so utterly boyish, his helpless +laughter so entirely without reserve that she regained for the moment +her old easy dominance. + +"Would I mind--mind going with you? That's a joke, isn't it?" He seized +both her hands in a grasp from which she caught some thrill of his +deep-breathed, electric joy. + +"But of course this is nonsense," he went on; "I'm still lying there." + +"Enough of dreams," she broke in warningly. "You'll find it only too, +too real. You're going to work. It's simple." + +He sat down on one of the trunks, trying to subdue his excitement, his +hands clenched. + +"If this feeling lasts I can do anything, _anything_, you understand, +learn everything, do everything, be everything. I have power. Ever since +you left yesterday I've felt full of steel springs, all tightly coiled. +Only I must be careful. If they went off all at once there'd be an +explosion, and I'm afraid I couldn't ever be repaired." + +She grimaced with an effort at mock dismay which was not wholly +successful. She divined the literal truth under his jesting. The springs +were coiled and their steel was not too well tempered, she believed. The +thought left a shadow on her face. + +"You're not doubting anything?" he asked quickly. + +"Not doubting, O youth! Only a little innocent wonder." + +"But isn't life an enchantment? Isn't it all miracles? Oh, I understand +poets at last. They can't tell you their secret unless you already know +it. They sing in big numbers. They say a million is true, and you say, +'Yes, that's very pretty, but it's poetry--exaggeration; he really means +that a hundred is true,' and you never know any better till the light +comes. Then you see that the poet was literal and quite prosaic all the +time. The whole million was always true, in beauty and bigness and +wonder." + +"Stop!" she protested. "You're making me feel as old as the world +itself, ancient and scarred with wisdom." + +"You!" he burst in, "you're as young as the world. You are foolish and I +am the wise one if you can't see that. Indeed, you're looking +beautifully foolish this minute. You are thinking all kinds of doubts +underneath a lot of things you won't tell me. You're secretive. You hide +a lot from me." + +She laughed, a little uneasily. + +"You are a babe for wisdom," she retorted; "but you're not to be +enlightened in a day--nor by me. I'll give you a year. You shall tell me +then which of us two is the older. Now you must be at your packing. Can +you be ready by Monday?" + +"Monday? and I'd been wondering what would be the name of the day. So +it's merely Monday? How many Mondays there have been, how many, many +Mondays, that were like any other day! And now this Monday steals +up--yes, I'll be ready." + +"I see you are past reason----" + +"Say above it----" + +"Anyway, get on with your packing. So much is true." He would have +ridden back with her, but she demurred. + +"It's so far," he urged. + +"It isn't half far enough," she mocked him, "I have so much thinking to +do!" + +"Monday, Monday, Monday, then!" he chanted, as he went out to lift her +into the saddle. But when he had done this he suddenly bowed his head to +kiss her hand, as he had seen his father long ago kiss his mother's +hand. + +"You are all the world, just now, all I know of it," he said. + +She looked back to where he stood, straight and buoyant, his head thrown +back in joyous challenge. + +"And you are youth--dear, dear youth!" she cried; but this he could not +hear. + +A little farther on she breathed softly, "Poor dead Kitty--don't be +afraid!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE JOURNEY WONDER + + +During those last days Ewing brushed only the airy slopes of illusion, +strive as he would to keep his feet to earth. Many were the tricks he +used to this end: vain tricks to forget the miracle of his going, of +going so soon, of going with her. + +Ben Crider would not help him forget. When snatches of warning from +"Traps and Pitfalls" grew stale, Ben coined advice of a large and +general character. + +"Want to be an artist, hey? Ask me? Go down to Durango--let that +professor learn you in ten lessons. Make yer five t' eight dollars a day +canvassin' fur enlargements. Gold frame throwed in. Yes, sir! Ask me? +Durango's fur enough. New York's too gosha-mighty fur!" + +It was not possible to forget under the droppings of this counsel. +Wherefore his spirit tossed in tumult. + +When Ben called him on the morning of the start it was still dark. He +lay a moment, his nerves tightening. This was the last time he would lie +in that bed--for how long? Well, on some unmarked night in the pregnant +future, lying there again, he would look back to this moment and tell +himself all the wonderful things that had come to him--tell his +ignorant, puzzled, excited self, who would, somehow, be waiting and +wondering there. + +Juggling this conceit, he groped for matches and a candle. He could +hear the singing of the kettle in the outer room. Through the window he +saw a lantern swinging, and knew that Ben would be bringing around the +horses. It was a time to be cool, a time to gird himself. + +He had breakfast on the table when Ben came in, and they ate by the +light of a smoky lamp, tacitly pretending that no miracle was afoot. +Saving the early hour, it was a scene they enacted whenever they drove +to Pagosa for supplies, up to the point when, the meal finished, they +carried two trunks from the studio out to the wagon. But they managed +this carelessly enough, with only a casual, indignant word or two about +the excessive weight of full trunks. + +Only the faintest hint of light showed in the east as the chilled horses +stumbled awkwardly down the hill. A half hour they rode in a silence +broken but once, and then only by Ben's hoarse threat to "learn" the off +horse something needful but unspecified which it appeared not to know. + +The light glowed from gray to rose and day was opened by the bark of a +frantic squirrel that ran half-way down a tree trunk, threatening +attack, in alarm for its store of spruce cones at the foot of the tree. +A crested jay at the same moment mocked them harshly from a higher +branch of the tree. + +Ewing exhaled with gusto a breath of the warming, pine-spiced air. + +"It's sunning up, Ben." Ben grunted unamiably. + +A little distance ahead of them a doe and a half-grown fawn bounded +across the road. + +"She seemed to be in a hurry," Ewing again ventured. + +"She wanted t' git that child away from here, 'fore some one stuffed +its head full o' fool talk about goin' off to New York. Can't tell what +notions a young deer _might_ git." With this laborious surmise he shut +his jaws together with repellent grimness. + +Their road now wound down a hill and out of the woods to join the valley +road. + +"Yender's Beulah Pierce!" Ben snapped this out savagely. The wagon was +half a mile ahead. Pierce was driving, and in the rear seat were two +figures whom they knew to be Mrs. Laithe and her brother. As Ben had +pointedly ignored these Ewing did not refer to them. + +They came to a gate in a wire fence that stretched interminably away on +either side, over brown, low-rolling hills. Pierce had left the gate +open for them, and Ewing got out to close it after they had passed +through. + +"Larabie is building a lot of fence," he said, as they drove on. "At +this rate he'll have every school section in Hinsdale County wired in +pretty soon." + +On this impersonal ground Ben seemed willing to meet him. + +"Me? Know what I'm going to do if Wes' Larabie cuts off any more o' this +road with his barb wire? Stick a pair o' wire clippers in the whip +socket an' drive through. _That's_ all! You'd think he owned all +America, the way he makes people sidle along that fence till he gits +good an' ready to make a gate. Me? Make my own gates. Yes, sir! Wire +clippers!" + +With this he was sufficiently cheered to insult vivaciously a couple of +dull, incurious Mexicans whom they presently passed, plodding behind a +laden burro train. To his opprobrious burst of weirdly entangled +Spanish and English he added the taunting bleat of a sheep and a +merrily malign gesture eloquent of throats to be slit--the throats of +unspeakable sheep herders. He observed with deep disgust that neither of +the threatened ones gave any sign of interest in their portended fate. +They passed with scarce a lift of their heads. + +"They're takin' supplies up to that sheep outfit o' Rankin's," grumbled +Ben. "Pierce an' some o' the others is talkin' about gettin' in a car +load o' saltpeter an' dopin' the range if Rankin lets his herd work down +any closeter--have it billed in as hardware or pianos, an' unload the +car at night. Serve him right fur bein' a sheep man. An' yet I knowed +Nels Rankin, five, six years ago, when there wa'n't a more respectable +cuss in the hull San Juan." + +In passing the Pulcifer ranch they made talk about the hay-cutting, for +a reaper sent its locustlike click from a brown stretch of bottom land. +Pulcifer had a good stand of hay, they agreed, and probably he wouldn't +have such a big winter kill this year if he didn't act the fool and sell +off too much of it. You couldn't expect to bring cattle through fat on +cottonwood browse. + +So they lamely gossiped the miles away in strained avoidance of the big +event. Only once did Ewing look back, while Ben was occupied with the +horses at a ford. The rocky wall at the verge of their lake was +intimately near, despite the miles they had come, and below it, through +a notch in the hills, he could see a spot of yellow--the new shake roof +on a shed they had built that summer near the cabin. Then his eyes were +ahead to where Pierce's wagon crawled up a hill. + +Ben whipped up the horses and burst into song: + + "One evening I was strolling through the city of the dead; + I viewed where all around me their peaceful forms were spread." + +He took the thing at a quick, rollicking tempo, as one resolved to be +gay under difficulties. + +When they drew up to the station platform at Pagosa, Ewing hurried to +greet Mrs. Laithe and her brother. Pierce busied himself with the +trunks, cautiously watching the man check them. + +Ben Crider, after a long, fervent look at Ewing's back, caught his +breath, sniffled, strangled this, and stepped quickly into his wagon. +Pulling the horses quietly away from the platform he whipped them into a +sharp trot toward the town. Ewing ran back, shouting. Ben would not +turn, but he thrust one arm back and upward with a careless wave. + +Ewing stared hard at the bent head, the eloquent back, longing for a +further sign, but none came. He was at the gateway of the world, a mist +before his eyes. + +A moment later their little train rattled into a narrow cañon where its +shrill whistle, battered from wall to wall, made the place alive with +shrieking demons. + +Having seen his charge to a seat in the one squalid car, Ewing went out +to brace himself on the rear platform. She who was doing this thing had +seemed a strange lady again; in her manner, as in her dress, more +formal. The dark-blue, close-fitting gown, the small toque of blue +velvet, the secretive veil, the newish gloves, instead of the old, worn +riding gauntlets, the glossy-toed black boots so different from those of +scarred tan he knew, all marked a change that heightened the pangs of +homesickness he already suffered. + +With burning eyes and tightened throat he saw the floor of the cañon +rush away from him, and watched old Baldy's snow hood flashing +momentarily as the train twisted, now sinking below a quick-rushing wall +of rock, now showing over a clump of cedars. It was as if the old peak +had become sprightly at his going, and sought to bob curtsies to him. + +At intervals the train came to a jangling halt. The little locomotive +would leave it and ramble inconsequently off into the big pine woods, to +return with screeches of triumph, dragging a car load of new-sawn boards +from the mill. Or it would puff away to a siding and come back +importantly with a car of excited sheep. At these halts Ewing would leap +to the ground to feel the San Juan earth under his feet. + +At the junction where they were to take the through train he reflected +that nothing had really happened yet. He could turn back and be out of +the dream. The little train would return up the cañon presently. The +conductor would be indifferent to his presence. To the brakeman, whom he +knew, he could say, "Yes, I thought some of going to New York this +morning, but I changed my mind." He would be back at Pagosa by five and +find Ben at the post office or the "Happy Days" saloon. Then there would +be no more of that curious sickness--a kind of sickish wanting. Yet, +when the through train drew in, he hurried aboard. + +He stood on the rear platform and watched a horseman jogging over the +sandy plain to the west, picturing his ride from the junction to some +lonely ranch on a distant river bottom. He would have the week's mail in +a bag back of the saddle, and a stock of tobacco. He would reach the +place after dark, perhaps, from sheer _ennui_, shooting at a coyote or +two along the way. He knew that rider's life, the days of it and the +nights, and all of good or ill that might ever betake him. It was well, +he thought, to dare a bigger life, though he waved a friendly greeting +to the unconscious horseman, jogging at the head of his train of dust. +He flung a tender glance at the diminished junction, now a low, dull +blur on the level horizon, and went into the car. + +For the moment the Pullman had no other occupant but himself and Mrs. +Laithe, and she was sleeping, he thought; but her eyes opened as he +would have passed her seat. She had replaced the toque with a brown cap +he knew, and as she smiled up at him she seemed again almost the +familiar godmother of his fairy tale. He passed on, however, after a +meaningless word or two and, sprawling in another section, surrendered +himself to the troubled pretentiousness of the Pullman school of +decoration. + +He had left the lady grateful for his going. She was in no mood for that +artless lyric chant of youth in which he was so adept. Her brother that +morning had accused her of waning enthusiasm for her protégé. + +"I believe you're funking, Nell," he had said shrewdly. "You're +discovering that mountain slumming is different from the city kind." + +But she had protested that no discerning person of ordinary humanity +could have done less for the prisoned youth. "Of course"--and she had +sighed--"he's a mere bundle of untried eagerness, and we're responsible, +in a way, for Heaven knows what, but we had to do it, didn't we?" + +"Not 'we' had to! _You_ had to. It's all yours, Nell--the credit and the +glory and all the rest. I prefer to get up my own responsibilities, if +you don't mind." + +"But you agreed with me--you _did_--you advised when I asked you--it's +perfectly plain--you said, 'Of course!'"--But the train moved off in the +midst of his laugh at this, and he had doffed his hat to her with a +mocking gesture of freehanded relinquishment. + +Now, as she closed her eyes again, her memory dived for some fairy tale +or fragment of mythology in which an unsuspecting humanitarian rescued +an insignificant woods thing, only to have it change on the instant into +a creature troublesome in more ways than one. She was certain some +primitive fabulist had foreseen this complication, but her mind was +weary and shadowed, and the historic solution evaded her. "Mountain +slumming" was truly more exigent than the town sort. + +But this reflection aroused a defensive sympathy. The vision of +Ewing as he had passed glowed before her shut eyes, the active, +square-shouldered, slender figure, garbed in a decently fitting +suit of gray (she was glad to remember that), the quick eyes, ardent +for life, the thinned, brown face, the usual buoyance held down to an +easy self-possession that was new to her, the wild, reliant expectancy +of a boy tempered all at once by some heritage of insight. Outwardly, +at least, he would fit his new life. So reflecting, she dozed on the +look of the man in his eyes, and dreamed that she feared this and fled. +But after mad flight through the windings of an interminable corridor +she awoke to look squarely into his eyes, to cower instinctively under +his touch on her arm. Her waking thought took the thread of the dream, +her flight had been vain: he was there, and his voice throbbed fatefully +within a secret chamber of her mind, even though his words rang little +of portent. + +"We are coming to the supper station." + +She hastened to freshen herself with cold water, and they were presently +eating a hasty meal at a crowded table. Then they were out side by side +to pace the platform briskly. + +There was green about the station, where water had taught the desert to +relent, but beyond this oasis the sand sea stretched far and flat to +murky foothills. Above these they could see a range of sharp-peaked +mountains that still caught the sunlight, some crystal white with snow, +others muffled by clouds turned to iris-hued scarfs of filmiest gauze. + +"El Dorado is beyond those hills," said the youth fervently. + +"It looks accessible from here," she answered, "but----" + +"You're warning me again. You're afraid I'll be discouraged by the +hills." + +"Not discouraged, but there are resting places on the way. They hold the +bulk of the pilgrims, I fear." + +"I shall go on; not even you could stop me." + +She caught a glint in his fierce young eyes that she thought he must be +unconscious of. + +"I? Oh, I shall spur you--if you need spurring." + +"I know; I'm only beginning to realize how much I owe you; I mean to +repay you, though." + +There was an intimation of remoteness in his tone, as if he saw himself +removed from her, mounting solitary to his dream city, a free-necked, +well-weaponed pilgrim, sufficient unto himself. It was as if he had put +distance between them the moment he crossed the threshold of the world. +She drew a full breath. It came to her, as the upflashing of some +submerged memory, that all his frank adoration of her had been quite +impersonal. He had regarded her as a bit of line and color. It was +amazing to remember that he had made no effort to know her, save with +his eyes. She divined that she had stopped short of being human to him, +while he to her had been, more than anything else, a human creature of +freshness and surprises. Whatever difficulties might be in the way of an +easy friendliness between them, they would not be of his own making. She +was sure she felt a great relief. + +Ewing awoke in the night at some jolting halt of the train, to feel an +exciting thrill of luxury as he stretched in his berth. Here was no +stumbling about in the dark to search for a lost trail; nor must he rise +in the chill dawn to worry a blaze from overnight embers, cook a +discouraging breakfast, catch horses, and lade unwilling beasts with +packs. Things would be done for him; and the trail was wide and level as +befits the approach to the world. He dozed royally off feeling that he +had bitten into the heart of his wonder at last. + +The following day they sped through a land whose kind he knew, but after +another night he awoke to find their train breasting the brown waves of +a sea that rolled lazily to far horizons. No longer was there one of his +beloved mountain peaks to be a landmark: only an endless, curving +lowness, as of land that had once tried to lash itself into the fury of +mountain and crag, and then ceased all effort--to lie forever impotent +and sad. + +He thought of Ben amid this disconsolate welter. Ben had beheld this +sight years ago, and had described it with aversion, as one relating a +topographical scandal. Ewing favored his companion with heartfelt +dispraise of this landscape, applauding the suggestion of a woman she +laughingly quoted that "there should be a tuck taken in the continent." +He was sure nothing would be lost by it. + +The lady beguiled him over the inadequacies of Kansas by promising a +better land farther on. He gladly turned from the car window to watch +the pretty play of her mouth as she talked. + +But the next day--they steamed out of St. Louis in the morning--he +scanned several hundred square miles of excellent farming land with +sheer dismay. From morning till night they ran through what, to Ewing, +was a dead, depressing flatness, a vast and clumsy jest of a +checkerboard, with cornfields for squares. The tiny groves of oak at +long intervals seemed only to satirize the monotony. The rolling plains +of the day before had been vivacious beside this flatness, and there had +been a certain mournful dignity in their solitude. But this endless +level lacked even solitude. To Ewing, indeed, the mystery of it lay in +its well-peopled towns. He wondered how men kept sane there. Mrs. Laithe +insisted that it was an important stretch of our country, that it fed +thousands and made useful objects in its tall-chimneyed factories +(things like wagons and watches and boots, she believed), and that it +ought not to be discountenanced. But he could feel nothing for it, save +an unconfessed pity that it would sleep that night in ignorance of his +glorious transit. He had never suspected there could be so many +thousands of people who took the world as a tame affair and slept +indifferent to young men with great things before them. + +"If New York is like this," he said, with a flash of his old boyish +excitement, "what can I ever do without you?" + +"But it isn't at all like this, and you'll do big things without me--or +with me, if I can help you." + +"You will have to help me. Now that I've seen the beginning of the +world, I'm depending on you more than I thought I should when we +started." + +"You will lose that." + +"Will I? But it will be queer to see you as part of the world--no longer +the whole of it; to see how you stand out from the others. Perhaps the +rest of the world will be only a dingy background for you--you are all +color and life." + +"You've made me feel like a lay figure," she laughed. Then, in a flash +of womanish curiosity, she ventured, "Have you ever thought me anything +but a shell of color?" + +He stammered, blushing painfully. + +"Oh, a real person--of course, certainly! A woman, yes--but when I think +of you as a woman, I'm scared, like those first times I saw you. I can't +help it. You may not believe it," he concluded with a burst of candor, +"but the truth is, I don't know women." + +He was again embarrassed when she retorted, with her laugh: + +"O youth! May you always know so much!" + +"Well, to-morrow afternoon we shall be in New York," he said briskly, +when she had shut the deeps of her eyes from him. He had felt the need +to show that there were matters upon which he could speak with +understanding. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A DINNER AT SEVEN-THIRTY + + +By five o'clock the next afternoon Ewing had ended his journey in an +upper room of the Stuyvesant Hotel. This hostelry flaunts an outworn +magnificence. Its hangings are dingy, its plenteous gilt is tarnished; +and it seems to live on memories of a past when fashion splendidly +thronged its corridors. But peace lies beyond the gloom of its portals, +and Ewing was glad to be housed from the dazing tumult outside. Nothing +reached him now but the muted rhythm of horses' feet on the asphalt +below, and this but recalled agreeably to him that his solitude was an +artificial thing of four walls. He had no wish to forget that the world +waited beyond his door. + +He fell back on the sofa, a once lordly thing of yellow satin, now +frayed and faded, to eye the upper reaches of the room. The high, +blue-tinted ceiling was scarred and cracked. Depending from its center a +huge chandelier dangled glittering prisms of glass. An immense mirror in +a gilt frame, lavishly rococo, rested on the mantel of carved white +marble. Heavy lace curtains, shrouding the two broad windows, made a +restful half light. + +He had awakened to hills that morning, wooded hills and well towned. +Then had come veritable cities, rich to him with all romance under their +angular, smoky ugliness. And at last had come the real city--the end of +the world and its center. He discovered it beyond a stretch of +white-flecked water alive with strange craft. Its clean, straight, +myriad-windowed towers glowed under a slanting sun in an air as crystal +clear as that of his own hills. A vista of heart-shaking surprises +unfolded ahead of the great boat they boarded, a boat with a heart +strongly beating in tune with his own. Too soon it nosed its way, with a +sort of clumsy finesse, into a pile-walled pocket. There followed the +keen, quick rattling of a cogged wheel and a rush of people who seemed +insufficiently impressed by the magnitude of the event. Then they +entered a cab, to be driven from a throng of other cabs and jostling +pedestrians through the maze of a dream come true. He tried not to +ignore his companion for glimpses of that strange life through the cab +window. + +Very casually she had said at parting, "Thank you so much for all your +care of me--and dine with us at seven-thirty, won't you? I shall try to +have a friend here that I think may help you." + +A long time he lay, reviewing that chaotic first hour in the world. +Everything throbbed here, it seemed. One lived more quickly. And how +long could the body endure it? Suddenly he felt his own pulses beating +at a rate to terrify. He caught his breath and listened. He could hear +the monstrous beats--they were actually shaking the sofa on which he +lay. He thought of heart disease. He might be dying there--and they +would wait dinner for him. He sprang up desperately. The sinister +beating ceased. He put his hand to his heart, listened tensely, and +heard again that which had alarmed him, the pulsing beat of a steam pump +somewhere far below. In his relief he laughed aloud. + +As he set about opening his trunks he was marveling at clothes lines he +had seen stretched high between the rear walls of houses. How did people +ever hang clothes on lines fifty feet from the ground? Truly it was a +city of wonders. + +He took out a suit of evening clothes that had been his father's. He had +found that the suit fitted him, and he and Ben had assured themselves by +reference to the pictured heroes in magazine advertisements that its cut +was nearly enough in the prevailing mode. Ewing had also found some +cards of his father's which would convey his own name to all who might +care to read it. + +As he sauntered out at the dinner hour he wished that Ben could be +watching him. The Bartell house was in Ninth Street, less than a long +block from his hotel, a broad, plain-fronted, three-story house of red +brick trimmed with white marble. Caught in a little eddy from the stream +heading in Washington Square and sweeping north, it had kept an old-time +air of dignity and comfort. Ewing observed a cheering glow through the +muslin curtains at the windows as he ascended the three marble steps. +The old white door, crowned with a fanlight and retaining its brass +knocker, had suffered the indignity of an electric bell, but this was +obscurely placed at the side, and he lifted the knocker's lion head. As +no bell rang, he dropped it, and was dismayed by its metallic clamor. He +swiftly meditated flight, thinking to return for a seemlier +demonstration. But the door swung back and a person in evening dress +stood aside to bow him in. + +"Ah, good evening!" exclaimed Ewing cordially. Then, embarrassed, he +felt for a card, recalling that he was in a land where, probably, one +could not be cordial to persons who opened doors. + +"For Mrs. Laithe," he said, in grave tones, eying the man's bluntly cut +features with a severity meant to dispel any wrong impression. The +person received the card on a tiny silver plate, relieved him of hat and +coat with what seemed to Ewing an uncanny deftness, bowed him to the +gloom of a large apartment on the left, and vanished. An instant later +he reappeared, drew portiéres aside, revealing another warmly lighted +room, and Ewing beheld a white vision of his hostess. + +"I'm glad to have a word with you," she began. "Sit here. You're to meet +a friend, Ned Piersoll, who will tell you a lot of things. I telephoned +him directly I came in, and he found he could come, though he must run +when he's eaten--some affair with his mother. But he'll have found out +about you." + +"I'm much obliged to you," he stammered, having caught little of her +speech. + +"Ned will tell you what to do. He knows everybody. He's on the staff of +the Knickerbocker magazine, and he had a novel out last spring, 'The +Promotion of Fools,' that you must have seen advertised everywhere, like +a medicine." + +"Yes, I've read that book." + +"You must tell him if you liked it--they all care to hear that--and +he'll see that you meet men of your own kind." For looking at her he had +been able to give her words little attention. She had revealed herself +anew in the dull white of a gown that brought out the elusive glow of +her face. Her eyes were deep wells, shaded but luminous, under the +lusterless dark of her hair, and her smile flashed a girlish benignity +upon him. Acutely alive was he to the line of neck and shoulder and +arm, a slender, supple neck, set on shoulders superbly but lightly +modeled, the small collarbone exquisitely muffled but not lost, and the +little hollow at the base of her throat prettily definite. And all was +white and lusterless save the warning dusk of her eyes and the flash +from her parting lips. + +With such cold passion for line did his artist's eye wreak its joy upon +her that, as she talked, she found herself thinking him curiously dull +to the prospect she opened. It was the impersonal look she had come to +know; and his replies were languid, as if he thought of other matters. +It might have passed for the bored ease of a man of the world had she +not known him to be amid novel surroundings. + +Feeling a slight discomfort under his look, she at length diverted his +eyes to the room in which they sat. + +"It's the room I like best in all the house," she said. "That big +drawing room you came through is inhuman. It terrified me as a child, +and still refuses to make friends with me, but this library--don't you +feel that I've humanized it?" + +He became aware that he had felt its easing charm of dark-toned wood and +dull-red walls. There were low book-shelves, low seats that invited, a +broad table with its array of magazines, and a lazy fire in the open +grate. + +"It's a fine room to be in," he said, bringing his eyes back to her. + +"There's not a chair in it," she continued, "that wasn't meant to be sat +in--most chairs nowadays are mere spectacles, you know--and no glass +doors before the books. Nothing enrages me like having to open a door +to get at books." + +"It's the room you need," he replied. "You draw all the light to +yourself. It gives you color, turns your hair to black, and makes your +eyes look like----" + +"Mr. Piersoll!" announced the man. + +His look still engaged her as she floated forward to greet the tall, +pleasant-faced, alert young man with tumbled yellow hair who now +entered. Not until he heard his own name did he relinquish her to +acknowledge the word of introduction. + +A moment later the father of Mrs. Laithe strolled in and Ewing was again +introduced, this time to a stoutish man with a placid, pink face, scanty +hair going from yellow to white--arranged over his brow with scrupulous +economy--and a closely cut mustache of the same ambiguous hue. He was a +man who gracefully confessed fifty years to all but the better informed. +Ewing felt himself under the scrutiny of a pair of very light gray eyes +as Bartell took his hand, tentatively at first, then with a grip of +entire cordiality. One may suspect that this gentleman had looked +forward with mild apprehension to a dinner meeting with the latest +protégé of his impulsive daughter. The youth's demeanor, however, so +quickly caused his barbaric past to be forgotten that, by the time they +were at table, his host had said to him, prefacing one of his best +anecdotes, "Of course you know that corner table on the Café de la Paix +terrace...." + +Ewing floated dreamily on the stream of talk; laughing, chatty talk, +spiced with suggestive strange names; blithe gossip of random +happenings. He was content to feel its flow beneath him and rather +resented the efforts to involve him in it, preferring to listen and to +look. But he was courteously groped for by the others and compelled to +response as the dinner progressed. + +Piersoll mentioned his drawings pleasantly and engaged him for dinner at +a club the following evening. "I'll call for you at the Stuyvesant about +six," he said, when Ewing had accepted. "I must have a look at your +stuff. Don't dress; we dine in our working clothes at the Monastery." + +The father of Mrs. Laithe warned Ewing to beware of worry in his new +surroundings. + +"Let life carry you, my boy. That's my physiology in a nutshell. Don't +try to lug the world about. The people who tell you that life in New +York is a strain haven't learned rational living. Worry kills, but I +never worry, and I find town idyllic. Clarence was born to worry: +result, dyspepsia and nervous breakdown. My daughter worries. She goes +into side streets looking for trouble, and when she finds it she keeps +it. That's wrong. Life is whatever we see it to be. Eleanor sees too +much of the black side, poverty, starvation, hard luck--all kinds of +deviltry, and it reacts on her. I look only on the cheerful side, and +that reacts on me. A good dinner, a glass of burgundy--there's an answer +to all that socialistic pessimism." + +"Suppose one hasn't the answer at hand?" his daughter broke in. + +"Keep smiling, my dear," retorted her father with Spartan grimness. +"Skipping a dinner or two can't overturn real philosophy. Down on the +Chesapeake last fall, duck shooting one day, we lost the luncheon hamper +overboard, and hadn't so much as a biscuit from four in the morning till +after nine at night, shooting from a chilly, wet blind all day. _There_ +was a test! But I give you my word I never worried. I took it as so much +discipline. My dear, if I had fretted over tenement houses the way you +have, I should be a broken man. Thank the gods that be, I've had the wit +to let my agent do all that!" + +His daughter received this with a shrug of despair. "But confess, +daddy--you _have_ a worry." + +"'Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!'" quoted Piersoll, +divining her mark. + +"I admit, my dear, that legitimate worry has its uses. I only warn +against the too common abuse of it. I maintain," he went on, turning to +Ewing, "that a man with the feelings of a boy should, if there's any +moral balance in the world, retain the waistline of a boy; yet I've not +done it. I go to doctors--they all talk the same ballyrot about exercise +or they harangue you about diet. Why, I've heard them gibber of things +one mustn't eat till I writhed in anguish. Some day I know I shall chuck +it all and let Nature take her course." He glared defiantly about the +table. + +"She's not waiting for you to let her, dear," observed his daughter +maliciously. + +"It's my temperament, I suppose"--he sighed ruefully into his plate of +sweet stuff--"just as it's Randy Teevan's temperament to keep slender, +though I suspect Randy of stays." + +Mrs. Laithe had glanced swiftly toward Ewing at the mention of this +name. She again looked at him alertly a moment later when the man +announced "Mr. Teevan and Mr. Alden Teevan." + +"Alden told me this afternoon at the club, my dear, that he and his +father might stop for a moment on their way up town, just to say +'How-de-do.' We can have coffee in the library." + +His daughter received this with a meditative under lip. Then she +brightened. + +"I'm sure you men would rather sit here and smoke while I run in and see +them. They'll stay only a minute." + +"Nonsense, child! I can't lose sight of you so soon again. We can smoke +in there as well." + +"Coffee in the library, Harris." She gave the order with a submissive +shrug and led the way out. + +Ewing saw two men come to greet her, alike enough of feature to reveal +their relationship at first glance. He detected, however, a curious +contrast they presented. The father, slight and short of stature, was a +very young-looking old man, while the son was an old-looking young man. +The father was dapper, effusive, sprightly, quick with smiling gestures; +the son restrained, deliberate, low-toned with a slow, half-cynical +smile of waiting. He gave the effect of subduing what his father almost +elfishly expressed. + +Father and son greeted the men over the shoulders of Mrs. Laithe, and +Ewing was presented. There was an inclination of the son's head, and a +careless glance of his waiting eyes; from the father, a jerky, absent +"How-d'you do--How-d'you do!" + +They moved by chatting stages to the library. The elder Teevan, +carefully pointing the ends of his small, dark mustache, stood with his +back to the dying fire, a coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette in the +other, twittering gallantly of a town's desolation wrought by the going +away of Mrs. Laithe; and of a town renewed by her great-hearted return. +"A preciously timed relenting," he called it, with a challenging sigh +toward the lady, as he gracefully flicked back a ringlet of the lustrous +brown hair that had fallen low on his brow. Ewing thought it wonderful +hair on a man whose face, though ruddy in hue, showed signs of age. +There were deep lines at the corners of those gallantly flashing eyes, +and their under lids drooped. The skin was shrunk tightly over the high, +thin nose, the cheeks were less than plump, and the neck revealed some +unhappy wrinkles. Sadly, too, his voice failed at supreme moments. It +was tragic, Ewing thought, to listen to a sentence valiantly begun, only +to hear the voice crack on a crucial word. + +Mrs. Laithe received the little man's tribute with a practiced +indifference, chatting absently, meanwhile, with the son. Presently she +led Ewing and the younger Teevan to the drawing room to admire a huge +jar of roses for which she thanked Teevan. + +Back in the library Piersoll was listening to a salmon-fishing story of +Bartell's. The elder Teevan genially overlooked the scene, humming +lightly to himself the catch air from a late musical comedy. He turned +to study a bit of Japanese bronze on the mantel behind him, screwing a +single glass into an eye. When he had scanned the bronze with a fine +little air of appreciation he replaced it, resumed his jaunty humming, +and idly picked up a card that had been thrown beside it. Carelessly +under the still fixed monocle he brought the words "Mr. Gilbert Denham +Ewing." A moment he held it so in fingers that suddenly trembled. His +head went sharply back, the glass dropped from his eye, dangling on its +silken ribbon, and his little song died. He glanced about him, observing +the two groups to be still inattentive. Placing a supporting hand on +the mantel he set the glass firmly again and studied the card a second +time. Another glance through the rooms, and he resumed his song, +crumpling the card in his hand. Then, turning, he stood once more before +the fire, his hands comfortably at his back. One of them tossed the card +into the grate, and his song again ceased. + +Bartell looked up, having, after incredible finesse, slain and weighed +his giant salmon. Piersoll, recalling that the anecdotist had killed +other salmon in his time, made a hasty adieu and went to his hostess, +who lingered in the drawing room with the younger men. Teevan, before +the fire, breathed in smoke, emitted it from pursed lips, studied the +ash at the end of his cigarette from under raised, speculative brows, +and flashed search-light eyes upon his host. + +"Who's the young chap, Chris?" + +Bartell took up a liqueur glass and turned to his questioner. + +"Name's Ewing, I believe. Some chap Eleanor picked up in the far West. +Painter, I believe, or means to be." + +"Painter, yes, to be sure--quite right; painter...." He waited +pointedly. + +"Paints cowboys and Indians, I fancy--the usual thing. Seems a decent +sort; rather a gentleman. You're looking a bit off. Randy." + +"Am I, though? Queer! Never felt fitter. Walked to Fifty-ninth Street +and back to-day. Might have overdone a bit. That chap staying in town +long?" + +"Have to ask Eleanor. It's her affair. By Jove, old boy, you _are_ a +wonder. I wish I could keep it off around here the way you do." + +The little man drew himself up, expanded his chest, and bravely +flourished a smile of acknowledgment. This faded into a look of hostile +curiosity, discreetly veiled, as Mrs. Laithe and the two young men came +in from the drawing room. + +"Time to be moving on, Governor," young Teevan remarked. + +"I'm not going, my boy," the little man answered in crisp tones, with +the hint of a side look at Ewing and Mrs. Laithe. "Run on like a good +chap and make my excuses to the dear grandmother. Needn't lie, you +know. Say I chucked her theater party at the last moment because the +places are stuffy. Say that I loathe plush and those crumpy little +boxes where one sees nothing but the gas fellow in a gingham jumper +yawning in the wings. Say I'm whimsical, capricious, fickle as April +zephyrs--in all but my love for her. If you're quite honest she'll +disbelieve you and guess that I'd a reason for stopping away. Run, +like a good lad, while I quench a craving for tales of adventure from +the most charming of her sex and from our young friend here--will you +pardon my oversight--Ewing?--Ah, to be sure, from Mr. Ewing---Ewing. I +must remember that. I'm a silly ass about names." + +But when his son had gone the little man appeared to forget the craving +that had prompted his stay. From his stand on the hearth rug he jauntily +usurped the talk, winging his way down the world stream of gossip from +capital to capital. Circuitous, indeed, was his approach to art; an +anecdote of studio life in Paris; a criticism of Rodin, "Whitman in +marble;" the vigor of our native art impulse, only now learning to +withdraw a slavish deference from the French schools. "And you--Mr.--Ah, +yes--Ewing, to be sure--our amiable and rotund host tells me that you +are to be a warrior in this fray of brush and chisel. Bravo! You shall +show me work." + +Ewing had listened to his recondite discourse chiefly with a morbid +expectancy of that recurrent break in the voice, straining until it came +and relaxing until it quavered back to the hazardous masculine level. +Finding himself thus noticed he stammered, "Oh, I--I've done some work +in black and white. I hope--Mrs. Laithe has encouraged me." + +"A charming modesty, yours; by no means the besetting sin of your craft, +but is Mrs. Laithe an ideal promoter of genius? I fancy you'll need a +sterner guide, one to be harsh as well as kind. Women can't be that, +least of all the charming specimen who has honored you with her +patronage. I shall be proud to supplement her deficiencies as +critic--her glorious, her fascinating deficiencies. Women, audacious +souls, are recklessly kind. They incur perils to chill the blood of +brave enough men, meaning monstrously well all the time"--his narrowed +eyes sought to read the face of Mrs. Laithe--"but I've yet to see one +worth a second look who had divined that there exists a certain +arbitrary relation between cause and effect. Need I word the +inference?... No?..." Relieved by his scrutiny of her face he broke off, +his heart leaping to the thought, "She doesn't know--doesn't know ... +the _fool_!" + +"I'll be glad to show you what I have," Ewing answered, rejoicing at +this solicitude in a critic so obviously eminent. "I've been afraid all +along that Mrs. Laithe might be too kind." + +"Kinder than she knew--kindness is no word for her excess. Women lack +fiber where their sympathies are involved. They'll not inflict pain +within scope of their imaginations--beyond that rather narrow field of +course they're merciless, bless them! But trust me to score your work if +it deserves that, and trust me to praise if it merits praise. You shall +exhibit to me. By the way"--he consulted a small enameled watch--"I've a +bit of time to spare. If you're stepping along I'll not mind looking at +your things this evening." + +Ewing arose, glowing with pleasure. He felt drawn to this wonderful +little man who knew everything, and who was visibly kind--just, at any +rate--under that fantastic cloak of severity. + +"You're very good," he said. "I'm staying close by, at the Stuyvesant." + +"Drop in often, Ewing," urged Bartell as they shook hands. "And don't +let Teevan put you down. I dare say you'll come on, you know, if you +chuck worry." + +As he parted from Mrs. Laithe he was aware of a new look in her eyes. He +had learned to read them. They sought now to tell him ... what? There +was a warning in them, and her glance seemed to enfold him almost +protectingly. But her words were not more than those of formal parting, +with a suggestion that he drop in for tea some afternoon soon. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE WAY OF THE LITTLE MAN + + +They walked briskly to the Stuyvesant in silence, for Ewing could think +of nothing to say, and his companion seemed preoccupied. He showed, +indeed, the stress of some excitement, for Ewing once heard him mutter +heatedly. Suspecting this to be meant for himself, he evoked by inquiry +only an impatient "Not here--not here!" He believed that his +distinguished companion must be engrossed for the moment with something +profounder than the drawings of a novice. + +At the hotel they ascended to Ewing's room. Indicating a chair to Teevan +he went to the mantel for matches. When he had set the room to sudden +light he stepped quickly back, for the little man, standing there, +glared at him in a panic of fear and disgust. + +In the shock of his embarrassment Ewing fumbled at his overcoat and +slowly drew it off. Teevan's eyes now blazed rage upon him. His small, +withered, blue-veined hands were tightly clenched at his sides. His +attitude was almost a crouch. Ewing felt a furtive amusement above his +dismay, at sight of the dapper little figure in this incongruous battle +pose. + +A moment they stood so, then the upper lip of Teevan lifted slowly to a +snarl. Seeing that he was about to speak, there ran with Ewing's +amazement an absurd apprehension of that break in the voice. + +"What do you mean by it?" The swiftness, the intensity of the utterance +held the voice level thus far, but the break came with the next words, +and the speech ended in a wail. + +"What do you think to gain by coming here--by hounding me--by hounding +_me_?" + +Ewing constrained himself to quiet, with an impulse to soothe this +inexplicable fury. + +"Please sit down, won't you? You were going to criticise my drawings, +you know. You suggested it a moment ago, and I thought--" He took up a +portfolio of sketches from one of the open trunks. + +"Your trash! What's that to me? Do you think to pass this off? You've +learned effrontery in a fine school. Come to the point. What can you +make by this indecency--this----" + +Ewing's look checked him--something genuine in his bewilderment. + +"Come," began Teevan again, "is it possible you're no one, after all, +instead of being less than no one? You know me, don't you?" + +"Of course I know you; Mrs. Laithe introduced us." + +"Oh, don't juggle. You can't swagger it off with me. You shall not hound +me or mine." + +"Hound?" Ewing sought for light, still trying to subdue this absurd +assailant. + +"Hound, I said, you smug brat! You know me--you've not forgotten my name +so soon." + +"Teevan, I believe. Really, Mr. Teevan--I----" + +"Randall Gordon Teevan! The name meant something to you, didn't it?" + +"No; it didn't mean anything to me." + +"Ah! say that again!" He came toward the younger man to peer up into +his face with a grinning, incredulous scowl. "Say it again!" + +Ewing drew back from his scrutiny with a slight impatience. + +"Why say it again? Isn't once enough? You hear well, don't you? What +should your name mean to me?" + +"You still try to carry _that_ off? Your game isn't ready to play?" + +Ewing resumed his patient search. + +"See here, Mr. Teevan, let's be very quiet and get at this. I never +heard your name until an hour ago. Perhaps it ought to mean something to +me, but it doesn't. I'm not well acquainted in New York; I only came +here to-day. Now"--his voice became cajoling--"suppose you sit down +there quietly and tell me all about yourself." + +"Your name is Ewing, isn't it?" + +"Of course!" + +"What's your full name?" + +"Gilbert Denham Ewing." + +"Damn him!" + +"Damn him? You are speaking of me?" + +"Not you--you cub!" + +"Another Ewing?" + +"Another Gilbert Denham Ewing!" + +"I never knew any other but my father. And you wouldn't be damning him." + +He said this with a confident smile, and the peering little man at last +read him accurately. An impalpable veil seemed to screen his scowling +face. Erect from his peering stoop he passed a small hand dazedly across +his brow, and his face had become pleasantly ingenuous, alive with a +half-comprehending regret. With a rueful laugh he put out a hand to +Ewing, who took it, to say the least, doubtfully. + +"A thousand pardons, my boy! I fear I've suffered an attack of nervous +aberration to which I am unhappily subject. It's most distressing. I'm +chagrined beyond measure by the annoyance I must have caused you, I give +no end of worry to my specialist by these seizures. My speech wandered +provokingly, I dare say. It always does. You'd not credit some of the +things I've said to my dearest friends at such times. But you can fancy +the mortification it is to me. You'll pardon me, I trust--youth's +charity for the failings of age. The horrid truth is that I'm a bit +oldish--not aged, not outworn, mind you--my years have come and gone +lightly--but at times like these I'm obliged to admit the count. Come, +you'll forget?" + +Ewing delightedly pressed his hand. He could believe the little man's +tale of his years. The hair that he had remarked for its young look had +been uncannily twisted on the head of its wearer during the flurry of +his transport. An area of luminous scalp now showed above one ear. + +He stammered awkward but heartfelt words of assurance. + +"Doubtless it quite bowled you over," Teevan pursued--"though I never +can recall what I've said; but let us forget, and, if you'd not mind, +let us say nothing of it to anyone--to Mrs. Laithe, for example. If it +came to the ears of my son--he's over-anxious about me already." + +"Certainly, I'll not speak of it, and I'm sorry, very sorry. Lay your +gloves on the mantel there and find a seat." He turned to his trunk, +hoping the little man would sight his head in the mirror. When he again +looked up the hair was in perfect adjustment, and Teevan beamed on him +from an armchair. + +"Your father," he began, "I seem to recall your saying it--was a +painter. Doubtless he taught you much." + +"I studied with him there in the mountains till he died. I've nothing +left of his but this portrait of my mother." + +He took the unframed canvas from the tray of the trunk and held it +before his guest. + +"Do you get the right light there?" + +It had been a bad quarter of an hour for Ewing, and, as he adjusted the +picture, he felt a moment's satisfaction in having weathered it so +plausibly. And now that the curious little gentleman seemed restored, it +was pleasant to anticipate his cultured appreciation of that work of art +which was the boy's chief treasure. + +"There isn't any shine across it now, is there?" he asked, and looked up +with a shy, proud, waiting smile. + +But the agitations that had gone before were as nothing to what now +passed in front of his dismayed eyes. One moment his guest hung staring +at the canvas with a goblin horror; then, uttering a kind of sob, he +shot incontinently out of the door. + +The harried Ewing dropped the picture and rushed in pursuit. He came up +with the little man at the head of the stairs. He was trembling, and his +face was ashen gray; but after a few deep breaths he smiled and waved a +hand jauntily to indicate humorous despair. It seemed to say, "I am +frequently like this--it's annoying past words." He spoke of needing a +restorative and suggested an advisable haste in the direction of the +café. + +"They've some choice old cognac downstairs. Suppose we chat over a bit +of it. I'm rather done up. These absurd attacks of mine react on the +heart. A noggin of brandy will fetch me about. You'll come?" + +They were presently at a table in the hotel café. + +"We've the room to ourselves," said Teevan genially. "Delightful old +place, this; restful, reminiscent, mellow--and generally empty. I detest +the cheap glitter of those uptown places with their rowdy throngs. They +make me feel like a fish in a fiddle box, as our French cousins say. +You'll have soda with yours?" + +Teevan drank his own brandy neat, and at once refilled his glass. + +"Now for a chat about yourself, my young friend--for surely only a +friend could have borne with me as tenderly as you have this evening. +You're a fellow of promise--the future clamors for you--your drawings +enchant me." + +Ewing reflected that his drawings had not been exposed, but the +intention was kind, and he was grateful for that. Teevan drank more +brandy with a dainty relish, and begged to hear of his young friend's +adventures in the far hills. + +Ewing expanded in the warmth of this kindly concern. He told, little by +little, under adroit prompting, what he had to tell. Teevan displayed a +gratifying interest, especially in what he recounted of his mother's +death. But at intervals during this recital the young man became +conscious, with astonishment, that there was an inexplicable look on the +other's face, a look which he suddenly discovered to be an unbelievable +veiled pleasure. + +He fell back with a quick, blind repulsion, and the two stared at each +other, the elder man dissolving with difficulty a monstrous smile. He +appeared to recover himself with an effort, finding the lines about his +mouth refractory, but his embarrassment was so poignant that Ewing felt +sorry for him. + +"You _must_ forgive me, old fellow! These damned treacherous nerves of +mine! I shall see that specialist chap of mine directly in the morning. +I'm so weak that the sadness of that poor lady's death set me off into +something like hysteria." + +It was one o'clock when they parted, and then only at a hint that the +place would close its old-fashioned doors for the night. Ewing rejoiced +to feel that he had made a desirable friend. He liked the little man +well. Teevan had said at the last. "You should move on to Paris, my boy. +You'll need the touch they give only in that blessed rendezvous of the +masters." Ewing went to his room realizing that the world of his dreams +did actually abound in adventure. His first day had been memorable. + +Teevan walked through Ninth Street to his own home, a few doors beyond +the Bartell house. It was a place of much the same old-fashioned lines, +that had withstood the north-setting current. + +He let himself in and went to the dining room at the rear. Here he +lighted a gas jet, took a decanter from the sideboard, and brought a +glass and a bottle of soda from the butler's pantry. He sipped the drink +and lighted a cigarette. His musings, as first reflected in his face, +were agreeable. His mouth twitched pleasantly, his eyes glistened. At +intervals he chuckled and muttered. With an increase of brandy in the +glass he became more serious. + +When Alden Teevan entered an hour later he found his father in a mood +astonishingly savage. At sight of his son the little man became vocal +with meaningless abuse. It was as if the presence of a listener incited +him to continue aloud some tirade that he had pursued in silence. But +the younger Teevan, lounging in the doorway, only stared with polite +concern as he was greeted with these emotional phrases: + +"--a damned milk-and-water Narcissus--a pretentious cub with the airs of +a cheap manikin of the world--a squeaking parasite--a toadlike, damned +obscenity----" + +An easy smile came to the son's face as he noted the fallen tide in the +decanter. + +"Night-night, my quaint, amiable father--and cheery dreams!" + +They studied each other a moment. The elder man seemed to meditate some +disclosure, but stopped on the verge of it. + +"That's all, my boy!" + +The young man laughed again. + +"It's enough, I fancy--but don't overdo it, Randy. You know one mustn't +at your age." + +"I'm taking care, taking care of everything, my boy--never you fear----" + +The other passed on, but stopped at the stairway and called back: + +"I say, Randy!" + +"Yes--yes----" + +"Get to bed, you absurd little rat, you!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A NIGHT AT THE MONASTERY + + +Ewing awoke late the next morning, rejoicing that he need not cook his +breakfast. After feeding his hill-born hunger with novel and exciting +foods he sauntered out to become a wave on the tide that flooded those +strange, heart-shaking streets. He mentally blazed his trail as he went. +His soul marched to the swift and cheerful stepping of the life about +him. He remembered Ben's warnings and wished that expert in urban evil +could see how little menacing was this splendid procession. That the +Saturday throng of shoppers and pleasure seekers was unaware of the +greatness of the moment to him lent a zest of secrecy to his scouting. + +Back and forth he wandered on Broadway, the moving crowds, volatile as +quicksilver, holding him with a hypnotic power. Often he stopped before +some shop, hotel, or theater that he had come to know in print. Not +until five o'clock did he find that he was leg weary. Then he took his +bearings and, in his own phrase, "made back to camp." + +A boy brought him Piersoll's card at six, and Piersoll followed. He came +with that alert self-possession which Ewing had come to consider typical +of these dwellers in a crowd where each is the inconsiderable part of a +great organic body, and must yet preserve his unique oneship. + +"Bully old place, this," Piersoll began. "My mother came to balls here +thirty years ago. Show me your stuff." + +He dropped into one of the armchairs and lighted a cigarette. + +Ewing opened a portfolio and placed drawings along the wall. Piersoll +slid his chair closer and studied them. + +"They're only little things I've seen," murmured Ewing. "I haven't had a +chance to see much." + +Piersoll blew out smoke and arose to put one of the drawings in a better +light. He gazed at this closely, swept his eye again over the others, +and exclaimed, "All right! Bully! Good drawing, and the real thing. +That's the point--you've drawn only what you've seen. They're not all +equally interesting, but they're all true. You'll do." + +"I'm glad you like them. I never knew if they were good." + +"They're better than I expected, from Mrs. Laithe's talk. She was so +keen about them, I made allowances." + +"Mrs. Laithe seemed to think I might sell them." + +"Some of those you can sell, undoubtedly. The others show what you can +do. They'll get your orders. The magazines are using a lot of Western +stuff. That ranchman's wife there in her poor little flower garden, +surrounded by a million miles of sage and cactus--fine! It's a story +picture, and the story's good. The Knickerbocker might use that. They +might want a series from you--six drawings or so--'Scenes of Ranch +Life.'" + +"It sounds too good." + +"It's not, and you'll get stories to illustrate. Can you draw a pretty +cowboy?" + +"Pretty?" + +"The kind in the magazine story. Harvard man, half-back, old New York +family, named Van-Something or other; unhappy love affair; tries ranch +life; fearless rider, dead shot 'six feet of clean-limbed, virile young +manhood,' is the approved phrase for him. He's a beautiful thing--his +man keeps his chaps pressed, and he never is seen needing a shave----" + +Ewing grinned appreciatively. + +"Girl comes out from New York," continued Piersoll--"_the_ girl, with +her fierce aunt--home on north side of Washington Square. I'm going to +do an article on the story people who've had fine old homes on the north +side of Washington Square--thousands! That one block would have to be +ten miles long to hold 'em. Girl in tea gown, fierce aunt with +lorgnon--threatened with death--flood, fire, Apaches, stage-robbers, +vicious bull, rattler--anything! Rescued by cool, daring, clean-limbed +Van-Soforth, who says 'By Jove!' as he risks his life. That is, if it's +in one of the respectable magazines. If it's only a young ten-center he +says 'Damn!' right out in print. Then, love scene on mesa, faithful cow +pony and mountains in background, and return to New York by next train, +with clean-limbed Harold in one of our gent's nobby sack suits that sets +off the unconscious grace of his slight but muscular figure--oh, you +know the story." + +"I have read it somewhere--something like it." + +"You'll go on reading it. But you'll have to pretty your cowboys if you +make the pictures for it. Hulston usually illustrates it. He can draw a +cowboy that would make a bunch of violets look coarse." + +"I'm afraid I couldn't----" + +"Of course you couldn't. But you'll find work. Some of the magazines +are becoming reckless and printing stories of cowboys that are almost +real. Come along to the club. You'll meet some fellows there. The chap +that printed my book is dining with me, but he'll slip off early and we +can have the evening together." + +"I liked your book," Ewing ventured, when they were in the street. + +"Well, that's comforting. I dare say it was easier to read than it was +to write. But about this club you're going to--it's a little place we've +started lately--illustrators, newspaper men, book writers and that ilk. +You must join. I believe I'll be safe in putting you up." + +"I never joined a club," Ewing confessed. "Are there conditions?" + +"Rigid ones--you must have ten dollars for the entrance-fee, and not be +a leper." + +"Well"--Ewing debated--"I have the money----" + +"That's all _you_ need think about. The other part is ours. We have you +in to dine and look you over. Lots of men go there with an idea that +they must be witty. One fellow was turned down last week for springing +'made' jokes at the table. I believe he spoke of 'quail on trust' as we +were served with that bird--and in the hearing of three members of the +board of Abbots. That settled him, of course. They didn't need his +imitations of a German dialect comedian, which he sought to convulse +them with later. Another man was turned down lately for saying, 'Oh, how +quaintly bohemian!' after he'd looked about the grill room. Another was +ejected for playing 'chopsticks' on the piano with the edges of his +hands. They didn't even let _him_ get to the table. That's the sort of +thing--and we're strict, even though we need the money. I'm bursar and +I know. There are weird jests about my decamping with the club funds, +but I've never had enough surplus yet to take me beyond Rahway." + +They ascended the steps of a dingy-fronted brick house in Clinton Place, +a little out of the Broadway rush. Passing through a bare, echoing hall, +they entered one of the two dining rooms of the club, connected by +immense sliding doors, now thrown open. They were broad, lofty rooms +with stained floors, mantels of gray marble, and rich old doors of +polished mahogany framed in white casements--the drawing rooms of some +staid family of a bygone generation, before the trade army had invaded +this once quiet neighborhood. + +Ewing at once noticed the walls. They had been covered with a +grayish-brown cartridge paper, and on this the members of the Monastery +had plied their charcoal in fancies more or less attuned to the spirit +of the organization. There were monks in most of the pictures, monks +combating or, alas! overborne by one or another of that meretricious +trinity which ever conspires against godly living. Over the mantel in +the first room a pink-fleshed nymph in simple garb of chef's cap allured +an all but yielding St. Anthony with one of the club's dinner _menus_ +held before his hunger-lit eyes. On a panel to the right of this a +befuddled lay brother, having emptied a flagon of wine, perched on the +arm of a chair and angled fatuously in a jar of mocking goldfish, to the +refrain: + + "For to-morrow will be Friday, and + We've caught no fish to-day!" + +To the left, Brother Hilarius furtively ignored his breviary as he +passed a gay _affiche_, from which a silken-limbed dancer beguiled him +with nimble, worldly caperings, and smiles of the flesh and the devil. + +"There's a vacant panel or two in the other room," said Piersoll. "We'll +save one for you. Come down to the grill room--it's early yet." + +They went out through the hall and down a narrow stairway. They heard +the lively hum of voices, and Ewing found himself in a low, wainscoted +room, finished in dull gray, where a dozen or so men talked loungingly +in corners, awaiting the dinner hour. + +Piersoll presented him to several of these in so quick a succession that +their names became a many-syllabled murmur in his ears. They found seats +on a red-cushioned corner bench of churchly pattern, and Piersoll +ordered cocktails. + +Ewing tried to follow the talk running about him. A boyish-looking +reporter for a morning paper was telling at a nearby table how he had +been the first to reach the scene of a railroad wreck in Pennsylvania +late the night before by fording a swollen river. At another table a +successful playwright obligingly expounded the laws of dramatic +construction to a respectful novice, who seemed puzzled by their +simplicity. At their own table a youth of yellow melancholy confided to +Piersoll that the afternoon had witnessed an important transaction in +verse--the sale of his ballade, "She Was a Belle in the Days of +Daguerre." "The editor of 'Quips' took it and paid on acceptance--let's +have another," he added with deep significance. + +The atmosphere of the place was unthinkingly democratic. The cub +reporter here met his city editor as man to man. Piersoll identified +various members of the gathering--the dramatic critic of an evening +paper in busy talk with the Wall Street man of the same sheet; a +promising young composer cornered by the star reporter of a morning +paper, a grizzled knight of the world of war, crime, flood, fire, and +all mischance of any news value, a man who had attained the dignity of +signing his "stuff." Old men and young, they were compacted of nerves, +vividly alive, even those in whom the desk stoop could be detected. + +The movable feast of the cocktail waned and the groups drifted upstairs. +The publisher for whom Piersoll waited came at last, a bland but +keen-eyed gentleman of early middle age, introduced to Ewing as Mr. +Layton, of Layton & Company. They followed the others up to the dining +room, and Piersoll found a table for three under the drawing of the +earnest but miscalculating angler. + +Ewing nervously apprehended talk of an abstruse literary character from +which he would be debarred. The talk assuredly became abstruse, but it +dealt in literary values solely as related to public taste in the novel +of commerce, and to the devices of Layton & Company for divining and +stimulating that variable quantity. + +Instead of descanting on Shakespeare, as Ewing had supposed a publisher +would do, Layton, with the soup, plunged into a racy narrative of how he +had "boomed" sales of "The Mask of Malcolm" the year before. That had +been a success compounded of trifles. Witness Layton's chance view from +a car window of a "Mask of Malcolm" poster on a watering cart that +toiled through the dusty main street of a remote Western village. He had +written to the postmaster of that town for the name of the cart's +driver, sent him a copy of the novel inscribed by the author, and +enough more posters to cover his cart. Result: a sale in the aroused +village and surrounding country of two hundred and eighty "Masks," where +otherwise not more than half a dozen would have been sold. Further +result: the watering carts of the great mid-West were now cunningly +blazoned with incitements to purchase Layton & Company's fiction. + +Ewing still feared Shakespeare or Chaucer, or George Eliot, at the +least; but the publisher clung to earth, launching into his plans for +Piersoll's next book. "The Promotion of Fools" was in its hundredth +thousand. The next book must go beyond this. + +"You want a smashing good love scene at the end," urged the sapient +Layton, "and plenty of good, plain, honest heart feeling all through it. +Make a quaintly humorous character, simple-minded, trusting, but still +shrewd, and win the reader's sympathy for him by giving him some sort of +hard luck--a crippled child that dies isn't bad, if the father has been +harsh to him some time, not meaning to be, you know. And not too much +dialect; enough to contrast well with the Fifth Avenue people. Then, +with the kind of hero you know how to draw--swell family, handsome, +refined, a real gentleman, and all that sort of thing, with an English +valet--you'll have a story that will _go_. You can write a winner, +Piersoll, if you'll listen to your publisher. We keep our fingers on the +public pulse; we know the taste better than you can know it, shut up in +your office. And have a good, catchy dedication--people are interested +in your personality. Couldn't you have in the next book something like +'To my Mother in Heaven, whose Memory----'" + +"Our people are all Unitarians," suggested Piersoll. + +"What difference does _that_ make----" + +"And my mother has been graciously spared to us----" + +"Well, then, 'To my Gray-haired Mother, whose Loving Counsel has ever--' +_you_ know the sort of thing, short and snappy, but full of feeling. It +helps, let me tell you, with the people who pick up a book on the +stands." + +Ewing lost the run of this talk for a time, entertaining himself with a +study of the other diners. The rooms had rapidly filled, and two waiters +scurried among the tables. His attention focused on a long table in the +center of the room, whose occupants made savage and audible comment on +diners at other tables, and confided to one another, in loud, free +tones, their frank impressions of late comers. + +The door opened upon a goodly youth in evening dress. Seven pairs of +eyes from the big table fixed him coldly as he removed his overcoat. + +A voice, affectedly mincing: "As I live--handsome Harold Armytage!" + +Another voice, hoarse with rage: "Curse ye, devil that ye are, with yer +oily tongue and city ways! where's me daughter Letty, me little lass, +that ye took up to the big city and threatened to make a lady of?" + +A voice, hushed and slow: "They--say--the--child--is--in--London." + +The newcomer, flicking the ash from his cigarette, glowered at the last +speaker and hissed: "As for you, Black Bart, alias Jasper Vinton, +remember that one word from me would set all Scotland Yard on your +trail!" + +A new voice from the table: "Stand back, Hector Walsingham! I would +rather be the poor working girl I am than the gilded toy your wealth +would make me--and besides, you wear made ties! I'll have to speak to +the stage manager about that," continued the speaker in less dramatic +tones. "Look, it's one of those horrible made things that fasten at the +back of his neck with a harness buckle--see his hand go up to it!" + +The newcomer emitted a mocking laugh, but judiciously sought a seat in +the next room. + +"Say--new idea for a melodrama," came another voice from the long table. +"The old thing with an Ibsen twist. Stern father ready to drive erring +daughter from his door in a snowstorm, but _it won't snow_! Of course he +can't send her off in pleasant weather. It clouds up every few days, and +the old man hopefully gets his speech ready--'Curse ye, ye are no longer +a daughter of mine!' but the sun comes out again. Girl gets nervous. +Young squire gets nervous, too, though he's married the girl in secret. +He begs the old man to put her out and have it over with, even if the +weather is pleasant. Old man won't hear of such a thing. Got to have a +howling snowstorm. His mind fails; he sits in the chimney corner +driveling about the horrible winters they used to have when you could +curse a daughter out almost any day in the week. Everybody disgusted at +the way things are dragging. Young people quarrel. Divorce! Young squire +sails for Labrador to try it again, where you can count on the winters. +Girl watches ship out of sight, and _it snows_! Snows hard. But too +late--ah, God, too late! She rushes back home to find the old man +delirious with joy. He starts in to do his speech at last, but she +slowly strangles him with her muscular young hands. Rather good +curtain, that--yes?" He looked around the table appealingly, but the +others had turned from him to another newcomer, a young man of dark and +sinister aspect, whom they greeted as Simon Legree. Ewing heard Eliza's +despairing cry, "Merciful Heavens, the river is choked with ice!" above +the deep baying of bloodhounds that issued from half a dozen able +throats. The newcomer was obliging enough to scowl and demand fiercely, +"Tom, you black rascal, ain't you mine, body and soul?" + +A fair-haired youth at the table, with the face of an overfed Cupid, +responded pleadingly: "No--no, Massa! Mah body may b'long to yo' but mah +soul to de good Lawd who made it!" + +"Crack! Crack! Crack! Take that, you black hound, and that, and that!" +Uncle Tom cringed under the blows of an imaginary lash, and Legree +seated himself at the long table. A bearded man at the head promptly +became little Eva, with a piping voice. "Uncle Tom, dear Uncle Tom, I +fear I am going to die in the last act." + +The faithful slave gulped at his claret and water and replied tearfully, +"Dar, dar, Miss Eba, yo' bre'k dis pore ole man's heart!" + +"And, dear Uncle Tom, remember that the colored quartet will slink in +and sing 'Rock of Ages' while I am dying on a camp bed in the parlor. +Think of that, you black hound!" + +"Indeed, that is what I am apprehending, Miss St. Clair," returned Uncle +Tom, this time in polished accents and with marked urbanity. "And you +are doubtless aware that I shall have to be present and listen to it. +Come, then, little one! If you must die, come with me into the back yard +where the quartet can't find us, and I will feed you to the nice hungry +bloodhounds. They've had nothing since tea." + +Ewing listened, aghast. He had once gone with Ben in Durango to see +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and both of them had wept at its heartrending +crisis. It embarrassed him now to hear its pathos blasphemed, +embarrassed him because he felt a sort of shamed mirth. He was glad that +Ben was not by. + +Piersoll and his publisher still discussed literature. Layton was now +setting forth the superior state of the latter-day author over those of +the past. + +"Those old fellows had no market--publishers were a sleepy lot. Think +what could have been done with 'Paradise Lost,' illustrated by Hulston +with about fifty half tones and marginal decorations, and an elegant +binding, properly advertised with testimonials from clergymen and +leading actresses and senators and prominent college presidents. I tell +you, gentlemen," he concluded, earnestly, "this is the golden age of +letters!" + +This phrase unhappily reaching the big table in a moment of quiet, made +an instant sensation. + +"The golden age of letters!" was echoed in concert by eight men who +arose solemnly and bowed to the embarrassed Layton. He tried to smile +tolerantly, as if he knew a joke when he saw one. They sat down and +turned to stare at him with extravagant awe, catching his eye when they +could and drinking to the golden age. Piersoll grinned cheerfully at +them. Ewing was puzzled. + +"I like this place for its literary atmosphere," said one loudly, gazing +over the head of Layton. "Don't you all just love literature?" "Oh, I +simply adore it!" answered the next man. "I really can't say what I +should do without books. I think they improve the mind." + +Now they hitched their chairs about so that they could regard Layton +more easily, though they affected to be unconscious of his presence. + +"It _does_ seem to me that literature is good to read," ventured another +conservatively, "but then, _I_ love music and flowers and the little +birds." + +"I should die without literature," insisted another--"it's so good and +excellent. Oh, why do not more people read literature and be decent!" + +"Now you take Henry James," began another, judicially, "he's a bright +writer, but he can't touch the great throbbing heart of the public like +Hall Caine can." + +"What _is_ a Hall Caine can?" demanded the whiskered person bluntly. "I +thought they kept 'em in jars." + +Layton rose, genially bidding his host and Ewing good night. The men at +the long table rose with him, bowed ceremoniously, and chanted "the +golden age of letters" as he passed--all but one, who sobbed bitterly +because poor Shakespeare had not lived to see it. + +Ewing was still dazed, but he had slowly been growing cheerful. He felt +that he could almost understand this strange fooling. He would have been +glad to observe it still from a distance, but Piersoll took him to the +long table when Layton had gone. The others made room for them, and +Ewing responded somewhat timidly to the introductions that Piersoll +performed. He was a little anxious lest he be made a part or target of +their sport and show himself awkward under the ordeal. For the moment, +however, there were remarks about the undesirability of "tradesmen" as +guests of the club. + +"I know a lovely delicatessen merchant," said one brightly, "a most +interesting person. He says this is the golden age of cooked provisions. +I must have him round the next time Layton is brought in." + +"I can get a plumber from over on Eighth Avenue," volunteered another. +"We might have a 'trade' night, if Layton will come. Of course they'll +talk about nothing but how to sell their wares, but they'll have a good +time together." + +Presently they forsook this theme, and Ewing found himself talking to +Chalmers, an illustrator with whose work he had long been familiar. +Though Chalmers drew Western subjects, Ewing was amazed at his +confession that he had never been west of Jersey City. Chalmers, on the +other hand, was delighted to learn that Ewing had so long been a part of +that life which he had portrayed from afar, and was at once profuse with +offers of help when Ewing explained his situation. He was eager to see +his work, and would install him in a studio. + +"I know the place for you," he exclaimed, after a moment's reflection. +"There's a vacant studio in our building on Forty-second Street. Billy +Glynn told me to sublet it and sell the stuff the first chance I had. +You can move in right off if you like it." + +Ewing thanked him warmly. It was pleasant to find that the recent Simon +Legree had his human side. Two of the other men at the table had studios +in the same building: Crandall, who made pictures for a comic weekly, +and Baldwin, who was a magazine illustrator. They became, like Chalmers, +solicitous to oblige the newcomer, and were attentive to Piersoll when +he praised, with a quick word or two, the drawings of Ewing. He felt +immensely drawn to these men who had dropped their bantering to be kind +to him. + +The crowd of diners had thinned out until only a few lingered over their +coffee. From one or another of these scattered groups would come a burst +of laughter at the climax of a story, or a bar of song from one who had +reached his playtime of the day, and recked not if he advertised this. +It was an hour of ease in the Monastery, when its inmates expanded in +the knowledge that Sunday lay before them. To some, at least, this could +be a day of rest. + +A musical member came from the rear room to the piano near the long +table to play a Liszt rhapsody. When this performer had gone back to his +seat one of the men from the big table--he who had lately enacted Little +Eva, and whose title of "The Brushwood Boy" Ewing at once related to his +beard--seated himself at the instrument. + +"Heard a great song over on Third Avenue last night," he began. "Wish I +could remember--something like this--" His fingers searched for the +melody. Ewing caught a transient strain of it and thrilled to recognize +Ben's favorite, a thing he might be singing to his guitar in the far-off +lonely cabin at that very moment. + +"'The Fatal Wedding,'" he ventured to the performer. + +"Sure--that's it! 'The Fatal Wedding.' Wish you fellows could have heard +it--rich! How did it go, now?" + +Ewing recklessly hummed the opening bars. + +"Go ahead, if you know it!" This came from several of the men. He +protested. He would have liked to sing it, yet feared to do so before an +audience whose ridicule he had learned to dread. He considered the song +to be irreproachable and could understand the apparent enthusiasm about +it, but he doubted his worth as a vocalist. + +"I don't believe I'd better try it," he began; "I know the words--it's +the favorite song of an old-time cowboy I've lived with, and he does it +right. I couldn't give anything more than a poor imitation of him." + +The inciting calls were renewed. + +"Go on! Do your worst! Show us how your friend does it! Silence in the +back of the hall!" + +Piersoll smiled encouragingly and the accompanist struck the opening +chords, having at last recalled the air. Ewing diffidently took his +place at the end of the piano, with apologetic protests. "I'll do my +best, but you should hear Ben Crider sing this." + +The little audience listened with unfeigned delight as he sang of the +handsome stranger who wooed the village beauty, only to desert her for +"a lady proud and haughty" who had "houses, jewels, land, and gold at +her command." The words moved his hearers. Had he not promised them to +render the song in his friend's manner? They felt he was achieving this +with rare art. Almost unconsciously, indeed, he sang the song in Ben's +best manner, with a sob in the voice and even with Ben's strained, sad +face as he reached the pitiful climax: + + "While they were honeymooning in a mansion on the hill, + Kind friends were laying Nellie out behind the mill." + +He moved quickly back to his chair almost before the first shouts of +laughter dismayed him. He blushed and glanced appealingly from face to +face as the applause was swelled by the groups in the rear room. He and +Ben had considered this no song to be laughed at. It was too sad. Yet he +saw that the applause was a friendly tribute to his performance. +Piersoll was pounding him joyously between the shoulders and Chalmers +was urging him to do Ben Crider singing the "Fatal Wedding" at their +next club smoker. Baldwin demanded the last verse again, and Ewing sang +it, from his chair this time, redoubling his efforts to bring out its +pathos. + +In the new applause that deafened him he felt reassured. At least they +were not laughing at _him_. He joined weakly in the merriment. The gods +had blessed him with a gift for silence at critical moments. He asked no +questions. + +As the mirth subsided voices were heard unctuously rehearsing choice +lines from the song. A passion for the ballad pathetic had been aroused. +Some one called on Chalmers. + +"Chalmers has written a song himself--give it to us, Chalmers--the one +you sang up at Needham's the other night." Chalmers took his place and +bowed low as the accompanist poised eager hands above the key-board. + +"Gentlemen, with your kind attention, I'll give you a little thing +called 'Nothing but Mother'--words and music by a party that doesn't +want his real name known because the folks back home might hear of it. +Let her go, Professor!" + +In a twangy, nasal voice, not unlike Ben's, enunciating his words with +the fastidious and strained precision of the music-hall balladist, he +began: + + "The courtroom, it was crowded, + All the witnesses was there; + The Judge he sat a-frowning + In his highly cushioned chair. + They was trying a old lady + For the stealing of a horse; + They had hauled her to the station, + _They_ had dragged her there by force!" + +The last line had been achieved with intense, passionate emphasis. +Ewing, listening intently, felt the pricking of a nameless suspicion. +The song seemed right enough, and yet some queer, ulterior emotion +stirred within him. The air continued in a stirring minor, adapted to +the dramatic action: + + "Then uprose a handsome lawyer, + But would not give his name; + He defended this old lady + And well he done the same. + The verdict was "Not guilty!" + _Tears_ stood in the jury's eyes; + When the unknown lawyer heard it, + Then says he to their surprise:" + +With secret consternation Ewing waited, trying to laugh with the others, +who had exploded at "_tears_," wrenched out in a high minor wail. The +air now took a graceful swinging waltz movement, and the puzzled youth +suffered an illumining flash: + + "She was my mother once + In days of long ago; + I'll not forsake her now, + Her lots has fell so low. + I have other mothers now + To take me by the hand, + But I'll not desert this one + Just because I'm rich and grand." + +Enlightened at last, Ewing joined in the applause, amid which Chalmers +resumed his seat. Instantly perceiving why they had laughed at his own +song, he burned at recalling how chance alone had saved him from +betraying a simple-hearted faith in the virtues of that gem. Now it was +funny, even to him. Other songs of Ben's rang in his ears; they were +_all_ funny--though he must never let Ben know that. He had unwittingly +betrayed Ben to a ribald crew, but he had learned a thing it was well to +know. He had learned of the world; he had aged in a leap. + +They sat late at table, drinking beer from stone mugs, smoking +long-stemmed pipes and trifling with song. They blended their voices in +melting harmony at the climax of "Nelly's" woe and in the acuter parts +of "Nothing but Mother." + +As they drifted out at midnight Chalmers made an appointment with Ewing +to inspect the vacant studio and make himself, if he liked, one of the +colony of not too serious workers housed by the Rookery. + +Half a dozen men strolled with him to the Stuyvesant, and in the shadow +of its sober doors, as a parting testimonial to his worth, they sang +once more in blended pathos: + + "She was my moth-e-r-r once + In days so long a-g-o-o-o!" + +He watched them up the street a block, pouring out their hearts in song +to a watchful and cynical policeman. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE NEW MEMBER + + +When Ewing, a few days later, moved into the vacant studio on the top +floor of the Rookery, the men there made an affair of it, flocking from +their studios to receive him. They showed him the view from his windows, +a far stretch of dull-red roofs, with murky water butts stuck aloft like +giant cockades against the gray sky. They showed him where he would +sleep, in a little closet-like alcove screened from the big room by a +gay curtain. They exhibited the alcohol lamp left by Glynn, over which +water would be boiled for the morning coffee. And they superintended, +from their wider experience, the arrangement of his belongings. + +He felt aloof from the friendly turmoil, unable to believe that the +place would be his own. The thing was too vast for his experience. It +would surely be for another that Baldwin spread the Navajo blankets on +the floor and couch; for some one else that Chalmers, of the beard--him +they called the Brushwood Boy or eke "the human ambush"--removed piles +of old magazines from the cot in the alcove; for some one else that +Dallas tucked brushes into a ginger jar; and for some one else that +Griggs tested water taps and the radiator. + +When they had cheerfully discovered that no one could think of anything +further to do they trooped down Broadway to celebrate Ewing's advent in +a dinner at the Monastery. When this was over and the crowd had thinned +to a few late sitters they had him do a picture. The others watched him +as he worked, standing on a bare table drawn to the wall. Brother +Hilarius grew before their eyes, insecurely astride a bucking broncho, +narrowly observed by two figures in the background--a dismayed brother +of his order in gown of frieze and hempen girdle, and Red Phinney, +contorting himself in ribald glee. + +The watchers applauded as the picture grew. They had not supposed that +the quiet, almost timid, boy, who betrayed his unsophistication by +countless little mannerisms, could have attained the sureness of line +his strokes revealed. + +The heated air of the room rushed up to make a torrid zone of the region +about the worker's head, and from time to time one of the watchers +handed him a mug of creaming ale with which he washed the dust of the +charcoal from his throat. He lost himself in the work at last. The +voices, laughter, songs, strains of the piano, came but faintly to him, +and were as the echoes of street life that sounded in his ears each +night before he slept. It was after one o'clock when he stepped down +from the table to survey the finished drawing. + +He knew he had done well, but he was glad to be told so by others. It +was clearly their opinion that the club had in no way descended from its +high standards of mural decoration. Baldwin brought a bottle of fixative +and sprayed the drawing through a blowpipe. Then they drained a final +bumper to the artist and the work and went out into the mild September +night, making the empty street, sleeping in shadow, resound to their +noisy talk. + +The light of a car crept ghostlike toward them and they stood to board +it. As it moved on through Broadway Ewing thought of an empty creek bed +at the bottom of some ravine at home. This was the dry time, but with +earliest dawn would come the freshet, flooding the cañon, surging over +its rocky bed to some outlet as mysterious as its source. The image +brought him a sudden pang of homesickness. Despite the jovial +friendliness of the crowd he was still a detached spectator. There was +no intimacy for him, no real contact. He was glad to remember the bed +that awaited him and confessed this to Chalmers. + +"Bed!" echoed Chalmers in righteous amazement. "What's the use of going +to bed? You only fall asleep!" + +"He's right, old man," put in Baldwin warningly. "I've tried it." + +Dallas turned a reproachful gaze on Ewing. "God has given you a +beautiful life and you sleep it away! Come, come, man!" + +"We'll have a bite to eat, anyway," broke in Griggs. "Come on, here's +Clayton's." + +They were presently about a table far back in a restaurant where +lingered many sitters-up of nights. They ordered Welsh rabbits and ale. +Ewing refused the ale and drank water. + +Dallas put on an air of wishing to defend this choice of beverage. "Of +course, it's the stuff that made Noah famous," he submitted. + +"Yes--and it made all that trouble at Johnstown, too," broke in Chalmers +with deep hostility in his look at Ewing's glass. "I can't forget that. +Water has never been the same to me since." + +They fell to the food when it came. They smoked, they drank more ale, +they sang in tones enough subdued to avert public disfavor, and they +flung jests about to spice the endless gossip of their craft. + +Ewing listened, yet with eager eyes for the people at other tables +about them. These men and women captivated him by their suggestions +of mystery--characters in the play he was forever beholding-- +curious-looking men whose faces suggested lives of dramatic tension; +beautiful women, splendidly arrayed, with much of mystery and something +of daring in their animation. He scanned them all furtively as the talk +at his own table flowed on. + +It was chiefly of their work that they talked. Chalmers related matters +exposing the inefficiency of an art editor to whose mercies fate now and +then betrayed him. Chalmers bitterly thought that this person should be +driving an ice wagon or helping about in a shipyard, or something of the +sort--not telling artists how to draw their pictures. + +Baldwin sympathized. He had his own art editor. It came out that no man +present had ever even heard of a competent art editor. It stood to +reason that there could be none. A man of capacity to be an art editor +would have too much self-respect. He would starve in the gutter first. +But it took time and talk and replenished mugs to reduce this truth to +its beautiful, naked simplicity, and Ewing at last saw that day had +come. The lights inside were paling to an unwholesome yellow. He +mentioned the circumstance insinuatingly, for he was tired. + +Baldwin scowled at his watch, then dropped it into his fresh mug of ale, +and glanced triumphantly about the table. + +"A degenerate race," muttered Chalmers. "At the first sign of daylight +we scamper off to bed like scared rabbits. For me--thank God--there's +nothing like the glorious sunrise, the crisp air, the healthy glow. +There's magic in it--Nature's choicest gift. Yes, sir, the splendors of +dawn for me! D'you s'pose I'd miss _this_?" He glared about the room and +ecstatically sniffed the thick, smoky air. "What does that clod know of +beauty?" He indicated a waiter, dozing against the wall with practiced +equilibrium. + +"Well, well," exclaimed Baldwin, "if I haven't gone and forgotten to eat +breakfast! How shiftless!" He aroused the waiter with snapping fingers. +"I hope we're not keeping you up, Claude, but bacon and eggs, please, +and coffee." + +An hour later they went out to find the street already alive with early +workers. Baldwin appeared to consider that these, also, were night-long +revelers. + +"'Stonishing how they can keep it up, night after night," he remarked, +frowning in wonder at the early procession. "You'd think they'd _have_ +to sleep some time." + +"It'll tell on their nerves sooner or later, you mark my words," said +Griggs sententiously. + +Chalmers stared intently into the window of a florist adjoining the +restaurant. He turned to them with purpose in his fair face and spoke +again of his art editor. + +"Only trouble with him--he's passed away, poor fellow, and doesn't know +it. He ought to be told--but not brutally. I see something here for +him." + +He came out of the florist's presently with a sizable emblem of +mortality--a floral pillow with "Rest" worked on it in immortelles. + +"Come on!" + +At the corner they crowded into hansoms. It was a long ride, and Ewing +was asleep when they reached Park Row, but they aroused him to help +escort Chalmers and his offering to the elevator of a mighty building. +While they awaited his return Baldwin bethought him of his own art +editor. He seemed to believe that something fitting might be done. After +deep reflection he crossed the narrow street to a district messenger +office, to emerge a moment later followed by eight grinning messenger +boys. These he led to the elevator of another building near by. + +Chalmers returned from his own mission, wiping his eyes. + +"Poor fellow, he knows he's dead now. But I broke down and sobbed like a +child when I gave it to him--I'm all heart. It's over now, all but the +life insurance. And yet he didn't thank me. On the contrary he spoke +language I should blush to repeat." + +The others put on looks of chastened gloom and were speaking in hushed +tones of the sad event when Baldwin returned. He dismissed his uniformed +attendants with largesse. + +"Thing that needed to be done for his own good," he explained. "Max +believes he's an art editor, but nobody else does--nobody else ever +believed it in this whole wide, beautiful world. So I lined those +trusting little boys up in front of his door and said, 'Boys, look in +there and you will see a real art editor.' They looked in at old Max and +then at me. 'You believe it, don't you, boys?' I asked them, and they +all said, 'Yes, sir!' So I made them bow to him and say in concert, 'We +_do_ believe you are an art editor, no matter what other people say,' +and then we left. We had to. I'm ashamed to tell you--but old Max seemed +to forget that he was a gentleman. He'll thank me when he comes to his +senses, all the same. He can lay his head on his pillow to-night knowing +that there are others in the world besides himself who believe he's an +art editor. Oh, I love to do good!" he concluded with a benevolent +smirk. + +Once more they were in the hansoms and Ewing slept again, to the strains +of "I have other mothers now," sung by Baldwin, who sat in his lap. + +As they climbed the stairs of the Rookery Baldwin found the moment +suited for sage counsel to Chalmers. + +"'T won't do, my boy--'t won't do! Can't burn candles both ends. Your +face this minute looks like one of those cheap apple pies in a +restaurant window." + +Ewing mounted to his own floor and found himself in the curious +stillness of the big room. It had seemed to wait there for him, mutely, +but with desire. He stood a moment in the silence, his ears ringing with +after sounds of the night. He fell on the couch, too tired to go +formally to bed, and felt himself falling into sleep as into a +beneficent and welcoming abyss. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SEARCHING THE WILDERNESS + + +He awoke from a dream noisy with laughter and the ring of shod hoofs on +a stone roadway; a phantasma in which faces were gray and distorted +through smoke and people did wild things in sane ways. He lay long +enough to separate the fiction of this dream from the actual but not +more credible performances of the night before. Then he rose, yawning +away the last of his drowsiness, and looked out over the roofs. He saw +that it was late afternoon, for the shadows of the water butts ran well +to the east. The mute solitude of the scene gave his loneliness a new +pang. He felt more solitary in the multitude than he had ever felt in +his unpeopled hills. Yet the place still lured him, not less than in +days when he had hungered for it, a starved lover of life in the desert. +If only he could find some one to come near, some one to whom he could +be his unguarded self. Such a one must exist. + +His eyes swept the reticent roofs, and his mind searched beneath them: +what felicitous possibilities did they not conceal? People doubtless +fasting like himself, longing for the friendly cry, eating their hearts +out in loneliness--men and women he might know or never know. He lifted +each roof as he gazed; under any one of them might be the companion; +under all were charms of adventurous search. + +In this moment of homesick longing his mind caught at Mrs. Laithe. She +had told him to come soon. Did that mean in one day, or in ten? She was +his one link with an old life that had filled if it did not satisfy. And +sometimes she had met him. Chiefly she had been a woman for the eyes, +but there had been fleeting times when they touched in ways that brought +him a deeper satisfaction--times when invisible antennæ from each seemed +to be in communicative contact. These moments brought back the palsy of +shyness that had stricken him at his first glimpses of her; yet they +brought, too, some potent, strange essence that sustained him. He +resolved to go to her now. She mystified, she dismayed him, but her +kindness was dependable. + +It was the memory of this that moved him to throw off his stale, +smoke-saturated garments, to bathe, to dress himself afresh, and to walk +briskly through the tonic sharpness of a September afternoon. + +As he rang the bell a vague, delightful home-coming warmth rushed over +him. + +"In a moment I shall see her," he said within himself. As the door swung +back he heard the din of many voices and caught a rush of heated air, +sweetish with the odor, as it seemed, of tired and fainting flowers. At +the entrance to the drawing room he faltered, for the place was thronged +with terrifying strange people who held teacups and talked explosively. + +Longing to flee, he saw Mrs. Laithe across the room, turning somewhat +wearily, he thought, away from three or four voluble women, as if to +snatch at a moment of rest from her perfunctory smile. Almost instantly +her eyes swung to his, and he became aware, as she started toward him, +of some sudden flurry leaping behind their black-fringed curtains, a +quick play of lights that stirred and confused him. She gave him her +hand with half-formal phrases of greeting under which he detected a +rising nervousness. + +"So good of you to come, and on my day! They're tiresome at best. You +are well? You shall have tea and know some people." She went to a table +between the two rooms, where a girl in white drew tea from a samovar +into many little cups. Ewing began to watch this girl, a slight but +rounded creature with yellowish hair curving down either side of her +tanned face. He caught a greenish light in her eyes, as she bent to her +task with a somewhat anxious concentration. + +Mrs. Laithe brought him the tea, which he helplessly took, and presented +him to a vivid-hued young matron, who made room for him beside her. His +part in the talk that followed was confined to mutterings of agreement, +tinged now and then with a discreet sympathy. He heard the latest golf +and yachting news and sprightly chat of the lady's newest motor car. He +caught a blurred view of the Austrian Tyrol, and absorbed technical data +on the operation of smuggling silk stockings from Paris. He gleaned that +Airedales were difficult to raise; that Caruso would return; that all +coachmen were but hirelings of the sales stables, when you got at the +root of the trouble. He learned that Newport had been deadly, Bar Harbor +impossible, Tuxedo not half bad for a week end; and that New York would +be empty for another fortnight. + +Upon none of these difficult matters had he anything of moment to offer. +The assertion that New York was empty bereft him, indeed, of even his +slender power of assent. The lady would have considered him stupid but +for the look with which he met her quick eyes from time to time. She +decided that he was merely bored--a thing not to be particularly +remarked. It was common enough in the men she met. + +In one of the roving looks he permitted himself under his companion's +discourse his glance rested on two people far back in the library. One +was Mrs. Laithe's father. He stood, cup in hand, talking down to a +smartly attired, whitehaired woman who sat forward in her chair and +stared at Ewing. Her gown was black, and one white-gloved hand rested on +Bartell's arm. Her eyes did not waver as Ewing met them. He saw that +Bartell seemed to identify him in the throng and speak a few words to +the lady. Ewing turned to his companion, discomfort under that steady +survey. A moment later he was drawn to look again and saw Bartell coming +toward him. + +"Ah, young man!" His greeting oozed cordiality, the soothing +friendliness of a man fitted to find only the pleasantness of life. + +"And come with me, if Mrs. Dudley will let you off--" the lady smiled a +pretty but unreserved assent--"an old friend, Mrs. Lowndes, wants to +know you. She's a dear soul, always jolly. Tell her about cowboys and +things, won't you--something pleasant." + +They stood before the woman in the chair, and Bartell uttered a few +words which Ewing did not hear, for at the moment he had glanced up to +see Mrs. Laithe watching him with eyes of such genuine dismay that +confusion overtook him. He wondered what wrong thing he could have done, +but recovered in time to bow and murmur a phrase of acknowledgment. His +new acquaintance indicated a seat beside her, but did not look at him. + +"Thank you, Chris. Mr. Ewing will entertain me. Run off to someone as +young as yourself." + +Bartell smiled himself back into the more crowded room, and Ewing +waited, apprehending talk like that he had lately undergone. But he +found that this woman who had stared at him so curiously was not +voluble. For a long time she remained silent. Once he glanced up to +observe that her eyes were closed, and seized the moment to study her +face. He thought she was very old--sixty at least. Yet the face showed +strength in its frailness. The cheeks, looking brown under the plenteous +white hair, were lined but not withered, and the curve from brow to chin +revealed more than a suggestion of self-will. A dainty but imperious old +lady he thought her. He might have believed himself forgotten but for an +intimation of waiting thrown out by her manner, a suggestion of leaning +toward him, breathless, one of the gloved hands poising as if to alight +on his arm. He found this less tiring than the compulsion he had lately +been under to agree with a livelier woman about matters strange to him. +And yet he was relieved when she opened her eyes as if to speak. He +regarded her with puzzled but kind expectancy. At last she said, and he +understood that her voice was unnaturally tight and hard: + +"Mr. Bartell tells me that you are a painter, Mr. Ewing." + +"I'm trying to be--they are very kind here." + +"Your father was Gilbert Ewing--a painter?" + +"Oh, you _knew_ him?" He thrilled at the thought, but was disappointed. + +"Mr. Bartell mentioned his name--and yours." + +"He was a painter, yes; he died out there in Colorado." + +She seemed to shudder ever so slightly and her eyes closed again. + +"And your--your mother?" The words were hardly more than a whisper. + +"My mother died when I was very small." + +Again she seemed to wince under a sting. But now she fell away from that +waiting tenseness with which she had held him. The hand that had hovered +over his arm fell limply into her lap, and she leaned back in her chair. + +"I'm afraid you aren't very well," he ventured. "The rooms are close." + +She opened her eyes, with no sign of having heard. Sitting forward in +her chair she gazed ahead with narrowed eyes. + +"I am an old woman and dull, Mr. Ewing, but I should like to have you +come and see me." + +"I'll be glad to come," he answered promptly enough, though he could not +keep surprise from his voice. + +"Come to-morrow, if you will, and pardon an old woman's whim in asking +you with so little ceremony." + +"I will come, of course." He wondered if she felt a city loneliness like +his own. + +"Thank you. I shall be in after four." She gave him a card from a small +silver case at her belt. "The room _is_ close. You may fetch me tea." + +He was certain her eyes were sharply on him as he went, and when he +returned, her full gaze swept him with a look in which he curiously read +incredulity, with something beside that might have been fear or +repulsion--he could not determine. She took the tea, but set it down +untasted. A very queer old lady he thought her. He stood by in +embarrassment, not knowing what to say. Glancing about for inspiration +he was relieved to see Bartell bearing down upon him from the side of +Mrs. Laithe. He came up jovially. + +"I've been ordered to separate you two, Kitty. Young men aren't +plentiful at this time, and Eleanor wants one." + +"Thank you for bringing him, Chris." She gave Ewing a little nod, which +he construed as his release, and he turned to meet Mrs. Laithe. + +She sought his eyes with that swift look of apprehension which had +before puzzled him, and threw another glance toward Mrs. Lowndes, who +now chatted smilingly with Bartell. She seemed to be reassured. + +"I do hope you've not been bored. No? I was afraid. Come and meet my +sister," and she momentarily swept away his memories of the queer old +lady by leading him to the girl in white who poured tea. + +"Virgie, this is Mr. Ewing." + +The girl looked up with that hint of shyness he had before observed in +her. The eyes instantly recalled his own mountain lake when the light +showed it to far, green depths. But they fell at once, for she inclined +her head toward him, seized a cup and demanded sternly, "Cream or +lemon--I mean I'm very glad to know you. Do you take sugar?" + +In his own embarrassment he would have told her, but Mrs. Laithe broke +in with her low laugh. + +"He doesn't want tea, child, he only wants----" + +The girl interrupted defensively, with a flutter of eyelids toward +Ewing: "I can't remember _what_ they like when they come back the second +time. It's too much to expect." + +"Your martyrdom is over, dear. No one wants more tea, and most of them +are escaping. Talk to Mr. Ewing while I speed them." + +The girl sank wearily into a chair, with a rueful glance at the table's +disarray of cups and plates. + +"I'll dream about tea to-night." Her hands met disconsolately in her +lap. + +"I suppose there was a lot of it," Ewing replied sympathetically. + +"Why do they do so many insane things here?" demanded the girl. "They're +always at something. Town is tiresome." + +"But don't you live here?" + +"Dear no! I went to live with mamma's sister up in New Hampshire when I +was small, after mamma died. There was no one here to raise me. And now +that I'm raised they want me back, but I shy at things so--dad says I'm +not city broke. I shall hold off another year before I get into this +sort of thing--" She waved an ably disparaging hand toward the backs of +several unsuspecting people who lingered. Then she looked up to meet his +laugh and laughed prettily with him. The two had found common ground by +some freemasonry of the shy. + +"Does it seem like a play to you, too?" he asked; "everyone playing a +part and making you wonder how it's coming out?" + +"Well"--she debated--"I used to have that, when I was at school and came +here for holiday times. I was always expecting great things to happen +then. But they never did. You'll be disappointed if you expect them. +Everybody rides down Broadway in the morning and back again at night, +and they make such a fuss about it that you think something worth while +is coming off, but it doesn't. _I_ know." She achieved this with an air +of mellowed cynicism that almost won his respect. + +"But things _must_ happen where there's so much life," he insisted. + +"You're very young, aren't you?" she retorted. "Quite a boy, I should +think. Sister said so. You'll see, though. It isn't one bit more a +happening life than ours up at Kensington. Yours must have been the +happening life, there in the West. Tell me about Clarence. Is he a real +cowboy yet? He says he's a real one, but I couldn't believe it. Those I +saw in the Wild West show looked as if they'd had to study it a long +time. Can Clarence lasso a wild cow yet?" She leaned toward him with +friendly curiosity. They were amazed half an hour later when they looked +up to find Mrs. Laithe standing by them, the only other occupant of the +room. + +"You must come oftener," urged Mrs. Laithe. Her sister gave him her hand +with a grip that made him wonder at its force. + +He pushed through the evening crowd of Broadway, pleasantly reviewing +his talk with the girl. At Forty-second Street it occurred to him that +this was the first time he had walked the street unconscious of its +throng. He had been self-occupied, like most of its members. + +But the girl, he reflected, would go away. The friend, the near one, to +take and give, man or woman, was still to be found. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE TRICK OF COLOR + + +The men of the Rookery toiled, in the season of toil, with that blithe +singleness of purpose they brought to their play. Ewing learned this the +following morning when, after an hour in his own place, correcting some +of those hasty first arrangements, he began an idling tour of the other +studios. These occupied the two upper floors of the building, those +beneath flaunting signs of trade on the ground-glass doors one passed in +the long climb from the street. + +From Baldwin's studio--Baldwin was sketching in from the model a +kneeling Filipino prisoner with head thrown back and hands bound behind +him--Ewing descended to Chalmers's place to find its owner finishing, +with many swift pen strokes, the filmy gown of a débutante who underwent +with downcast eyes the appraisal of an elderly beau. This absorbed and +serious Chalmers was so unlike the frivolous night bird who reviled his +art editor that Ewing forbore to distract him. + +Griggs, in the studio back of Chalmers, was soberly work-bent over the +wash-drawing of a sword fight, an illustration for what he confided to +Ewing was the latest "high boots and hardware novel." + +"One lovely thing," explained the artist, "they all take the same +pictures--the plighted troth in the château garden; the lone hero +spitting eight low-browed mercenaries of the scoundrelly duke at the +end of the blind passage; 'nother fight on the main stairway of the +palace, girl in view back of the hero, who's still acting the village +cut-up with his little rapier; and the last picture, reward of hero in +front parlor of the château, my Lord the Cardinal standing by to bless +the happy pair, and the wicked Duke Bazazas being dragged out by loyal +serving men to be finished off in the woodshed. The caption for that one +always is, 'At Last, My Darling!' I just glance along the proofs until I +light on those scenes. It saves a lot of reading, and I think of getting +a set of rubber stamps to do the pictures with." + +"You seem to be all black-and-white men here," remarked Ewing. "Aren't +any of you painters? I've thought I'd like to work in color--to learn +the trick of it." + +Griggs glanced up at him, then smiled largely. + +"The trick of color, eh? Sure! There's a boy upstairs next door to +you--old Pop Sydenham. I'll take you up now, but don't let him hear you +call it 'the trick of color.' Pop has been at that trick for over a +century now--I believe he's a hundred and nineteen years old to-morrow. +He's got a darned refined sense of color, too. I guess he's seen every +color in the world, except some of those he puts on his own canvases. +Some of those I don't believe he ever saw anywhere else. But Pop's worth +knowing if you're keen to paint. He's a whole Art Students' League in +himself. Come on, he'll be proud to have you notice him." + +Wiping his hands neatly on his jacket--plainly a long-established custom +with him--Griggs led the way to a room across the hall from Ewing's. He +opened the door in answer to a call and pushed Ewing in before him. +Sydenham leaned back on his stool to peer at them around the corner of +his easel. + +He was an old man, as Griggs had said. White hair fell in sparse locks +over his ears, and his short, roughly pointed beard was scant enough to +reveal sunken cheeks. But the face was tanned to a wholesome brown, and +the eyes that glanced over his gold-rimmed spectacles were full of fresh +good-humor. He nodded to Griggs and clambered down from his stool to +greet Ewing. + +"He's a line man now," announced Griggs after the introduction, "but +some busybody has gone and told him that there's such a thing as real +color. Of course I don't pretend to know myself, but I told him you did. +He's your neighbor on this floor. Run in often and make yourselves at +home with each other," he concluded cordially. "I must hurry back and +finish a fight." + +"May I look?" asked Ewing, his eyes running about the room to the many +canvases. + +"My summer's work is there--Look? yes; but I can't promise what you'll +see. You bring your own eyes. I can't make eyes, too. If I only could--" +He spoke with a slow, soft gentleness, his blue eyes half shut and +dreamily distant. As Ewing turned to study a landscape leaning against +the wall on a table near by, the painter climbed to his stool and twined +his thin legs confusingly among its supports. Then facing his canvas and +working a brush into the color on his palette he continued: + +"Line is a fact. Color is only a sensation. Anyone can prove line, but +to know color you must have imagination. If you lack that and do have a +gift for humorous abuse you can be an art critic and make quite a bit +of money, I'm told." He had begun to paint as he talked. He spoke with +the same slow gentleness, even when a hint of seasoned bitterness +betrayed itself. + +One close look at the sketches about him had made Ewing rejoice that his +own paintings were safe with Ben Crider. He studied the canvases before +him with pleasure and dismay: wooded hills, grassy meadows, a park slope +with a single birch; mist rising over a marsh; a country road narrowing +into a blaze of sumach. They showed plainly enough, he thought, that +color must be conveyed rather by implication than by blunt directness, +and there, he felt, had been his own great blunder. He had been brutally +direct. + +Some of the pictures before him left him wanting a sharper definition of +line, a more explicit modeling of surface, a treatment less timid, and +the color itself, though it never failed to interest him, often puzzled +or even irritated. He sought for words to disclose what he felt, his +admiration for some of the sketches, his doubt or his rank disbelief as +to others. But the old man suddenly swept the half-formed sentences from +his mind. + +A crash of falling furniture had resounded from the room of Dallas, +forward on their own floor. From the studios below came other crashes, +the noise of falling bodies, and a ringing, metallic clangor. Sydenham +had paused at the first crash, then skipped nimbly from his stool, +shouting gleefully, "There goes Griggs's suit of armor!" Then, to +Ewing's amazement, he twitched the end of a cord that led to a high +mahogany sideboard, causing a cigar box, a copper kettle, and a heavy +volume of prints to fall with resoundings that must have carried to the +farthest studio. The old man faced him with the ecstatically deafened +look of a child amid exploding firecrackers. Then, as he discerned +Ewing's startled look, he explained: + +"It's only a way the boys have every day at one o'clock. That Baldwin +boy started it by upsetting a musket and a brace of cavalry sabers. Then +Griggs followed with his armor. Then they all got to joining in. The +Chalmers boy pulls over his easel, and I understand there's been a +complaint from the people below; but it leaves us feeling rather +friendly, you know, and we're sure it's time to eat." He looked at Ewing +as if seeking to justify his complicity in so childish a performance. +And Ewing, reading the look, helped him to reload his sideboard for the +next day's disturbance. The copper kettle, book and cigar box--the +latter containing half a dozen lumps of coal--were replaced on a thin +board to which the string was attached. + +Sydenham had meantime taken food from a curtained cabinet and was +munching before his easel. He waved the freedom of his larder to Ewing. +"There's bread and half a chicken, and pickles. There used to be ham, +but I forget if it's there yet. Anyway, it wasn't the most expensive +ham. I can't lose daylight by running out. The light changes while I +eat. I'm no Joshua. What did Griggs say of you--crazy boy, that Griggs. +Doing black and white, eh? Show me." + +Ewing had helped himself to the bread and meat, and the two, eating +casually, crossed the hall to his own room. His drawings were at hand +and Sydenham looked at them as he munched, pausing critically now and +then, a bit of bread midway to his mouth. + +"Not bad, not bad! If you can do that well you ought to do better. But +too many of you boys quit when you've learned to do something you can +sell. It's respectable, of course, but shoemakers do as much, and you've +no right to call yourselves artists for it. I'm afraid there isn't +anything made in the world that some one won't buy. And people _know_ if +their boots fit them, or if their bread is good, but they buy pictures +in the dark. There wouldn't be so many men calling themselves painters +if the public wasn't a better judge of sawed lumber or iron castings +than it is of pictures. Where did you study?" + +"My father taught me drawing. He warned me to learn that first." + +"Father, eh? Well--" His eyes rose from the drawings, ranged along the +top of the couch, to the portrait of Ewing's mother, hung between the +two windows, and the speech died on his lips. He stepped back, bit into +a reserve slice of bread and waved an inquiring chicken bone toward the +picture. + +"My mother," explained Ewing. "My father painted it." + +Sydenham's jaw fell, and looking again at the portrait he muttered some +low, swift phrase of bewilderment. Ewing waited for him to speak, but +the old man only stared. + +"It has good color, don't you think?" he ventured at last, but even the +mention of color could not move Sydenham to speech. He absently consumed +the remainder of his food and flicked crumbs from his frayed jacket. + +"You look like her," he said at last, with so much the air of speaking +to himself that Ewing made no answer. He moved toward the door with +bowed head. At the threshold he looked back at Ewing a brief moment, +then went out, closing the door softly behind him. + +Ewing decided that his neighbor was a curious old man. Recalling other +curious people he had met in this strange new world, he was reminded of +the lady who had urged him to call on her. He was still ready to believe +that anyone might wish to talk to him, or to hear him talk. But in spite +of this, the old lady had been queer. From the table he picked up the +card she had given him, studying the name and wondering what they might +talk about. + +He was still feeling this mild wonder when he rang the lady's bell at +five o'clock. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FLESH OF HER FLESH + + +Two persons had waited for Ewing. Mrs. Lowndes was one of them, sitting +forward in her chair and braced on its arms, though her head dropped now +and then in forgetfulness. The other was a big, shambling old man, a +dark man gone gray, his face needing the kindly, yellowish-brown eyes to +save it from sternness. His thickets of eyebrows were joined in a +half-humorous scowl of perplexity. + +"I had to send for you, Fred. You and Herbert Sydenham are the only two +left who were close to me then, and Herbert Sydenham--well--" she +laughed a laugh of exquisitely humorous pain--"Herbert would have +forgotten me any time these twenty years for a striking color scheme, a +streak of unpaintable moonshine. It was you, Fred, or no one, and it +hurt me so! All last night I was on the rocks being ground to bits. I +knew you would say the wise thing." + +The big man had risen to walk the floor, his thick shoulders heaving as +if to throw off invisible burdens, his head shaking doggedly. + +"Yes, Kitty, yes--" His voice was big but low, the voice of his whole +being bent to soothe. He came to her side and reached down to take one +of the frail, blue-veined hands between his own two, huge and hairy. +They closed upon hers with a kind of awkward effectiveness. + +"Of course you had to come to me, but I'm afraid all I can do is to +brace you." + +"I wanted you to be with me. I couldn't have borne it alone, Fred--his +being here--Kitty's child." + +"And you say he doesn't know?" + +"I'm certain of it, and Eleanor Laithe doesn't know; but those are +little things when I know." + +"We'll see, Kitty--we'll see. Perhaps I can help. But I suspect it's one +of those matters where you must be your own guide. You'll act as you +feel; not as I think--not even as you think." + +"Ellen is going to the door," she whispered, almost fiercely, bracing +herself in the chair. + +As the maid held back the curtain at the doorway, Ewing advanced +uncertainly, an embarrassed smile on his lips, the look of one who would +be agreeable if he knew how. He saw Mrs. Lowndes stiffly fixed in her +chair, her white-crowned head thrown back, and he would have taken her +hand but she diverted him from this. + +"Mr. Ewing, my old friend, Dr. Birley." + +Her voice was no longer halting and shallow, as it had been the moment +before when her barriers were down. Ewing swiftly confirmed his +impression of the previous day: this was a lady of immeasurable pride, a +one-time beauty who perhaps treasured the authority her charms had once +conferred upon her, wielding it with little old-fashioned graces. She +seemed to him at the moment to be an almost excessively mannered person, +interesting, but unapproachable. + +He stopped on his way to her chair and shook hands with the big man, who +had come forward. This person was quite as formidable as the curious old +lady, but he was eminently kind of look. + +"Sit here, Mr. Ewing." He indicated a chair. + +"I asked you to come and see me--" The old lady had begun in low, even +tones, but paused, and Ewing was again struck by this seeming of +agitation which had made him remark her the day before. + +"Mrs. Lowndes was interested to hear of your life in the West," said the +big man easily, "and she was good enough to ask me to meet you also. We +were both interested in knowing of you from the Bartells." + +"There is so much we do not understand here in New York," put in Mrs. +Lowndes, rather vaguely, Ewing thought. He looked from one to the other. +The lady puzzled him, but the big man drew him from his embarrassment, +helping him to an ease which he could hardly have achieved with his +hostess alone. + +Without knowing quite how he began he was presently talking. +Unconsciously he directed his speech to the man, who kept kind eyes on +him and led him by questions when he paused. He was aware that the woman +listened and that her eyes searched his face, but he divined, without +meeting them, that they were more curious than kind, and several times, +as she moved in her chair, he seemed to feel sharp little points of +hostility radiating toward him. + +But the big man drew him more and more from the consciousness of her +presence, so that he all but forgot her. It seemed entirely natural to +him that he should be telling this friendly inquirer of his early life, +the first memories of his father and mother, and of the queer, shifting +home they had known. As he told of the death of his mother--both +listeners had seemed strangely alert for that--he was startled by a +sound from the lady--a catching of breath and a gasp of pain. He turned +quickly, but observed only a stiffly courteous gesture bidding him +continue. + +He stopped in confusion, feeling that a strange quiet had come upon the +room. The questions from the big man had ceased, and the woman drooped +in her chair until he could no longer distinguish her outline through +the deepening dusk. Nor was there any sound when his own voice ceased. +Neither figure stirred. He was oppressed by the awkwardness of it. + +"I should have pulled up," he said, with an uneasy laugh. "I forgot I +wasn't on a lone road." + +There was still no sign from the woman, shrunk far into her chair, but +the doctor rose at his speech with a half-muttered, "We're obliged to +you." Ewing rose at the same time, with an impulse to break some strain +that he felt himself sharing. The doctor reached out in the dusk and +turned on an electric light that hung above the table, looking quickly +at Mrs. Lowndes as he did so, for there had come from her a murmur of +protest at the light. Ewing also looked at her from where he stood on +the hearth rug. The lighting of the room had intensified some electrical +current that pulsed from each to each. The woman returned Ewing's gaze +with the absorption of one moved beyond all arts of convention. Her eyes +glistened, ominous of tears, and her small, lean chin trembled as her +lips parted. Ewing turned from her distress, appealing by look to the +big man, who watched them both, but his gaze was at once drawn back to +the woman. She rose from her chair with weak effort and faced him with +something like wild impulse rather than intention, a look, a waiting +poise, that shook him with fear of the unknown. + +Slowly she brought her hands to a wringing clasp at her breast. Her +eyes were frankly wet now as she leaned and peered at him, holding him +immovable. Twice her lips parted with dry little gasps, her hands +working as if to ring the words from her choked throat. + +"My boy!" It was so low that without the look of her lips as they shaped +the words he could not have been sure. + +"My boy--oh, my boy!" This time they were sharper though no louder, and +Ewing's nerves tingled an alarm that ran to the roots of his hair. She +came a half step toward him, and he felt that he was drawing her, +divined that in another moment she would be throwing herself upon him in +surrender to some emotional torrent that raged within her. He was +powerless under this sudden, strange assault. Dumbly he watched her, +closer now by another step, the clasped hands, fighting blindly toward +him, with little retreats to her breast, her dry lips again shaping the +words, "My boy--my boy!" + +And then, even as his own arms were half extended with an instinctive +saving movement--for the woman seemed about to totter--the stillness was +broken by quick steps along the hall, the rattle of curtain rings along +a rod, and the voice of the maid: + +"Mr. Teevan, ma'am!" + +There had been an instinctive wrenching asunder of the three at the +first sound of steps. Yet traces of the stress under which they had +labored were still evident to Randall Teevan as he entered. Mrs. Lowndes +had turned to search among the magazines on the table--not before the +little man had swept her with a comprehending eye flash. + +Ewing, pleasantly delivered from a situation that had grown irksome, a +situation rising from what he considered the too-ready sympathy of an +emotional old woman, allowed his relief full play in the heartiness of +his response to Teevan's greeting. The doctor had squared his shoulders +to another pacing of the room. + +Teevan, missing no item of the drama he had interrupted, chose for +himself the rôle of blind unconsciousness. So well did he enact this +that Mrs. Lowndes was convinced, and the belief aided her to recover a +proper equanimity. The doctor surveyed the new actor with a skeptic +keenness not so readily to be overcome. + +One glance at Ewing's perturbed but mystified face assured Teevan that +the climax of exposure had not been reached. He bustled amiably about +the room, kissing the hand of Mrs. Lowndes, shaking the hand of the +doctor, straightening a picture on the wall, and, at last, lighting a +cigarette as he faced the room from his favorite post on the hearth rug. + +"I ran in for a moment to see how my lady prospered," with a graceful +wave of the expiring match toward Mrs. Lowndes, "and all is well. I find +her holding court to youth and age, to wit and wisdom, all of which she +combines graciously in her own person. She is looking weary, perhaps, +but rejoiced. Gentlemen, you have served her well. Doubtless our young +friend here, Mr.--Ah, yes, Mr. Ewing--has talked enchantingly. I've had +an art evening with him myself." He bestowed a glance of benevolent +approval on Ewing, who smiled in return. + +"By the way, my lady, I've sent you a brace of birds that lived their +little span of woods life between last spring and yesterday. Ah, but +they came to a fluent richness of body, brown and plump and tender as +first love, and tanged with autumn spices--so blessed be the piece that +brought them low. Doctor, you'd dissect them for their nerve centers or +the intricacies of their bone structure, but I find them admirable in +all aspects. They rejoice my scientific soul even as they lure my carnal +man. Isn't it Duceps, the falconer, friend of old Izaak, who speaks of +birds that both feed and refresh man--'feed him with their choice +bodies, and refresh him with their heavenly voices'? There was a normal +person, now--not one-sided." + +The atmosphere cleared of its cloud wrack as his speech flowed, marked +by pointings of the small, crisp mustache and gracious little pauses of +appeal to each of the listeners in turn. + +From edible songsters he progressed to the cooking of these, and thence +to speech on the art of cooking at large. There were pessimists, it +seemed, to bemoan the day when a _maître d'hôtel_ would die rather than +outlive the dishonor of his master's table, as when Vatel stabbed +himself because the fish for one of Condé's dinners failed to arrive on +time--proving, as Savarin observed, that the fanaticism of honor could +exist in the kitchen as well as in the camp. But in the opinion of the +speaker these were pinchbeck heroics. Vatel would have been the truer +Frenchman, certainly the better _chef_, if, instead of wreaking a messy +violence on himself in his master's kitchen, he had contrived an +_entrée_ to replace the missing fish. And we should remember, too, that +the French, good cooks as they are, have but elaborated an art for the +germinal principals of which they are indebted to Italian genius. Italy +first saw the revival of cookery as she first saw the revival of +learning. The land of Savarin lay in darkness until light was brought by +those incomparable artists in the train of Catharine de Medicis. One +might recall how Montaigne was captivated in the land of Horace by the +weighty manner of the _chef_ of Cardinal Caraffa in discoursing upon the +occultisms of his art. The Italians even then held the thing hardly +second to theology. + +The little man here permitted a pause in which he discarded his +cigarette and readjusted the carnation in his lapel, with a sniff at its +spiciness. Then he turned graciously to Ewing. + +"But I must be off--time races so in this little nook! If you're +stepping on, Mr.--Ah, yes--Ewing, to be sure--if you're leaving, I shall +be glad to join you as far as the avenue. My dutiful love, lady, and to +you, doctor, that virtue which superstition ascribes to your pellets. +The word 'health' could never have been coined by the healthy, could it? +I dislike to use the word baldly." + +Ewing rose, glad of the exit thus provided. It was kind of people to +concern themselves about his affairs, but he wished they could be less +peculiar. He bowed to Mrs. Lowndes and shook hands with the doctor. He, +at least, was understandable. + +When they had gone the old lady faced her friend with a calmness that +surprised him. + +"Fred, what sorry, what terrible things can make us young again! I feel +now as I felt that other night--just at this hour so many years +ago--when I knew she'd gone--knew she'd gone." + +"He's Kitty's boy." The big man fronted her as if for a feat of +persuasion. + +"Don't, Fred! I've just weathered that point. I was weak, but +Randall--Randall saved me. He's dreadful, Fred, unnatural, +impossible--oh, terribly impossible!" She faced him dauntlessly, her +cheeks glowing with faint spots of color. + +"I liked him, Kitty. He seems----" + +"You're a physician, accustomed to monstrosities. He's something we +don't speak of, my friend. And see--you _must_ see--what he would suffer +if he knew." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +TEEVAN AS SPECIAL PROVIDENCE + + +Ewing was delighted by an invitation from the little man to dine. They +had reached the avenue after walking in silence through a side street. +Such moments were rare with Teevan. Not often did he fail of speech, +even in his periods of calculation. But this was a moment requiring nice +adjustments. The suggestion about dinner came as they paused at the +corner. + +"If you'd like to have me I'd be mighty glad," responded Ewing. + +They turned toward Ninth Street, and Ewing told of his hour at Mrs. +Lowndes', scarce conscious of Teevan's questioning, for the little man +probed with an air of discreet condolence that would have won a far more +reticent talker. Ewing was gratified by this attention from a man who +knew the world of cities, and whose mind must usually be occupied with +affairs of importance. He felt himself drawn to Teevan by bonds of +sympathy that tightened momentarily. + +"My dear mother-in-law is a sentimental thing," the little man confessed +with a delicate intimation of apology. "She makes any sad tale her own. +The theater affects her, the woes of stage creatures, quite as you tell +me your own very human little story did. My arrival must have saved you +from one of her rather absurd manifestations. She's a dear old soul, +with quantities of temperament, but she recovers with amazing facility, +I'm bound to say. If you met her to-morrow she'd likely freeze you with +a nod." + +Ewing was not sorry to hear this, though he thought it hardly polite to +say so. + +When they reached the house in Ninth Street Teevan ushered in his guest +with a charming hospitality. + +"Come to the library. The man will bring you an _aperitif_ while I +escape from this accursed frock coat. Not a word about your own dress! I +took you as you were--but a jacket for me, if you'll pardon it." A +servant entered in answer to his ring. + +"Sherry and bitters, Farrish, and Mr. Ewing will dine with us. Is my son +in?" + +"Mr. Alden is dining out, sir." + +"All the better, my boy. We shall be the chummier for Alden's absence. +Make the house yours while I change. There are the evening papers; or +perhaps you'll be interested by those cabinet bits--jades and scarabs +and junk of that sort; a few fairish pieces of Greek glass--that Tanagra +isn't bad, nor those Limoges enamels. The netsukes and sword guards are +rather good Japanese bits, and there are one or two exquisite etchings +on ivory--_un instant, n'est-ce pas?_" + +Ewing lay back in his chair and sipped the sherry when it came. His +enjoyment of the room's ensemble was too nearly satisfying to require +examination of it by detail. It was a room of discreet and mellowed +luxury, with an air of jaunty ripeness that distinguished its composer. +The chairs solicited, the walls soothed, the broken light illumined +perfectly without dazzling. He was thrilling agreeably to his host's +evident interest in him when the latter returned, beaming with a smile +of rare good-fellowship. + +They were presently at table in a dining room whose plain old mahogany +and thin silver produced, like the library, an impression of finished +luxury without flaunt. The dinner itself possessed an atmosphere of +sophistication, a temperament, even. It sated the exigent appetite of +Ewing--his luncheon with Sydenham had been a mere adventure in +meagerness--and sated without cloying, but it was more than food to him. +As he ate, and drank of a burgundy whose merit he was ill qualified to +appraise, he was conscious of a real fascination growing within him for +the man who favored him with so distinguished a notice; who talked, +seemingly, with the same nice care to please him that he would have +exercised for a tableful of more difficult guests. + +Nor did Teevan lack the parts of a listener. Ewing found himself talking +much and enjoyably. With so tactful a listener, so good a friend, it was +no longer necessary to remember that he was new in this land and +unknowing of its smaller ways. It occurred to him, indeed, as he +reviewed this memorable evening, that he had talked more than his host. +But he was spared the youthful blush at this by remembering that he had +been questioned persistently--"toled," as Ben would have said, with +baits of inquiry. Incredible as it seemed, Teevan wished him to talk and +had neatly made him do so. He felt that the little man must know him +through and through. He had been, of course, a book in large print and +short words, but he was flattered to believe that Teevan had found him +worth opening. + +And now he was certain he had discovered the longed-for friend; one soul +had come from the oblivious throng to touch his own, to call him out and +speak him fair. He was companioned by one as likable as he was learned, +by one who meant, it was intimated, to seek every opportunity to +befriend him. + +And the need of such a friend became more and more apparent to Ewing as +they sat in the library after dinner over coffee and liqueurs. It was +brought upon him that he had never known his own rashness in braving so +difficult a world with so modest an equipment. The tragedy of failure +was a commonplace in the little man's experience. So many young dreamers +like his guest were rejected after bitter trials. It was an +inconsequential world, whose denizens chased butterflies and too often +permitted sober worth to perish by the wayside. + +At times during the evening Ewing had feared a return of that +distressing malady to which his host was subject, but this he was +happily spared. + +When he took a reluctant leave it was with two emotions: a fervent +liking for the wise man who had so generously befriended him, and doubt +of himself, the first he had known. It came like an icy blast out of +summer warmth and shine. + +Teevan listened for the door to close on his guest. When he heard this +he sank into his chair and chuckled gaspingly. Presently he drank a +glass of brandy, smiled in remembering pleasure, lighted a cigarette, +and took his post on the hearth rug, his eyes dancing elfishly, his lips +moving. + +His son found him so an hour later, for the little man was tireless even +when, lacking an audience, he merely dramatized his own reflections. +Seeing him to be familiarly engaged, Alden Teevan would have withdrawn +with a careless, half-contemptuous nod, but his father detained him with +a gesture, and a sudden setting of his face into purposeful hardness. + +"Sit down." He looked into the hall, then closed the door and faced his +son. The latter regarded him with coolly impertinent interest. + +"You'd make a ripping conspirator in a melodrama, Randy. What you going +to do now--steal the will?" + +Teevan laughed grimly. He crossed back to the hearth rug and took a +fresh cigarette, which he lighted with studious deliberation. His words +followed swiftly upon the first exhalation of smoke, and his eyes +fastened venomously on his son's. + +"I'll give you a morsel to jest with--conspirator, indeed!--yes, and a +will. See if that facile wit of yours is up to it, my bonny stripling." +He played with his moment, drawing on the cigarette with leisurely +relish, and gazing into the smoke with eyes of an absorbed visionary. + +"Well?" The young man yawned ostentatiously. + +"You missed dining with your brother this evening. He was good enough to +break bread at my table." + +The young man took a cigarette from the lacquered bowl at his side and +lighted it with the same deliberation his father had shown. + +"Really? I didn't know you had another son." + +"Thank God I haven't--but your mother had, and that precious sniveling +grandmother of yours has another grandson. You might recall that when +you chatter of melodrama--and wills. I believe her estate is not one +you'd care to divide." + +"What rot are you gibbering with those monkey airs of yours?" + +"Delicate as ever in your raillery! Perhaps you think I'm drunk. Perhaps +I am. But I dropped in on your grandmother this afternoon in time to +prevent her clasping that nameless whelp to her breast. A lovely bit I +spoiled, my merry-andrew!--tears and fondlings to-night, a codicil +to-morrow. I'm none too sure there'd have been a codicil, though. +Likelier a new will--'give, devise, and bequeath the sum of one dollar +to my grandson Alden Teevan, who has already wheedled me out of more +than was good for him, and the residue of my estate, both real and +personal, to my beloved grandson, Gilbert Denham Ewing----'" + +"Ewing! That chap Nell Laithe brought back with her--that rustic +lout----" + +"Have I won your attention, lad? Another item I chance to recall--permit +me, since you've mentioned the lady's name--have you caught the look of +her eye as it rests upon the creature--how it follows him, runs to him, +hangs upon him with sweet tenacity? Have you felt the glow in her voice +as she speaks to him? A woman of the world, young, tender, romantic, +stormed by this Galahad of the hills, who first wins her solicitude by +his helplessness, and then, before the lady quite knows it, coerces her +whole being by sheer masculine dominance. Ah, you haven't read +that--only enough of it to puzzle you, perhaps enrage you. You haven't +your father's eyes. I read it all in three glances: one at him and two +at her. Decidedly, you've not your father's eyes." + +"Nor his love of many words. So that's the son of my mother, of the +woman who failed to adore you after a brief but heroic effort?" + +"Likewise, I dare say, the lover of a woman who will henceforth fail to +appraise you at anything like your extraordinary worth. Such blind +things they are, eh, my boy? She regards the two of you superficially, +_bien entendu_, and hence to your prejudice. There's a likeness between +you, the same cast of face, even a likeness of voice, and your noses are +identical--the nose of that woman--but the differences are all in his +favor. You have grace of a drawing-room sort, a certain boudoir polish +of manner, but his face is fresher, kinder, quicker of sympathy, more +compelling, and there's that out-of-doors look in his eye, the look of +readiness and power. You know what that sort of strength means with the +pretty animals." + +"You speak bitterly--but then, you've competed with that sort." + +"My unhappy infant! You'd at least have found a barren sort of dignity +in actual competition. As it is----" + +"You got her by a trick, I've heard, from the man who took her away from +you when she'd found you out." + +"Tell that to your grandmother--it may help you out of some money." + +"Stop it, governor! I'll quit if you will. Come!" He spoke with a drop +of the voice, and lifted a hand in appeal. + +"When you like--I've wasted no words." + +"It's true, all you've said? Grandmother knows?" + +"Thirty seconds later and I'd have had to bless the pair." + +"And now?" + +"It's safe for the present. She forgot. She'll remember to-morrow. I'd +trust him back there then. She'd see only an obscene excrescence." + +"It's a pleasant situation!" + +"It's hellish! Can you imagine _my_ feelings? You've touched on them +with your graceful, filial banter." + +"What will you do?" + +"'What will you do?'" He mimicked the other with a snarl. "Well, I begin +by having him to dine. I study him, I win him. I have him now. He will +dine with me other times. I'm not so sure he won't come to reverence me. +Oh, it's an ideal situation! Damn it! How they fall! _We_ couldn't +contrive them half so cunningly. The fool hath said in his heart 'There +is no God'--a fool, indeed! There is a God, and He has a devil in Him, +or He couldn't have given me this to play out. I have him, I tell you, +her son and his son, think of it--her lover's son that they both +loved--served up to me!" + +"What can you do with him?" + +"_Do_ with him?" The elder man eyed his son for a long minute, then +dropped into a chair, and for an interval the young man pursued his +rather uncomfortable reflections in silence. At last he broke this with +another query. As there was no response, and his father's face was +turned away, he rose and sauntered in front of him. The eyes met his +musingly, and he saw that the mouth was fixed in a rather hideous +smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +AN ELUSIVE VENUS + + +The days that followed were marked for Ewing with a puzzling +discouragement; puzzling, because there had been no failure. A failure +would have left him reliant, however battered, but nothing good had been +disproved. He was fighting some black doubt of himself, insidiously +nursed, he knew not how. + +His friend, Randall Teevan, almost an intimate since the night they +dined together, daily predicted great works of him. Where the careless +picture makers of the Rookery were content with assurances that he could +turn out marketable "stuff," Teevan showed him far and lofty eminences +that he might scale, had he a spirit for the feat. + +Undoubtedly there were obstacles that would daunt a less spirited +novice, or one with less than the supreme powers of his young friend, +but he, the intrepid, the enduring one, could surmount them. The danger +in this time of 'prenticeship, Teevan suggested, was sluggish content +with a cheap facility. The tyro learns to do a thing that sells, and +remains commercially solvent but, spiritually, an example of arrested +development--artistically dead. + +He left Ewing at these times with a sense of his present futility, but +also with a genial pity for the men who were doing things to sell--and +selling them; all unconscious of the remote, the vacant summits, of +true art. A little while before he would have rejoiced that his work +could appear beside the work of these men. That would have been a +triumph glorious enough. But he could no longer desire so mean a +success. He must strive for the higher things, if for no other reason, +because this fastidious critic expected him to accomplish them. He could +not affront that captious taste with things done for a dollar. Teevan, +it seemed, had found life wearing on his dearest illusions. Contact with +the world had left him little to believe in. Yet he confessed to believe +in Ewing; confessed it with a shamed, humorous _naívetée_, and with +pleasant half doubts, as a man of tried unbelief laying a bed to fall +back on at his next undeceiving. + +Ewing was fired to high resolve by this witty, this tender betrayal of +confidence in his powers. He could not bear to think that his friend +should one day find him, too, a bit of specious insincerity. He +consecrated himself to guard this last illusion. It was a pleasure, a +duty, and an ambition whose rewards would magnify them both. + +The hill boy no longer yearned solitary in the crowd for a day with Ben +Crider, or perhaps an evening with him of little easy silences. Teevan +filled his needs. In some sort the little man became his idol; a +constant presence before which every act of his days must be judged. +Teevan was a smiling but inexorable arbiter of his destiny: a judge +humane but incorruptible, a man experienced in the obliquities of human +nature, but never tolerant of these. + +Teevan showed him pictures, the work of masters, piloting him through +galleries with instructive comment. Ewing instinctively felt the +accuracy of his taste, and divined the soundness of his technical +knowledge. Often he overlooked a blemish of bad drawing till Teevan +pointed it out. Often Teevan defined to his eye some masterly bit of +lining in a picture otherwise hopeless. And of color, that splendid +mystery, thing of trick and passion, the little man discoursed with rare +sanity. + +After these provings of his expertness, Ewing was humble when Teevan +chose to point out the more striking deficiencies of his own work. If +Teevan made him feel that he must unlearn the vicious little he knew, he +performed the duty with a tact that left the youth as large with +gratitude as with discouragement. It was by Teevan's counsel that he +went to the school. The men of the Rookery tried to dissuade him from +that. + +"They can't give you anything you haven't got," warned Baldwin. "And if +you don't act stubborn they may spoil what you have. You've learned your +A B C's, and they'll only tell you at the school to learn them another +way. They'll make you feel like a clumsy ass. Stay away." + +Well-meant advice, but superficial, as Teevan observed when he heard of +it. + +"Your friend confirms what I suspected," he went on, with a pleasant +glint in his eyes. "Those chaps would have you become a decent hack on +the pitiful facility you've already acquired. Pitiful, mark me, as +compared with your capacity. But I've learned to expect little in this +world of weak purpose. I dare say you won't endure it long at the +school. I grant you a fortnight there; then you'll tell me you give up." + +He began his lessons at the League next day, fired with intent to +please his friend. He would fail, yes--fail seventy times seven, but he +would stand up. + +He went, however, a little weighed down by the memory of his various +advisers. From the entrance he was directed above by an official-looking +person who yawned. Then he found himself in one of many cramped, +stall-like compartments, facing a plaster woman who crouched on one +knee. His position was between two youths who were annoyed by his +nearness. When he edged from the glowering of one the other nudged his +drawing board with an indignant elbow. There was no retreat, for the +students were packed closely about him. The one behind him made +disparaging remarks about the dimensions of his back, which seemed +unkind, considering that he did not hesitate to use the back from time +to time as an easel. + +The air was hot and thick with charcoal dust. The crowded disorder +confused him. He tried to think only of the cast. He began at the head, +as was his custom, and felt a moment's exhilaration in studying the +delicate shadows beneath the filleted curls. + +He was aroused by sounds of derision from behind, and ominous prophecies +of what "Old Velvet" would do to him when he caught sight of that +pompadour. He observed then that the other men were not working at the +head first, but mapping out the entire figure at once with long, raking, +angular lines that blocked the shadows in square masses. He half rose +and looked about. They were all working alike, with their drawing boards +far out, and with blunt charcoal. He had spent half an hour sharpening +his, and had hugged his drawing board. + +He sat down again, impelled by protests from behind and drew the entire +figure, but he could not bring himself to do it in those rude angles. He +drew it with a single line--down the curving flank, about the gracious +knees, skirting the feet, and up once more to round the farther shoulder +that drooped above the nestling breast. Although he did not know it, +this was a feat; the swing of the body was almost perfect, yet he had +not skirmished a moment. + +The youth behind him was now peering through spectacles above his +shoulder. + +"You're a queer duck!" he said; "but he'll make you do it his way. What +do you mean by drawing like that?" + +"Why?" asked Ewing, confused. "Let's see yours." + +The other exhibited. There was no outline, there were no gracious +curves, only a suggestion of angular shadows, scratched across with +brutal straightness. Yet, when Ewing squinted his eyes a bit the thing +stood out. + +"Wait till I get _my_ shadows in," he said. + +"Cart before the horse!" rejoined the critic. "I see your finish with +the old man." + +Ewing started to lay in his shadows as the other had done, but it seemed +as if that delicate body appealed for gentler treatment. He rubbed out +the vandal lines and began swinging around the figure in the curving +strokes habitual with him, strokes that nursed each lovely rondure like +caresses. Then, until the closing hour, he polished, picking out the +precious little reflected lights that saved her treasures from shadow. + +"Red ruin for you, my boy!" exclaimed the spectacled one behind him. +"Ravage and slaughter! Old Velvet will scalp you." + +Ewing stood up, released by his neighbors, who now rose in a clatter of +toppled stools. + +"What's the matter with it?" he asked. + +"Finicky! You've _fussed_ it to death. Velvet will slay you for those +reflected lights alone--and your nice curly lines--oh, Lord!" + +"But they're there, those lights," protested Ewing. "And it's the way +I've always drawn. I suppose there are different methods." + +"There's only one way with Velvet, and that's Velvet's way." Then with a +damnatory waving-away of the offensive drawing he sauntered off to put +his stuff in his locker. + +Ewing dined alone that night. He was in no mood for Teevan. + +Back in his place next day, still incredulous of defeat so swift, he +waited for the master. He watched him going the rounds of the other +students, the light playing on the purple velvet of the garment that +gave him his title. His beard was a rich growth, his mustaches curled +upward at the ends, his large, heavy eyelids drooped in a perpetual +_ennui_. His usual criticism was a weary "Rub it out!" + +When at last he stood beside Ewing's work he gave an effect of +collapsing, as if his whole being cried out: "This is too much!" He took +the drawing from the board and stuck it to the wall with two thumb +tacks. Then, picking up a bit of charcoal, he wrote across it, "A +perfect example of how not to do it." + +He did not return to Ewing, but, after examining a few other drawings, +he turned to leave the room. As he passed, Ewing reached across two +neighbors--who protested--and caught the velvet jacket. + +"Perhaps you can give me an idea," he said. The other looked at him as +if he had not seen him before. + +"Use intelligence! Good God--use intelligence!" he almost wailed, and +made his escape. + +Ewing mechanically placed a fresh sheet before him and began again, but +he rubbed out as fast as he drew. The next morning he found the paper +foul from many erasures, and started afresh. He could see now that his +first drawing, posted in irredeemable ignominy, was not all that it +should be. It lacked the freedom of work he had done in his solitude. He +tried to conjure back that old free feeling, but the days passed and it +drew farther away. Some of the students changed places and began on +other casts. The better men went every other week into the life class. +But Ewing stayed desperately by his crouching woman. He studied her +until he loved and loathed her. The master came and went. Sometimes he +ignored Ewing. When he did notice him it was always with a fresh blow on +the sunk heart of the boy. Once he sat in his place and ran some of his +own brusque, effective lines along the figure, the lines that every +other youth in the room punctiliously imitated. They mingled with +Ewing's strokes as a driving rain mingles with a bed of flowers. + +"If you'd only give up your damned little way," he complained. + +"I wish you'd explain a bit," pleaded the boy. + +"Old Velvet" turned to the spectacled young man. "Give him your study. +There, do it like that." + +Then came the beginning of the end. He lost himself in a crawling +blindness of imitation. The old power that had made him draw without +knowing how he did it gathered its splendid garments and withdrew as +mysteriously as it had once come to possess him. He drew, but he would +no longer have recognized what he did as the work of his own hand. He +thought of Griggs, who had said, "Style?--I'd know a scrap of your stuff +if I found it in an ash barrel in Timbuctoo!" + +The thought of those friendly men knowing his degradation was another +stone on the grave of his self-esteem. It was this that made him wait +when the others had gone one night, to take down that first crucified +drawing from the wall where it had remained, torn and hanging by one +tack. + +"Will you give it to me?" said a voice, and, as he did not care one way +or the other, the spectacled young man put it in his portfolio. +Afterwards Ewing thought of asking him why he wanted it, but he did not +come back again. He had been advanced to the life class. + +The master did not speak to Ewing again. He made, at intervals as he +passed, the pantomime of rubbing out. And Ewing obeyed, beginning each +time the task that grew day by day more hatefully useless. In the +beginning he had felt that if he could get that plaster woman off by +himself he could draw her. The long habit of solitude had left him +confounded by the crowd. There had been something almost shameful to him +about drawing publicly, and he had the impulse to curl an arm about his +sketch to hide it a little as he worked. He felt sick with the hot, dry +air and the breathing of the stallful of men. When the door was opened +the odor of turpentine came from the room where they were painting. It +had for him a familiar, happy smell. + +"I wish I could go in there," he said once to a fat youth beside him. + +"That's what the dubs always say," was the reply. "It's so much easier +to paint." + +He spent a day going around, looking at the better students' work, +asking them how they had learned to draw as "Old Velvet" wanted them to. +They had a great many things to say that sounded technical, but he heard +nothing that opened a way to him. + +He hated the school; he hated the street that led to it, with a quiet +ground swell of hatred. But, deepest of all, he hated his own despair. +He felt that his shattered courage would never heal. He was like a +dishonored soldier whose sword has been publicly broken. He remembered +the fine things he had said to Teevan about his ambition, and the blush +that suffused him ached. At the thought of Mrs. Laithe bringing him from +his wild beast's hole, as if he had been worth her splendid faith, his +heart withered within him. At intervals he started as if he suddenly +awoke, saying to himself, "And to think it could have ended like this!" + +At the end of a fortnight he sat for three days without doing anything, +a stick of charcoal in his hand. He did not come again, and his fat +neighbor used up his charcoal paper, after putting fine mustaches on all +his crouching Venuses. + +He had shunned his acquaintances during this time of travail. But twice +had he seen Teevan since his first day at the League. He had tried to be +cheerful at those meetings, still hoping the lines would come right, but +he felt each time that Teevan saw straight to his wretched heart of +doubt; and he would not risk another meeting until he could report an +overwhelming victory--or defeat, if it must be so. + +That he did not for a day forget his good friend, there was ample +testimony; though this was of a nature that Teevan must remain oblivious +to. On the night of the day that saw his first buffeting he walked the +streets until late, rejoicing mournfully that there were still so many +people who did not know his shame. Half unwittingly he wandered into +Ninth Street, and stood a long time opposite Teevan's house, finding a +solace in his friend's possible nearness. Then, as the days of defeat +followed with so deadly a sequence, this walk and vigil became his +nightly habit. Sometimes the house was darkened. Then he felt free to +gaze at it. Sometimes there were lights, and his survey was brief and +furtive. Until the very last there was always a bit of hope to spice the +melancholy of this adventure: to-morrow the thing might be done as they +all did it, the master be moved from blame to praise, and himself be +free to enter this street bravely, noisily, careless of recognition, to +tell how the big way had been opened. He had pictured the pleasure that +would light Teevan's face as he heard this tale of conquest. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MRS. LAITHE IS IN + + +On the ultimate night of defeat Ewing walked as usual into Ninth Street +for his vigil before Teevan's house. He had come to a wall that must be +scaled. He could no longer believe in any chance way round it or +gracious opening through it. Teevan would have to be told, and he was +sorry for Teevan. The little man had believed so. + +He scanned the starred strip of sky above him as if for words to renew +the faith of his friend. His eye ran along the house fronts opposite, +but they were blunt, uninspiring masses with shut doors and curtained +windows, houses turned away from him. He wished for another friend, less +exacting than Teevan, who would take defeat lightly. Then one of the +houses stood out familiarly, the Bartell house, with its generous width +and its hospitable white door. He had not cared to go there in his time +of suspense, but now he was overwhelmed with a sudden longing to see +Mrs. Laithe, to feel her friendliness and confide to her, perhaps, a +hint of his plight. At least he could look at her a little while, even +if he told her nothing. + +He crossed the street quickly, walked toward the avenue until he reached +the marble steps, and rang the bell. It occurred to him dismally while +he waited that she might not be in; still worse, that there might be +people about who would keep him from her. It had been so most of the +few times he had called. There was always friendliness in the look she +gave him across those shoreless seas of talk, but too often there had +been little beside this look. + +The man admitted him and was not sure if Mrs. Laithe was in; he would +see. Ewing strolled back to the soothing snugness of the library and +dropped on the couch. Even to be there alone was something: the room was +alive with her, and the restful quietness of it made him conscious all +at once of the long strain he had been under. Leaning his head back, he +shut his eyes in a sort of desperate surrender, letting the tragedy of +his failure swirl about him. But something from the woman he awaited +seemed to have flowed in upon him, healing his hurt with gracious little +reminders of her. He breathed a long sigh of relief, and for a moment +almost lost himself in unconscious rest. It was good to stop thinking. + +It was thus she saw him as she came softly in, with scarce a silken +rustle. Her face, as she gazed, lost its look of welcome and ready +speech, for she saw all his anguish uncovered there before her. It was +in his young face, gaunt and jaded and bleached to the city pallor; in +the closed eyes, the folded lips; and in the body wearily relaxed. So +little life he showed, it seemed to her he might be sleeping, and again, +as at the other time, she was shaken by a rush of tenderness for +him--tenderness and fear, alike terrible. + +She could not speak. She hovered a half step toward him, with a hand +instinctively up to shelter and cherish, her eyes wide with pity and a +great gladness. Poised so, she waited, breathless. + +Though she had made no sound, he thrilled suddenly to the knowledge of +her presence, and his eyes opened to hers. They stared dully an instant, +then shone with a quick light that held her exposed and defenseless, +while he came to himself--for the first time in her presence--as a man. +Helpless to stay it, she watched this consciousness unfolding within +him, traced it lucidly from its birth to the very leaping of it from his +lips in a smothered cry of want unutterable. + +So he held her with his look. Though every nerve warned her to flight, +she was powerless even when he started toward her, raising himself +slowly from the couch with his hands; her own hand even groped a little +toward him, blindly fighting its way into both his own. It turned and +nestled there, unreasoningly, warming itself, clasping and unclasping. +He towered above her--she had never felt herself so small, so frail as +now. His two hands fiercely smothered her own, and his eyes were on her +with a look she had never seen there, a look she could not face. It was +then that her tenderness was lost in fear of him, and she forced herself +to laugh. She laughed in the desperate knowledge that his rising arm +threatened her with some crushing, blinding enfoldment where no striving +would avail her--laughed with a little easy, formal grace. + +He fell back dazed, scanning her in uncomprehending dismay as they stood +apart. Then he seemed to recover himself and smiled foolishly as she +moved to a chair. + +"I'm so glad you came," she began with nervous quickness. He dropped +back on the couch, his eyes still on her--the man's eyes. + +She endured the look, but she could not suppress the color she felt +rising in her face. It seemed to her that her strength must go if the +moment lasted a little longer. She knew now that in the weeks of his +absence she had longed for this look--for the fearful joy of it--and the +realization left her overpowered. + +At last, to her relief, he muttered some conventional phrase of his own +pleasure in seeing her. But the look of the man still held her, an +implacable look. She felt that the shy, embarrassed boy in him was gone +forever. She had aged him all in a moment. There was something +splendidly ruthless in his gaze, and in place of the confusion she was +wont to wreak on him he showed a strange, dogged coolness. + +"You've changed," he continued. "You're not well." The wondrous deep +alarm of his tone warmed her through and through. She murmured a +careless disavowal, and her low laugh, like the little comprehending +chuckle of a pleased child, banished from her face for a moment its +almost haggard set. But the face was flatly white again under the dark +of her hair, and the white gown defined her frailness and drooping, as +of some pale, long-stemmed flower fainting of languor in the still heat +of late summer. + +"You are whiter than ever," he insisted, "whiter and finer. You are like +a white rose that is beginning to let its petals fall. You--you are +beyond anything now." She laughed helplessly, as people laugh at +something insupportable. + +"You're going to tell me that people don't talk that way here," he went +on, with his old fling of the head, like that of a horse about to gallop +off, "but you understand me." He sighed, remembering his trouble for the +first time. "But you understand me," he repeated, with a wistful +attenuation of the words. + +"Yes, I understand--everything," she said, seeing again the amazing +sadness in him. Her look seized all the dejection of his attitude, the +listless lean of his head, once upheld so gayly on the strong neck. She +had to exert her will not to go nearer to him. She turned away and +closed her eyes for a moment to shut him out, then opened them quickly +and began to berate him charmingly for having neglected her. "I've +thought of you so much oftener than I've seen you," she concluded. + +He floundered in the old shyness. It had come suddenly on him when he +thought of himself. + +"I've been--at work." + +"Your face shows it," she said, with a swift, unsteady look. "You have +changed, too. You actually look ill." + +He reddened slowly under her scrutiny, stammering protestations, but her +eyes were open to him. She shrugged herself together and assumed a +brisk, motherly air. + +"Is it as bad as _that_--truly? And you told me nothing of it! Come--I +want to know." There was a ring of authority in her voice as she leaned +toward him, her great eyes full of pity and succor. "Is the world +different from what you thought? Let me know--where does it hurt? That's +what they say to children." + +Challenged thus directly, he felt shame at the thought of confession +equally direct. He would come to it only by winding ways, asserting at +first that there was no trouble; then that the trouble was but a little +one; and insisting at last that, though the trouble was great, it might +have been greater. + +Her eyes beat upon him insistently while she drove him to these +admissions. Then she was eager with attention while he compelled himself +to details. He told of his two weeks' humiliation at the school, not +sparing himself, confessing his lack of power, and the pain this +discovery had cost him. When he had finished, with a self-belittling +shrug, she sat silent, bending forward, her hands loosely clasped, her +eyes fixed away from him. + +Now that it was over he felt a sudden lightening of his mood, a swift +consciousness of reliance on the woman, a foreknowledge that her words +would profit him. At last she brought her eyes upon him and cut to the +heart of his woe with a single stroke. + +"The thing is nothing in itself." He drew a long breath of relief. "It's +in the way you take it. If it weakens you, it's bad. If it strengthens +you, it's good. Call the thing 'failure' if you like--but what has it +done to you?" + +"Why, of course"--he broke off to laugh under her waiting look--"of +course I'm still in the race. I see now that I haven't really doubted +myself at all." He looked at her with sudden sharpness. "I'd be ashamed +to doubt myself before you." He sprang to his feet in the excitement of +this discovery and stood alertly before her. + +"It doesn't mean anything, does it?" he went on quickly. "You believe in +me?" + +She laughed defensively. "I believe in you now. You look so much less +like a whipped schoolboy." + +"I won't forget again. That school isn't for me. I can do things those +poor charcoal dusters won't do for years yet. I know that. Baldwin said +they'd spoil me if I wasn't stubborn, and I _was_ stubborn--I am. You +believe I'm stubborn, don't you?" + +She smiled assurance. "You have it--can you use it?" + +"You'll see!" He sat down, continuing almost apologetically, "I worried +more about the effect on others than on myself. It was that threw me +down, a fear that other people might think I was some pretentious fool +who had come here to get over big things and stumbled at the first +little one. I was deathly afraid of hurting other people." + +His eyes had been steadily upon hers with an under-current of +consciousness for what he would have called the "queerness" of her look, +a baffling look that hinted of many things--of sympathy, consternation, +rejoicing, even of embarrassment, and yet it had not distinctly been any +one of these, so quick had been the play of light in her eyes to the +moment they fell before his. + +She released her breath with a sound like a sigh, as if she had been +holding it, and there was another look in her eyes when she at last +raised them to his, one that he could not read, save that it was wholly +serious and, he felt, peculiarly a woman's look. + +"I am sure," she began, "that no one--no one you consider in this way, +could think less of you for a failure. You ought to know that. I want +you to know it." She rose from her chair and stepped to the table with a +little shrug, turning over the leaves of a magazine, her back toward +him. At last she turned her head only, looking at him over one shoulder +and speaking with a laughing, reckless impatience. + +"Oh, fail--fail--fail as often as you like--fail a hundred times and +then--fail." He felt his cheeks burning under her vehemence. She turned +about, facing him squarely. + +"Have I said enough? Do you know what I think of failures now?" + +He rose and stood before her. "You don't know what you've done for me. +You don't know--" Again came that crude impulse to take her in his arms. +It left him feeling like a criminal. As if she had discerned this she +resumed her seat, speaking quickly. + +"Go back to that studio and do things. Do them your own way. It's a +better way for you than any they can teach you, and the next time----" + +"The next time I have a hell----" + +"--a hell of doubt--don't wait--come to me." She rose from her chair. + +"You don't know all this has meant to me," he said feelingly as she gave +him her hand. + +"Good night!" And though the gray eyes were hidden from his, there was +the look in them of one who knows more than she is thought to know. + +As Ewing went out the man was admitting the younger Teevan, who asked +for Mrs. Laithe. Ewing wished it had been the father. He had much of +good to tell the little man now. + +Neither Mrs. Laithe nor Teevan spoke of Ewing after their greeting, +though each was so busy in thought of him that their talk was scant and +aimless for the first five minutes. Alden Teevan was brought back to her +at length by noticing the drawn, tired look of her face, for the sparkle +that Ewing had left there was gone. + +"Nell, you look done up. I'm no alarmist, but you really need to be +frightened. What is it you're doing to take you down so--the same old +round? Is it a visiting guild now, or the Comforters of the Worthy Poor, +or just amateur nursing of sin, sickness, and death?" + +She smiled wanly. + +"The same old round, Alden. I can't keep away from it when I am here. I +know it so well. No one could keep away who knew it well." + +"Futile, futile, futile! Are you equal to a revolution?" + +"More's the pity, no. And I've no time for one. I've a whole family of +consumptives on my hands at this moment, father, mother, two girls and a +boy." + +"And you wear yourself out over a few minor effects like that, instead +of going at the cause. You may save one or two of those people--none of +them of any value, individually; while the same energy put to the root +of the evil might save thousands--and they _are_ of value in the mass. +Think me calloused if you like, but that's mere common sense economy of +effort. You and I--our class--make them live as they do, and we grow +maudlin over it and take them a little soup and many tracts. But we +won't remit our tithes. We keep them down to breed more misery for the +exercise of our little philanthropic fads. I'm radical, you see." + +She turned her head away with a hand wave that seemed to dismiss an +argument familiar and outworn. + +"I know--but I must do what I can." + +He faced her with a sudden insistent energy. + +"Come away, Nell--come farther off. You're too close to the ugly things +now--you lose the perspective. Come away--and come with me, won't you, +Nell? Come away and live. I must say it--I must ask it--come!" + +He read the inexorable in the lift of her head. + +"I understand, Alden--and I thank you--but no." She glanced across at +him and continued more lightly, "I wasn't meant to go far off--to go +above timber line, as Mr. Ewing would say." + +He felt bitterness rising in him at her mention of the name, but he +laughed it away. + +"You'll always do the hardest thing, Nell. I know that. But I--well, one +of the old heathen--Heraclitus, wasn't it?--remarked that the ass, after +all, would have his thistles rather than much fine gold." + +She laughed. "Dad would say, the more ass he, if he wouldn't." + +"I know--we'd rather have our own particular thistles, each of us. But +to live a day or two before we die, Nell! Come with me--stop trying to +mount the whirlwind. You'll only be thrown." + +Again she shook her head, and gently shaped "No!" with her lips. It was +too unemotionally decisive to warrant of any further urging, and he +became silent, with something of pain in his face that her eye caught. + +"I'm sorry, Alden--I've never liked you better--but I'd rather you +didn't ask." + +"You wouldn't have come before, would you, Nell--three months ago?" And +she answered "No" again, very quickly. + +"I must play my little game out in my own way," she continued. "I must +stay beside some one--beside people--who still have heart for trying." + +"Someone, Nell?" + +She caught her lip. + +"Everyone who has fresh hope and stubbornness in defeat." + +"If you'd let me, Nell--" There was the note of real pleading in his +tone. + +"No, Alden." + +"Friends, though?" he queried, seeming at last convinced. + +She thought there was a trace of bitterness in his voice, but she +answered, "Friends, surely, Alden." + +"We've skirted this thing often, Nell, but you never seemed certain +before." + +"I didn't--I think I never was _quite_ so certain before, Alden--but now +I'm driven all one way." + +"I believe that." He rose and spoke in a livelier manner. "But if you +won't be wise for me, Nell, be wise for some one else. For God's sake +feel a little worry about your health. I say you look unpromising at +this moment." + +"I've always been well," she insisted brightly. + +"And, Nell, I've wanted to be so much more than a friend to you that my +feelings are a bit blurred just now--but I believe I'll always do what a +friend should." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE UNBLAZED WAY + + +Ewing was loath to sleep that night, for in sleep he must leave the +thought of her who, having been only a picture to him, had come suddenly +to life. The magic would have seemed no greater if his own mother had +issued livingly from the canvas. How it had happened he knew not, but +this woman was all at once the living spring of his life. The thought of +her was a golden mist enveloping him. He did not once call it love, but +he thought of the gracious women he had loved in books, and knew she was +all of them in one. + +And once he had been almost careless in her presence! How he marveled at +that now, when he knew that henceforth every approach to her would be an +event. He shuddered at the memory of what he had been saved from--that +swift brute impulse to hold her close against his breast. Must he feel +that always--fight it always, to be blasted if he lost? At least in his +own secret world he was free to treasure each memory of her dearness. +And he could make her glad. He could work as man had not worked before. +He could make her a little glad. + +He feverishly began a drawing for the _Knickerbocker_ the next morning. +Craig, the art editor, had said that he could use six drawings as good +as the two he was shown, and they had decided on scenes that would give +variety to the series. But that was before a Teevan had come into his +life, and now he had lost a month in the dream of satisfying that patron +critic. + +It was good to prove that he could still draw in his own way; he had +suffered so long in that rage of impotence; and he kept to the work +until dusk, making no stop for food, even when the noise of falling +bodies came to mark the luncheon hour. + +When Teevan sauntered in at six the two went to dine at a restaurant. +Ewing had no longer dreaded the meeting. He was ready to show Teevan +that there had been no true failure. But Teevan merely listened to the +bare outline of fact as they threaded a way through the evening crowd. +He made no comment, and Ewing thought this might be due to the +difficulty of conversing in a noisy street. + +But after ordering dinner with a nice deliberation, Teevan spoke +determinedly of other matters. Ewing ventured a humorous reference to +his despair when he left the school, meaning to compel the inference +that he no longer despaired. Teevan languidly mentioned a violinist he +had heard the evening before. + +"--Two Bach numbers, the suite in F minor rather exquisitely done. Bach +wrote tremendously well for the fiddle. Technical skill in the +performer, you ask? Yes, entirely adequate; indeed, he gave rather a +warm reading, really not lacking a certain elevation of style, even a +nobility of utterance. That was quite all of interest, though. The +Dvorak _humoresque_--a thing transcribed from a piano piece and made +sentimental--has one of those effective passages in double notes, +certain to win an encore from the mob; and the twenty-fourth caprice of +Paganini was merely a smart exhibition of harmonic playing--mere squibs +and firecrackers and rockets, the veriest fireworks. Ah, it's small +wonder the world has so few artists when it demands so little." And +Teevan sighed significantly. + +Ewing was chilled by this avoidance of himself, though he could not yet +believe it intentional. + +"I haven't given up," he declared, by way of reminding Teevan. "You +shall see that I'm stubborn." + +Teevan affected to study a group of diners at a neighboring table as he +replied: + +"Oh, yes, I gather that you left the school when you found it +difficult." + +"But you see----" + +"This soup is worth while, really. Soup is surprisingly difficult. Yet +the world believes perfect soups to be plentiful." He sighed again. "It +merely shows the vitality of error." + +Ewing felt his woman-given courage leaving him at this attack, or rather +at this lack of attack. He had been prepared to have his friend exhibit +doubt, disbelief, chagrin--anything that would still show an +undiminished esteem. But the intimate note had gone from Teevan's +speech. He talked at large as Ewing had heard him talk to roomfuls of +people. + +"Ah, yes, the vitality of error. Give the world a lie about soup or +souls, and you'll not soon worry that lie away. It's clutched with a +bulldog jaw. Say good soup is common--God-fearing Christians echo the +lie. Say Berkeley denies the existence of matter, and men with Berkeley +at hand repeat you. Say Locke denies all knowledge except through the +medium of the senses, and students of Locke pass on the absurdity. Bacon +was by no means the first thinker to proclaim the deficiencies of the +Aristotelian philosophy--a system already in disrepute when he wrote the +'Instauration.' Yet in our crude yearning for concreteness, for specific +idols, we laud him as the father of the inductive philosophy--as if +induction weren't an inevitable process in any mind grown beyond +primitive concepts. Gad! I had a dog once that used induction a dozen +times a day, and he'd never so much as heard of Bacon." + +Thus he wandered afield during the dinner, with airs of a bored but +conscientious host, and Ewing fell lower of heart at each of his +periods. He hoped for his chance when the coffee came, but Teevan gave +him no opening. The brandy sufficed for his text. We were not +brandy-drinkers, unhappily enough--"the wholesomest of all spirits, the +distilled essence of cognac grapes, the magic cup of Circe, 'her Orient +liquor in a crystal glass'--and we know as little how to drink a liqueur +brandy as we know how to buy it. We gulp it from these straight glasses, +when it should be taken in sips from a glass small at the top, a glass +first warmed in the palm of the hand. Only so may we capture the +bouquet, that elusive fragrance of the May-vine blossom, that wraith of +spring-perfumes." + +Ewing was still unjustified when the waiter helped them on with their +coats, and then he was dismayed to observe that Teevan apparently meant +to leave him. The little man held out his hand with "So glad to have had +your company--another time--I shall see you again, I hope." + +"Please come back with me. I'd like to talk to you--to ask your advice." +He felt himself an outcast. + +Teevan's response, a surprised but coldly polite assent, did not lighten +his dejection as they walked back to the studio in silence. + +But once there the little man no longer avoided talk of his young +friend's fiasco. He let it be seen that another illusion, one fondly +cherished, he need not say, had been shattered. He gave the impression +that he had talked of other things to forget this--an inadequate device, +he let it be inferred. + +Ewing confessed his own despondency of the night before, but told how a +woman had given him new courage. + +"Not the least injury they do us," remarked Teevan of women, somewhat +snappishly, "is to wheedle us into taking our failures lightly." That +were especially baneful to the artist, it seemed; by his very +temperament was he exposed to their blandishing sophistries. The artist +cult should be a priesthood, aloof, austere, celibate--deaf to the woman +cries of "Never mind!" and "Courage!" and "Another day!" All very well +that, but they shut their pretty eyes to real failures, or, at most, +survey them with a tender air of belittlement that leaves the defeated +one blind to their significance. Speaking largely, the society of women +should be shunned by earnest men intent on achievement. + +Ewing began to feel that possibly he had taken heart too readily. He was +willing to believe this if it would restore him to the little man's +esteem. He pointed timidly to the drawing he had begun that morning, +eager for the word of praise he believed it to merit. + +"Oh, _that_!" Teevan drawled the words, with lifted brows; then went on +to speak of Jean François Millet, unprosperous villager of Barbizon. He +tried--unsuccessfully--to recall an instance when that painter had +debased his art. Not once had he made a cheap picture for a magazine. He +had never put his Muse to the streets. Millet was not pigeon-livered. + +Ewing leaned forward in his chair, his head between his hands. He saw +that the mere sale of drawings would be a savorless success, if it +bereft him of this plain-speaking but just friend. More, it would leave +him small in the eyes of a woman who was now even more than Teevan. He +got up doggedly, seized the drawing and began to break the tough bristol +board, getting it into four pieces at length and flinging these into the +grate. He was unable to resist a secret fond look at the lines he had +made with such loving care. Teevan's eyes glistened now, and he held out +a hand to Ewing. + +"Ah--you give me hope. Bravo!" + +"Then you do believe in me; you think I have it in me?" + +"Power? Yes; I've seen that. I judge men rather accurately. But I saw +that you'd be tempted to rest. The more power, the greater the +temptation. It's not so hard to fast in a desert--the less gifted man is +less tempted. But to fast with plenty at hand for the reaching, and fair +women to counsel content--to refuse apples and flagons, waiting for the +ultimate jewel--that takes a _man_. It demands one--there's a certain +street saying--who can 'stand the gaff.'" + +"And you really think I can stand it? I feel more than ever that I want +to succeed." + +Teevan beamed on him almost affectionately. "I almost suspect----" + +"You shall see that I can," Ewing broke in, but what he thought was, +"_She_ will see it." + +"It's a matter of endurance," resumed Teevan genially. "Genius is no +endowment of supreme gifts. Every man of us has something latent that +would set him apart. Genius is only the capacity for expressing +that--that phase of yourself which differentiates you from all other +selves. Of course only a few succeed. Most of us succumb to the general +pressure to be alike. Yet--I almost believe in you." + +Ewing regarded him with glad eyes, touched by this stanch yet discerning +adherence. + +Returning home that night Teevan, in his library, took down a Bible and +searched for a passage he only half recalled. He found it at last, one +wherein the God of Israel thunders, not without humor, against the foes +of His chosen tribe. + +"I will send a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies; +and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as +fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth." He +chuckled delightedly as he read it, and wiped tears of mirth from his +eyes. + +So it befell that Ewing forsook the beaten road of minor achievement +that winter, and labored toward the far, high peaks. In his own phrase, +the trail was rough and blind. Preceding climbers had not been +thoughtful to "blaze" it. But he grudged no effort while he had the +little man's applause. And this was not lacking, though it was discreet +applause, promoting no slothful content. + +It was Ewing who suggested that he paint under the criticism of +Sydenham. The little man looked at him in doubt, seeming to suspect a +jesting insincerity, then burst into hearty, hand-clapping laughter, +crying, "Splendid! An inspiration, indeed! On my word, I hadn't thought +of anything half so brilliant." + +And Ewing began to paint; to paint like Sydenham, if he might--cloud +studies, bits of street perspective, stretches of river, a realistic +view of the roofs from his window, with their water butts, chimney pots, +and clothes lines. Baldwin looked in once, and carried a word below to +the men who sold things: the word "Awful!" He also ventured a friendly +remonstrance to Ewing. "If you're going to paint, for God's sake go to +some man who knows how!" + +Ewing referred to Teevan's conviction that Sydenham was the ideal master +for him, and to the attested fact that Teevan knew painting and +painters. + +"Then I don't understand Teevan," was Baldwin's puzzled response. + +"But I'm coming on--Teevan says so." + +Baldwin ventured another look at the canvas in hand and fled below. + +Teevan was watchful and permitted few chances for meddling of this sort. +He contrived to be with Ewing most of the time when Sydenham was not. +And Ewing never tired of Sydenham. If they walked the streets together +the old man would direct his eye to some unnoticed felicity of color on +the walls that shut them in, to bits of enchanting perspective, to +subtle plays of light and shade in unpromising spots. Or if they sat +alone at night the painter told of color in the world beyond the sea; +how from the top of Mont Blanc the stars are seen at midday, points of +vivid light in a dark blue-violet field; of the purple nights of the +desert, the stars but an arrowshot above; of the cold, pale silvers of +dawn in the desert, and the heated gold and scarlet of evening; of the +impossible blue of the bay of Naples. His face glowed to such +youthfulness at these times that Ewing would forget his futile years +until the sigh came. + +"But I've always seen too much. Only the fountain of Juventius could +have given me time enough. I'm like the lad in the school-reader tale +who reached into the jar of nuts and tried to withdraw his hand +full--and lost them all." + +Between Ewing and Teevan there was even a new bond. Ewing discovered +that money inevitably left one's pocket in New York, even if it vanished +under auspices less violent and less obscure than Ben had so gloomily +feared. The steady dribble was quite as effective. When he awoke to this +great fiscal truth he saw that some condescension of effort would be +required. He must sell enough drawings to sustain him modestly. He +broached this regrettable necessity to Teevan, wishing the little man to +understand that, in making a few things for money, he was guilty of no +treachery to the Teevan ideal. But Teevan, much to his embarrassment, +had extended the full hand of bestowal. + +He was hurt when Ewing demurred; then annoyed that so petty an obstacle +should retard a progress so splendid. He never dared to suspect a +decadence in the resolution of his young friend. + +Ewing was cut by his distress, stung by his doubt, and persuaded by his +logic. He accepted Teevan's money, though not without instinctive +misgiving. There were moments when he traitorously wondered if it might +not be better for him to lack a friend with ideals so rigid. And more +than once he suffered the disquieting suspicion of some unreality in and +through it all--his intimacy with Teevan, and his desertion of a trail +whose beginnings, at least, he knew. There was sometimes a faint ring of +artificiality in the whole situation. Yet Teevan's heartiness and his +certainty--the felicitous certainty of a star in its course--always +dispelled this vague unquiet, and at last it brought Ewing a new +pleasure to remember that an actual, material obligation--one increasing +at measured intervals--now existed between them. + +He had never spoken openly to Mrs. Laithe of his intimacy with Teevan. +The little man had conveyed his wish of this by indirect speech. He +would have liked to tell her of the solace and substantial benefits of +their comradeship, to dwell upon the shining merits of this whole-souled +but modest benefactor--for Teevan caused his charge to infer that a +shame of doing good openly inspired his hints--but he had, perforce, to +let the praise die unspoken. + +Nor did he speak often of Mrs. Laithe to Teevan, for the little man was +not only bitter as to woman's influence on the life artistic, but +inclined to hold the sex lightly, it seemed, in a much wider aspect. And +he spoke, Ewing was sure, out of a ripe experience. He had no difficulty +in detecting, under the little man's self-depreciating talk, that Teevan +had ever been a power among women, and was not even yet invincibly +averse to gallant adventure; not yet a man to be resisted. He was far +from bluntly confessing this, but sometimes, when the brandy was low in +the decanter, he would tacitly admit a romantic past; romantic, perhaps, +to the point of turbulence. And once, when there was no brandy left, he +spoke of specific affairs, particularly of one the breaking off of which +was giving him the devil's own worry. + +"Gad! She's bent on sacrificing everything for me!" + +Ewing innocently murmured words about marriage as an honorable estate. + +"Marriage!" said Teevan, and Ewing blushed, noting his tone and the lift +of his brows. + +"Poor, silly, romantic fools!" sighed Teevan. "One would find it +difficult to say what they see in me, I fancy." + +Ewing murmured polite protestations. But less than ever did he feel +moved to speak of Mrs. Laithe to the little man. It did not seem +fitting. "Don Juan" had been among the verse with which the lake cabin +was supplied. + +Not even when Mrs. Laithe was taken off to Florida by her father did he +speak her name, though he was filled with her good-by to him. There had +seemed to be so much between them, and yet so little of it that could +come to words. But he carried for long the last look of her eyes, and he +set to his work with a new resolve. There was incentive enough. Teevan +never let him forget that he required signs and miracles, like the +doubting ones of old. And she--she knew he would perform them. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A LADY BLUSHES + + +As the winter wore on Ewing fell into doubt and dread. Vague enough they +were, but they rested on a sickening effect of emptiness, a time blank +of achievement. He still regarded Teevan as quite all of the seven +pillars of the house of wisdom. Yet instinct was rebelling. There were +tired afternoons when he hungered to eat of the fruit of his own way. + +This feeling could not but show in his occasional letters to Mrs. +Laithe. She read through all his protestations of cheerfulness to the +real dejection beneath them, and was both troubled and mystified, raging +at his secretiveness. + +When she returned to New York on a day in April and found a note from +Mrs. Lowndes asking her to dine that evening, she accepted with a plan +in mind. Before she saw Ewing she would try to learn something about him +from Sydenham, for Sydenham would also dine with Mrs. Lowndes, and she +knew that Ewing had been painting with the old man. + +She found Birley the other guest, and that, too, was customary. Birley +and Sydenham preserved for their hostess a certain aroma of her youth. +Both had wooed her in the long ago; Sydenham in a day when Long Branch +was. On its sands in the light of a July moon she had prettily hoped +they might always be friends. Birley had heard her intone the same +becoming sentiment at Saratoga later in the season. And both rejected +ones had been present at St. Paul's on a day in the following June when +Kitty Folsom and Jack Lowndes had consented together in holy wedlock. + +The girl's hope, perfunctory enough at the time, one may fear, had seen +long years of fruition. She liked to have them at her table now. Only, +when the three were alone, they remembered too vividly and became, in +the silences, too fantastically unlike their aged selves to the misty +eyes of one another. The one-time belle found a little of that +forgetting and remembering to be salutary, so little as ensued when a +fourth guest was present. And Eleanor Laithe had often been that fourth, +a saving reminder of the present, to recall them when they had loitered +far enough back into the old marrying years. + +But she came this night with a reason beyond her wish to please. So +eager was she to ask Sydenham about Ewing that she gave scant attention +to the searching looks and queries of Birley when she entered the +drawing room. The big man rallied her on her pallor and frailness, but +with a poor spirit that hardly concealed his real misgiving. She +silenced him with impatient denials of illness, but his eyes lingered +anxiously on her face. + +She sat at table with but half an ear for their old-time gossip, the +bantering gallantries of the aged swains, and the outworn coquetries of +the one-time beauty. And when they fell silent--oftener now than was +their wont, for each was thinking of that other Kitty Lowndes, who had +taken matters into her own hands--she forgot to make talk, silent +herself for thinking on the son of that Kitty. The dinner lacked the +sparkle she had been expected to give it. + +As they were about to rise, after coffee, she playfully petitioned for a +chat with Sydenham. + +"Herbert wants to smoke, and I want to sit here with him. We need a +little talk together," she explained. And the other two left them, the +old lady leaning on the arm of Birley. + +Sydenham lighted a cigar, pushed his chair back, and faced the woman who +looked eagerly at him across the disordered table, her arms along its +edge, her head tilted to a questionable angle. She flew to her point. + +"What about Gilbert Ewing--what trouble is he having?" + +Sydenham stared vacantly. He seemed to find it necessary to translate +the question into some language of his own. + +"Trouble? Oh, all sorts--chrome and indigo, yellow ocher, burnt umber, +rose madder, Chinese white--composition, light and shade, vanishing +points. You'd have to be one of us to understand." + +"Other trouble," she insisted sharply--"personal--not about his +painting." + +Sydenham stared again, clutching his beard in a dazed search for +inspiration. He did not consider people apart from painting. It was +impossible that anyone should wish to discuss Ewing except in relation +to colors and canvas. + +"Well, he has trouble with everything--composition, tone-values, +everything." + +"But something _not_ painting." + +He looked up at the ceiling helplessly. + +"Well, I fancy Randy Teevan worries him." + +"Randall Teevan!" She was amazed and alarmed at once. + +"Sometimes I get the idea that Randy badgers him, though they're thick +as thieves. The boy wouldn't breathe if Randy said it was bad for the +lungs." + +"How long have they been friends?" + +By quick, nervous, point-blank queries she drew from him all that he +knew of this intimacy. She puzzled over it. + +"Can he know?" She had not meant him to hear this, but he caught the +words, and betrayed something like human interest. + +"Trust Randy for that! I found it out myself. He had Kitty's +portrait--Kitty to the life--stunning brush work. Randy has begged the +picture of him for a while. I fancy he didn't want it hanging there for +others to see. And he found the fellow here one afternoon. Kitty told +me. She was nearly taken off her feet by his story but Randy happened in +and cooled things down. It's queer, Randy's setting himself to win over +the chap. It's a puzzle-mix. I wonder about it sometimes when the light +goes." + +She had listened in consternation, a rage for battle rising in her. She +was sure Teevan must have some end in view hurtful to Ewing. Yet this +was cunningly hidden. She was still puzzling over this when Sydenham +recalled her. He had forgotten Ewing, and studied the red light that +fell across the table through a shade of silk. + +"What fools we are to think of painting shadows! If heaven's the place +it's said to be they'll have real shadows put in up tubes, and +then--well, _think_ of it!" + +She laughed at him, her brief laugh, with a sigh to follow. + +"We must go to the others. But, Herbert, you'll watch him as well as +you can, won't you? I feel responsible for him in a way." + +He hesitated, but the light came. "Oh, you mean Ewing? Of course I'll +watch him. I dare say he'll paint some day, after a fashion." He fumbled +for the knob and awkwardly opened the door for her. + +When the men went Mrs. Laithe asked if she might not linger a moment. + +"Dear Aunt Kitty!" she said, going to the other's chair. "_Old_ Kitty!" +she repeated meaningly. The elder woman glanced quickly at her in faint +alarm, half questioning, half defiant. + +"Oh, Aunt Kitty! I know--I _know_! and I must talk of him. I suspected +something almost from the first, and then I made sure. But I thought +that perhaps no one else would find it out. And he was worth it--he is +worth it. I couldn't have left him there, even if I'd been sure that +everyone would know. He was a man--he had the right to live." + +"My child, my child! Oh, you didn't know what you were doing! It was a +monstrous thing, an impossible thing!" + +"He's Kitty's son. You must feel for him." + +"Feel? What haven't I felt since that day he came here?" There had been +a break in her voice, but she went quietly on. "I can't make you know, +dear. You've torn me--it will hurt to the end. Can you understand that +in a terrible, an unspeakable way, my Kitty is still alive, is near me, +and yet is not to be known? But you can't understand it. You've never +had a child." + +"Ah! but I've been one. I know what he would feel." + +"Please, dear!" She put up a hand in protest. "As if I don't feel his +hurt and Kitty's as well as mine. I shall be ground between the two +every day of my life. Do you think my old arms didn't cry out to be +around the mother in him? But think if I had yielded! Picture his own +suffering--his own shame. Can you see us meeting, our eyes falling? Even +for his own sake, he must never know." + +"Isn't there a way, Aunt Kitty? Some way? He's worth finding a way for." +She leaned over to stroke the other's hand. + +"No way, my girl. Be the world a moment, be cool. He's a nameless thing. +You might know him, but nothing more. Could he make a life? Could a +woman--come, face it without prejudice--could you see your own sister +marry him?" Mrs. Laithe looked blank. + +"You see how impossible it is. You, yourself, could _you_ stand before +the world with him? Could you face the shame?" + +The younger woman dropped the hand she held and turned away. The elder +regarded her shrewdly. + +"There--you see how impossible----" + +But the other faced her suddenly, clear-eyed and defiant, her head back. + +"Eleanor!" It was a cry of consternation that was yet softened by +tenderness, an amazed but comprehending tenderness, for the face of the +younger woman was incarnadined, flagrantly, splendidly. + +A moment they held each other. But there was no mistaking the thing, +for, though the blush had quickly faded, an after glow lingered. + +The older woman rose quickly to throw her arms about the other. + +"My mad, mad child!" She stood off to search her face incredulously. + +"He's alone, Aunt Kitty, and he's so defenseless. He believes in +everyone more than in himself. He'll be cured of that some time, but +just now I'm his only defender. Others are against him or stand neutral +with talk of the 'world.' I can't blame you, dear, I think you must be +right for yourself. But when he does awaken"--she narrowed her eyes on +the other a moment in calculation--"then I shan't be ashamed to have him +know it was always safe to believe in me--whether he was boy or man or +no one at all--or less than no one. I'd never bother about names, +dear--I'd never bother about names." + +She smiled and drew the other close with little reassuring caresses. +"You see names aren't much--the directory is full of them, and dreary +enough reading they'd make. No, I'd not care for that. I'd only ask that +he believe in himself as much as I believe in him, and care as little +for names. And I warn you I mean to help him to that if I can." + +The eyes of the other sparkled now. There was in her glance the excited +admiration of a timid child who watches a reckless playmate dare some +dark passage of evil repute for goblins. + +"You mad--dear mad girl!" she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE DRAMA IN NINTH STREET + + +Ewing knew that his lady had come back. She had sent him a note the +first day: "I am dining to-night with an old friend. But come to-morrow +night." + +The next day, while he was saying, "To-night I shall see her--actually +see her...." there had come another note in her careless, scrawled +writing: "I find, after all, that I shall be engaged to-night. Can you +not come to-morrow night instead? I am eager for a talk with you." + +"Could" he come! He laughed as he put the thing tenderly away. Could he +come, indeed! Could he stay away? + +But early in the evening of that same forbidden day he walked to Ninth +Street, entering that thoroughfare furtively. He might not see her for +another day, but at least he could look fondly at the door by which she +had entered, and gaze on the stanch house that enfolded her, even on the +steps that must have felt her light, quick tread, perhaps within the +hour. + +These things would help him to believe in her actuality--she had so come +to seem but a dream lady to him. + +Thrice he passed the house on the opposite side of the street. A dim +light glowed through the curtained windows. Beyond them, he thought, she +would be talking; laughing, perhaps; perhaps even thinking of him at +that very moment as she gazed absently at some speaker who thought to +have her attention. If only she, too, could be counting the hours! But +that was too unlikely. He warned himself not to imagine that. He +recalled some of Teevan's speeches about women--"Shallow, pretty fools, +for man's amusing--the Oriental alone, my boy, has a sane theory of +women; creatures to be kept as choice cabinet bits--under lock and key." +Poor Teevan, not to have known the one woman who could have illumined +his darkness! Poor Teevan, indeed! He idly wondered if his affair--that +troublesome affair of which the little man had spoken so feelingly--had +been "broken off." + +He slowly walked once more past the Bartell house, beholding a splendid +vision of himself as he would leap up those steps the next evening. Then +he continued on past Teevan's house, regarding that, also, with great +kindness. He stopped a little beyond this, meaning to return. As he did +so the door opened and a woman came out. He thought there was something +furtive in her glance up and down the street as she paused to gather up +her skirts. Then something familiar in the feminine grace of that +movement chained him. Surely, but one person had ever done the thing in +just that way. There could be no other. He stood staring while she came +down the steps and into the light of a street lamp. It was Mrs. Laithe, +walking briskly now, toward her own home. He could not mistake that +free-swinging, level, deliberate stride, with the head so finely up. + +He almost cried out to her in his gladness. He felt as a lost child who +wildly claims its own again in some crowded street. He walked back +quickly, watching her until her own door swallowed her up. + +He felt a lively rejoicing. The unpromising evening had done well by him +after all. Thinking but to look tenderly at a house front he had +veritably seen his lady--watched her with secret, unrestrained fondness. +He had an impulse to follow now and demand her at the door. But he +remembered in time; she would be engaged and he would see her soon. That +long look was adventure enough for one night. + +But he could ring Teevan's bell. That would be a fine thing to do, for +Teevan had seen her. Teevan would speak of her, little knowing how his +words were hungered for. He was admitted and found the little man on the +hearth rug in the library, talking to himself with great animation. He +showed surprise, but his welcome was warmer than usual, Ewing thought. +He seated his guest and proffered him brandy, pouring a glass for +himself from a decanter almost empty. As he drank he beamed shrewdly on +Ewing--kindly but shrewdly. "He must have seen her--he must have seen +her ..." the little man was saying. Then a vagrant, elfish vanity smote +him. He smiled inscrutably on Ewing--Ewing, who had been waiting to say +lightly, "I happened to see Mrs. Laithe leaving...." But he did not say +this, for the little man's smile came to life in speech. + +"Gad! my boy--I'm deuced glad you came. You can make me forget a most +distressing half hour I've just gone through." + +The light in Ewing's eyes changed perceptibly. + +"Oh, these women!" grumbled Teevan pleasantly, with the fine, humorous +resignation of a persecuted gallant. + +"Women--women?" muttered Ewing, slightly aghast. Teevan's heart beat +blithely within his breast. + +"Silly, romantic fools! What _do_ they see in a man of my years?" He +flourished a gesture of magnificent deprecation. "I think I once +mentioned a very irksome affair--" How he blessed, now, that bit of +boasting, vague and aimless at the time! "The lady, I blush to say it, +becomes exigent. But I'm rightly served. Heaven knows I've seen enough +of that sort of thing to know how it ends. But come"--he rose to a +livelier manner--"I shouldn't bore you with a matter I'm half ashamed +of, man of the world as I am. You'll sound the ennui of it, all in your +own good time, when you've lost a few of those precious illusions." He +broke off to ring, and directed the man to replenish the decanter. + +Ewing gazed stupidly at him, failing of speech. The little man drank +again when the brandy came, and Ewing wondered if he could be drunk. He +feared not. The men he had known in the hills were noisy in drink--they +chiefly yelled. And Teevan was quiet. If his eyes stared vacantly at +intervals, if he clipped syllables from his words, and seemed to attack +his speech with extreme caution, those might be only the results of his +emotion. But what monstrous stuff was this he uttered! What unbelievable +stuff! In a fever of apprehension he wondered what Teevan would say +next. + +But the little man dismissed woman, dismissed her with an exquisite +shrug, to speak of his young friend's work, and of painting at large. + +"A suggestion of the true manner in that late thing of yours, my boy, +really, a hint of Dupré, and he was a colorist of the first rank. And +there are fewer colorists, genuine masters of tone, than you'd think. +Turner was one, to be sure, but Millet had a restricted sense of color. +Corot was great only within a narrow range. Rousseau was only a bit +broader, robuster. There's a wretchedly defective color sense in many of +the old masters, and in heaven knows how many of the young ones. France +must take the blame for that, I'm sure you'd agree with me. The academic +sentiment there runs to form and against color. They insist that +colorists do little work. It's not an unplausible sophism. One has only +to begin counting to see that--counting the host of little niggling, +mechanical stipplers it's responsible for. It's true, color has its +pitfalls and its gins. There's a temptation to shirk form. Many an +aspiring colorist has become at last a mushy mannerist, as vicious in +his influence as the chaps who never get beyond smart drawing and clever +grouping." The little man was "squeezing" his eyes now as if he judged a +row of paintings. He talked on and drank frequently. + +But Ewing left as soon as he could do so. Teevan pressed his hand with +rare cordiality at parting, as if Ewing were one person in the world +still worthy of belief. He wandered blindly home, awkwardly trying to +mold this new chaos into an understandable scheme of things. He fell +instinctively back on his studies of the drama. + +Many nights he had sat before the painted curtain to feast a questing +mind on the life it lifted to reveal. He had found its revelations more +intimate, more specific, than those of the life outside, and he had +seemed to learn many things. Lacking this study he would not have +divined that actual men and women might be leading lives of domestic +adventure, of romantic vicissitude, of sinister intrigue, lives crowded +with love and hate and fear and a thousand lawless complexities. + +He had studied the street crowds in the light thus thrown on their inner +motives. It had been a fine thing to detect the plotting scoundrel under +the placid, dissembling mask of some fellow who bought an evening paper +and boarded a street car with elaborate airs of innocence; to probe the +secret of the unhappy wife whose white face stared blankly from a +passing brougham; to identify the handsome but never culpable hero, +unconscious of third-act toils tightening about him; to know the +persecuted heroine, or the manly but comic chap who loved her with +exquisite restraint, divining that she could never be his. + +But, though he had stripped the masks from these mummers in the street +crowds, and read their secrets of guilt or innocence, he had not +supposed that the people he actually knew could be leading lives +complicated in that way. And if Teevan had talked, then Teevan must have +been drunk. He would see her to-morrow night, and she would speak +casually of her call at Teevan's upon some trifling errand. + +Yet, when night came again and he stood in her presence, the first +devouring look at her shocked him momentarily out of all thought of +Teevan's maunderings. She was drooping and wasted and flatly pale. He +scarcely knew her face, with the eyes burning at him from black rings. +He took her hand, nursing it gently, standing helpless and hurt before +her. + +"You are so changed," he said fearfully, "so changed! Oh, you are so +changed!" + +But she laughed with her familiar gayety, tossing her head in denial. He +still scanned her face. Some resemblance there, some sinister memory of +her look on another face, was stirring him. He could almost remember +what it meant. At last her eyes fell before his and she drew her hand +quickly away. + +"Really, I won't have any talk of myself. I hear too much of that. I'm a +bit run down, that's all. We found Florida enervating. Even dad was +affected by it and forgot his philosophy. So, an end to that. I must +hear of you, of your work." + +She sat down, drawing a white scarf about her shoulders, and leaning +toward him in the old inviting way. + +"Tell me what you have done--everything there is to tell about it." + +All at once he remembered. + +"Last night," he began uneasily--"I wanted to see you last night--" + +"You couldn't have seen me last night." She smiled in a way that brought +out all the weak, wasted look of her face. "I was busy--I was trying to +adjust something that has troubled me more than I can tell you." + +He stared at her, incredulous, believing he could not have heard. + +"... an affair that has worried me," she repeated, noticing his blank +look. + +Stupefied as he was, he felt a great pity rush over him, an instant +longing to be her knight and give battle for her--to be her squire, if +she herself must be knight. Yet, if Teevan had spoken truly must it not +be a thing in which he was powerless to help her ever so little? A +sudden sickness of rage came over him at thought of Teevan. He had +almost made a jest of her. + +He could not talk of himself after that. She could get nothing from him +of his own worries, though she could see that he had these in abundance. +At last she tired of striving against him and let him go, out of sheer +longing for the touch of his hand at parting. He had regarded her with a +moody, almost savage tenderness that made her weak. + +As he walked home he felt new to the streets again. They were strange +streets in a strange world. But one thing he was sure of; one thing +stood clearly out of the puzzle: he must not intrude, must not bother +her; must not see her often. In a drama so alien to him he could not act +without direction. He knew his own longing too well to trust himself. He +sat a long time with his arms clasped across his breast. The anguish in +it seemed physical; it was as if a beast were devouring his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A REVOLT + + +He turned furiously to his work, but, as the summer came on, he realized +that he was working with a desperation entirely heartless. He was not +only sure, now, that he had taken a wrong road, but that nameless +distress of his lady had left his desire benumbed. A fountain had gone +dry in him. + +At the beginning of the warm days he went into the country on sketching +trips with Sydenham. To vales and little rivers north of the city, to +flat, green stretches on Long Island, to the Jersey hills, they had gone +with sketch traps wherever trolley or steam car could find Nature +quickly for them. + +Ewing had looked forward to this. He had felt hampered in the studio, +where he must pass whole days in futile messing with colors, in rash +trials of this or that trick of tint, like an idling schoolboy playing +with slate and pencil. Once in the open, he had felt, there would +quickly show forth those gifts which Teevan was certain he possessed. + +But day by day these excursions with the old painter had brought him to +believe that he had lost his way. That trick of color was not to be +learned, it was clear, by rough-and-ready advances. Teevan, who was ever +watchful of him, who betrayed, indeed, a strange little jealousy of any +other influence than his own, scanned his first studies eagerly, and +turned an inscrutable face on his young friend. He did not praise +loosely; he did not condemn outright. And he talked not too specifically +of the canvases before him. He showed little consciousness of a change +in the demeanor of his disciple, though Ewing's eye rested on him with a +long, unaccountable regard. Perhaps the boy was turning a little sullen. +This amused him. Meanwhile, the youth stood aghast before the dreadful +thing he saw in his heart. Hatred of a benefactor! All the good in him +struggled against it; all his gratitude pleaded with him to be fair to +the friend he had revered so long. Teevan talked more of Corot or +Constable, Diaz or Millet than he talked of Ewing; and the young man +came at last to the amazing conclusion not only that he was on a wrong +road, but that Teevan knew it--that the little man must long have known +it. This put him again in that rage of impotence that had seized him in +those last days at the League. But he bore it longer now. He felt there +was something final about this. + +There were long days in the open to think on it, weigh it, and wring the +meaning from it. Sydenham placidly criticised his work; but Sydenham +could not feel his tragedy of defeat. A man who, at seventy, suffered +his own despairs with the poignant ecstasy of youth, could not take a +boy's failings seriously. Ewing now saw, moreover--for he was beginning +to use another pair of eyes than Teevan's--that Sydenham himself was a +hopeless mannerist, a color-mad voluptuary, painting always +subjectively, refusing all but the merest hints from his subject. + +His last day of confessed futility, his last hour of inner rebellion, +came early in June. He carried his sketch trap out that day, but did not +unpack it. He lay, instead, pondering, resolving, raging, while +Sydenham, a little distance off, delicately corrected the errors of +Nature in a vista of meadow. Ewing chewed the juicy ends of long-stemmed +grasses and made phrases of disparagement for this sketch of Sydenham's, +picturing himself with the courage to utter them. He told himself +frankly what he thought of the old man's work--his "brush doddering," he +nerved himself to call it. + +Immensely refreshed by this exercise in brutality, he rolled over on his +grassy bed to follow the shade of the oak under which he lay, and +dramatized a meeting with Teevan, in which the little man strangely +listened more than he spoke. He uttered his mind again concerning the +work of Sydenham, the master Teevan had prescribed, asserting that +unsuspecting toiler to be hopelessly "locoed" in the matter of color. He +saw Teevan's fine brows go elegantly up at this term, and he explained +it to him with a humble sort of boldness. + +From this he warmed to sheer audacity, disclosing further to his +imagined hearer that the time had come for him to go his own way--still +grateful for advice, still yearning for that friendly intimacy, but +determined to be done with dreams. He saw Teevan applauding this mild +declaration of revolt, with his fine, dark little smile, and a courteous +inclination of the head, and he thereupon amplified it. He must go back +to himself and stay there stubbornly, wheresoever that self led him. +Millet might have a restricted sense of color, Corot might have had his +faults, and Rousseau have been less than Teevan could have wished him; +but these were dead men. And Ewing was alive, determined to do those +things that permitted him to feel the little power he might have. He was +through with efforts that brought him nothing but a sense of the folly +of all effort. And it was to this conviction, he made it plain, that his +amazed but still respectful listener had led him. He worked himself into +a glow of defiant self-assertion, feeling his own respect, and Teevan's +as well, mounting with his heat. + +When the light faded he strolled over to look at Sydenham's sketch, bent +on testing his self-inspired temerity. + +"I wonder if you've gotten that sky?" he began judicially, as the old +man invited his comment. Sydenham looked up in some surprise, but +Ewing's eyes were still on the sketch. + +"Too gray above, isn't it? I thought the gray was only down near the +horizon. By the way, I wish I'd roughed in that cow for you. A cow isn't +the easiest thing in the world to draw. They look easy, but they're not. +That bit of stone wall isn't bad, and your clover effect is first rate." +He paused. He had meant only to practice speaking his own mind against +the next interview with Teevan. He did not want to hurt Sydenham. The +latter was roping his stool and easel together. He had been a little +amazed at his pupil's outburst, but he looked up with a smile entirely +placid. + +"That's the way they all say it. You've caught the trick of art +criticism, my boy, if you've caught nothing else." + +Ewing saw that he was laughed at. There was a cool little flash to his +retort. + +"I can make that into a real cow for you, if you like, after we get +home." + +But the old man only chuckled at him, making him regret that he had ever +so little curbed his criticism. He had an impulse to fight, a craving +to arouse resistance. But he saw that Sydenham was no target for him, +save in a sort of subcaliber practice. He hoped this novel combativeness +would not wither under the first glance of Teevan's sharp little eyes. + +It was dusk when they reached the city, and Ewing went to the Monastery +to dine. He had long shunned the place, for the men there talked of +things they had done or were doing, and they had made him, without +meaning to, feel "out of it," as he told himself. For he, if he talked, +could tell only of wonders he meant to do, and, lacking an audience +composed of Teevans, he was shrewd enough to see that these would sound +too wonderful and the future too distantly vague. + +He had always been glad, however, of his drawing on the east wall. They +could not believe him wholly lacking after that, nor refuse him +fellowship if he sought it. He avoided the crowd when he entered the +room--the men he knew best were at a long table on the rear veranda just +outside the open windows--and chose a small table opposite his drawing. +He had thought of it often during the afternoon while he harangued +Teevan in imagination. It had occurred to him that this was the only +thing he had really done since coming to New York, and he had been +seized with a longing to look at it again, to prove to his own eyes that +the thing which was really his own--not Corot's nor Millet's nor even +Sydenham's--was not an inconsiderable thing, not a thing he need despair +of building on. + +As he ate, his eyes eagerly retraced the lines. After the soup he had to +look down to his plate to know if his fork brought him fish or flesh. +The sketch delighted him. He was surprised that he had been able to do +it. He began to doubt his present mastery of the technique it +displayed, fearing he had wandered too long in the Teevan-prescribed +maze, dawdled too long in the little man's palace of illusions. One +thing he knew: he would not dare mount a table and try another such +drawing before them all. He had done this one as unthinkingly as he +would have saddled a horse or sighted a rifle, indifferent to observers. +It rushed upon him sickeningly that all his association with Teevan had +tended to destroy his belief in himself. The coffee found him +afraid--ragingly afraid. + +The voices from the group outside came to him murmurously, and at +intervals he would listen to the careless, bantering talk. One voice +related that its wielder had smoked opium in Cairo. He heard cries of +mock horror, and the drawl of Chalmers--"Cairo--that's where the +'streets' come from." Griggs was presently extolling some ancient and +wonderful sherry. "Great stuff! You take a sip and you don't swallow +it--it just floats off through your being like a golden mist. He only +has about a dozen bottles--out of a lot that was put down for Napoleon +or somebody in 1830." Baldwin's voice floated in: "All right, old man, +but they had to put it down a long way to reach Napoleon in 1830." + +There was a laugh at this, and it came to the lone listener as the +care-free echo of a world he had tried for and lost. Lost thus far--but +there was farther to go, other days to live, other wise men to counsel +with. He could have believed it heartily, if it were not for that +thought of Mrs. Laithe, the thought that was always like a beast +devouring his heart. Meantime, if he could only have a breathing spell, +some days of quiet. He wished his own hills were not so far away. He +was sure that a little time back in the cabin studio would give him his +old bearings. + +His thought ran to Mrs. Laithe's brother, who had come to town the week +before, bronzed and bearded and violent with enthusiasm for his Western +life. He decided that a talk with Bartell would be tonic to his mood; +the bare mention of familiar names and places would hearten him--of the +Wimmenuche and Bar-7, Old Baldy and Dry Fork. And perhaps he had seen +Ben lately; the two might even have driven down to Pagosa together. + +And it would be an excuse for seeing her. For two months he had sought +her only thus, with something he could hold in his mind as an excuse, +for he was abashed by that nameless thing that troubled her, and +troubled, as well, the little man who had meant so much to him--for +Teevan, when the brandy was low, continued to speak of women. + +He walked quickly round to the house in Ninth Street, where he asked for +Bartell. But only Mrs. Laithe was at home. This embarrassed him, great +as was his solicitude for her. She had sought his confidence more than +once of late, but he could not tell her of doubts only half defined, of +fears vague to absurdity, of anxieties that might well be baseless. He +thought that now he could have talked, finding her alone, but for once +she seemed rather curiously preoccupied. They sat together in the +library with only a half light, the two windows opened for random +breezes. Suddenly, as her face was toward him, dim though the light was, +he caught the look that had troubled him so hauntingly in the spring. He +knew that look now; it was the look he had seen on his father's face in +the last year of his life--the look of a spirit divesting itself of the +flesh. + +"You _are_ ill," he said, trying to speak lightly under his sudden +alarm. "Let me have a better look at you." He turned the light to a full +blaze. Her wonted paleness was warmed to a sinister flush about the eyes +and the upper face, and, though her eyes flashed bravely at him in +denial, the bones were sharp above her hollowed cheeks, and her once +rounded chin had become lean. She shivered as she spoke. + +"I'm a little exhausted by the heat; nothing more. Lower the light, +please. I don't care to be studied just now." + +"But I know you're not well. You ought to go off some place. Get out to +pasture at once. You've been 'over-packed,' kept too long on the trail." + +"You, too? They all say it. It's so easy to say." + +"And easy to do." + +"It's hard to do, and yet I'm afraid I must. I've felt that I ought to +be here with my charges--you have been one of them." She brightened with +a sudden inspiration. "You need rest yourself. Your face shows it. +You've been depressed a long time, you are worried now. Let us both +rest. My aunt up at Kensington has wanted me there--the aunt my sister +is with. She'd be glad to have you as well. It's a big house and she +likes young people. There! Will you go with me?" + +She rose, waiting, electrified, for his answer. Instantly he felt that +he wished this above all things. There he could find himself, fortify +his soul for any number of Teevans--perhaps fortify her own. + +"I'll go," he answered heartily. "It will be good for us both." + +She fell into her chair with a long "Ah!" then she gave the purring +little laugh, like that of a child made happy. "We shall go for two +blessed weeks and forget this place with its wretched tangles." + +"I'm your man!" he said, rising and taking her hand with his old boyish +enthusiasm. "Can we start early?" + +She kept her hand in his while she laughed again. "The train goes from +the Grand Central at one. I'll wire Aunt Joyce." + +Outside Ewing met Bartell, but he did not talk of the San Juan. + +"You must see to your sister," he said. "She looks the way my father +did. You ought to get her out of here. She's going off for two weeks, +but that won't set her right. Go look at her!" + +Bartell found his sister where Ewing had left her. + +"Well, Nell, how is it now? What did Birley say?" + +She stirred impatiently in her chair. "He wouldn't commit himself. He +told me to rest away from here for two weeks and then come back to see a +specialist he'd send me to, a man who knows--such things." + +"I just met Ewing--he spoke of how badly you look. I'm worried, Nell. +You're not going to be left here." + +"I must tell you something, dear--oh, a ghastly joke, if ever there was +one: You know that one death trap of a tenement I've had so much trouble +with----" + +"Where all those consumptives were? Yes." + +"They've died there like sheep. I had it inspected--I wanted to have the +owner compelled to build it over or something, but we always found that +the law had been cunningly met with--not the spirit of it, but the +letter. The airshafts and drains were bad enough to kill, but not bad +enough to hurt the owner. Yesterday I determined to find out who the +owner was, to make a personal appeal. I was willing to buy the place +myself." + +She stopped in a fit of coughing, a dry, hard, tearing cough that left +her exhausted. + +"Well, Sis?" + +"I went to the agents--this will make you cry or laugh; I did both--and +I found they were my agents--the house was my house." + +"Poor Sis!" + +"One of those Dick left--_mine_, you understand. I've been spending the +blood of those people, eating, wearing, amusing myself with it." + +"Yes, and going down there to get caught in the same trap. I don't see +anything funny about that." + +"Alden Teevan would. I must tell him of it--my own dungeon closing in on +me." + +"Nonsense! You're morbid, girl. Tenements have got to be dirty. Trinity +Church itself has a fine bunch of the worst kind." + +"I'm not a church, dear. This tenement is coming down. I gave orders +to-day." + +"Well, you stay away from it. You're in bad shape, my girl." + +"Two weeks at Kensington will put me right." + +"Two weeks nothing! See here, if you act up, I'll rope you and hustle +you out to the ranch and close herd you there for about six months." + +She smiled weakly at him. + +"I shall be all right, dear--but you can help me upstairs now." + +"Too tired for a roof garden?" + +"I'm afraid so." + +"Or a broiled lobster?" + +"Not to-night, dear." + +He helped her up the stairs, alternately scolding her for her weakness +and protesting that broiled lobsters were all that kept him from +forgetting the existence of Manhattan. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE LITTLE LAND + + +Ewing found Kensington like a village dropped from the clouds of +stageland, its wide, grass-bordered streets arched with giant elms and +flanked by square old houses, drowsing behind their flower gardens and +green lawns. The house to which he went was equally a stage house. Only +in that land of pretense had he seen its like: a big, square, gray +house, its drab slate roof and red chimneys all but hidden by the elms +that towered above it like mammoth feather dusters, its wide piazzas +screened from the street by a hoary hedge of lilac. The house seemed to +drowse in a comfortable lethargy, confident of the rectitude of builders +long dead who had roughhewn its beams and joined them with wooden pins +before a day of nails. In Ewing's own room, far up between the hunched +shoulders of the house, the windows gave closely on one of the elms, so +that he could hear its whispers night and morning from his canopied bed +of four posts. The other rooms were broad and low of ceiling, and there +were long, high-backed sofas, slim-legged chairs, and tables of mahogany +or rosewood, desks, cabinets, and highboys of an outlandish grace, that +charmed with hints of a mellowed past--of past overlaying past in +sleeping strata. + +The woman whose house this was seemed to Ewing to be its true spirit. +She, too, drowsed anciently, a thing of old lace and lavender, yet of a +certain gentle and antique sprightliness, of cheeks preserving a hint of +time-worn pink, mellowed like the scrap of her flowered wedding dress +shut between the leaves of an "Annual" half a century old. + +And Ewing found in the house, too, the girl who had once talked half +an hour with him by an exigent tea table. She had been a thing of shy +restraint then, showing with an almost old-fashioned simplicity +against her background of townish sophistication. Now he found her +demurely modern in this huddle of mellowed relics. She it was who +interpreted for him the antique mysteries of house and town. She +paraded before him the treasures of her aunt, from the pewter plates +and silver-gilt candelabra to camphor-scented brocades long hidden in +cedar chests in the ghostly attic. But she performed her office with +irreverence; as when, in the attic's gloom, she held the festal gown +of some departed great-grandmother before her own robust figure to +show how tiny were grandmothers in those days, for the yoke but a +little more than half spanned her breadth as she smirked above it in +scorn of its narrowness. + +In that subdued light the girl's skin was flawless, her eyes were shaded +to murkiness, and a mote-ridden shaft of sunlight struck her hair to a +radiant yellow. But out of doors these matters could be seen to another +effect. The hair was only a yellowish brown, the eyes lost their shadows +and became the lucid green of sea waves, and the face was spotted with +tiny freckles, like a bird's egg. He liked her best out of doors, +breathing as she did of wood and field and sky. Skirts she seemed to +wear under protest, as a wood nymph might humor, a little awkwardly, the +prejudice of an indoor tribe with which she chose to tarry. When she +raced over the lawn with her dog, it was not hard to see that clothing +was an ungraceful impediment, even the short-skirted gowns she wore by +day. In the longer affairs of evening, though she strove to subdue her +spirits to them, she still had an air of the open, as if she but played +at being a lady and might forget at any moment. Ewing was shyer of her +when evening brought this change of habit. At such times he found it +easier to talk to Mrs. Laithe, who sat--or, oftener, lay--with her eyes +turned from the light, speaking but little. + +"I'm glad to be away from town," she said to him, as he sat a moment +beside her one day, "and I'm glad you're away. I need to be quiet, and +you shall do as you like. Virginia will go about with you and make you +gay. Virginia always makes us gay." + +Unconsciously her hand had fallen on his sleeve, curling and fastening +there, and when he rose he was disturbed to see that he had shaken off +so tender a thing. + +"I didn't know you were holding me," he said, in apology, and lifted the +fallen hand. + +"Such foolish hands! Your sister's are tiny, too, but they look as if +they could turn a doorknob." He leisurely turned it this way and that to +see its lines, and compared the fingernails with his own to show how +absurd they were. And all the time it seemed to the woman that her hand +had a little heart in it that was beating to suffocation. + +"There, Virginia is beckoning to you from the path--perhaps you can +finish my hand another time." She laughed. "I hope you're not seriously +annoyed about it." + +"It's foolish," he insisted, and replaced it with elaborate care. Then +he ran to join his ruddy cicerone. He found the girl a good comrade, who +helped him to forget those things he wished to forget. Somehow in the +quiet air, that nameless secret thing that had been eating his heart +drew off a little. Almost he could believe it had all been some hideous +mistake. + +He tried at first to join Virginia in her sports. Tennis looked +foolishly easy, but after sending four of the balls beyond recovery he +suspected that the game might demand something more than willingness and +strength, and relinquished his racquet to watch the girl. He felt the +glow of the sport in following her swift movements, and he envied the +young men who could play with her. + +Golf looked not only easy but useless; and it was with only half a heart +that he essayed it. He splintered a driver at his first attempt, and he +did not venture a second. Still, he liked golf better than tennis, he +decided, for he could carry the bag of things she played with and hunt +lost balls, and wander over the course alone with her. He was never able +to believe that a stroke more or less in holing the ball could be a +matter of real moment, but the girl was worth watching while she +believed it. He had never seen a real girl near before, and he was +surprised to find it so fine a sight. + +In the canoe he was more successful, contriving to accomplish by sheer +strength of arm what the girl did more adroitly. They would paddle far +up the little river, to float down in the late afternoon. The river, +too, was a stage river, running between low, willow-fringed banks, or +winding among hay fields that sloped back to the upland, or lush green +meadows where cows were posed effectively. The girl became part of the +picture when they turned to float homeward, facing him from the bow, her +hair glinting yellow and her skin crystal clear against the crimson +cushion she leaned upon. + +They rode together, too--he could join her there--over the upland and +far into the little hills, between tangled hedge rows, past little farms +with orchards of ripening fruit. They passed many deserted places, +mournful in their stagnation, overgrown with wild things, the houses +forlornly dismantled, perhaps with the roof sunken, the chimney toppled, +and the weather-beaten walls in ruinous decay. He was touched by these +places. The houses must have been built with high hope, and once have +been alive with full-hearted effort. Their walls had enclosed dreams and +joyous dramas. Then discouragement had fallen and the search for another +place of beginning. He wondered what had become of all the people who +had built these homes. He hoped they had begun in another place with +undimmed resolve and had found peace. Yet there were sinister hints that +their ghosts haunted these spots of their first failures, beseeching of +the ruins something of the first freshness of impulse. + +He tried to tell Virginia Bartell that he, too, was like a deserted +farm, falling into ruin. But this only made her laugh. She could not +believe in failure, it seemed. And he laughed with her, after a little. +It was not possible, after all, to suppose that he could go on being a +ruin forever. These frustrated home makers must have succeeded at last, +and so would he. In some manner the girl herself became an assurance of +this. Her mere buoyancy uplifted him. + +These times alone with the girl were not always to be had for the +asking. There abounded other youths who prized her companionship; able, +dauntless youths and skilled with accomplishments. + +There was one of these, a tall young man, spectacled, of a high shiny +forehead, a student of a youth, who haunted the gray house like a +malignant wraith of erudition, and condescended to the girl almost as +flagrantly as he did to Ewing. His talk, whether of machinery or morals, +socialism or chemistry, was meant to instruct. Wherefore the girl slunk +from him, not always so skilfully as might have been wished--with far +less subtlety, indeed, than her aunt wished. + +"I'm almost certain you offended him this afternoon," she remarked on a +day when they had fled flagrantly to the river, "though why you should +wish to avoid him is beyond me. You know that he's from one of the very +oldest families in West Roxbury." The girl's tone was penitent as she +answered: "But I'd promised to go in the canoe with Mr. Ewing." There +was no penitence, however, in the look she flashed at Ewing over her +aunt's shoulder, daring him to prove if he were a man. He nerved himself +in the glance. + +"But you see, Mrs. Ranley, I'm from one of the very oldest families in +Hinsdale County, Colorado." The girl applauded him with her eyes, and +the incident was closed with a word of mild gratification from the old +lady. She was pleased to observe that he felt a family pride, even +though any county in Colorado was, of course, beyond consideration. + +Their favorite walk home from the golf links led them through a +churchyard, and here they often rested in the cool of the afternoon; not +in the new part where monument and mound were obtrusively recent, but +up the hill from these, where death was so ancient as to be touched +with the grace of the antique. Here, in a pleasant gloom of oak shade, +cypress and elm, they loitered among the drab stones that headed mounds +worn down and overgrown with sweetbrier, wild rose, and matted grass; +and here Mrs. Laithe sometimes joined them for the homeward stroll, +walking too much, Ewing thought, like one who had risen from the +forgotten multitude under foot. Yet, when he spoke of her health she +always responded with her gay assurances, and seemed, indeed, to be more +concerned about his welfare than her own. He had not been able to talk +to her freely. There was so much about Teevan that he felt she would not +understand. Besides, he could not speak to her about Teevan. + +At the end of the first week he had written to Teevan to say that he +must talk with him. The little man had replied from his favorite sea +place, naming a day when he would be back in town. + +The prospect depressed Ewing anew. It had been easy to lie on his back +in a field, nettled by disgust with himself, and frame speeches of +self-mastery. But reflection had brought him doubt. The speeches would +have to be made, and yet, in a way, he was Teevan's property; Teevan had +invested money in him. This added to his depression. And this was why +the girl reported him to her sister as a youth joyful in odd moments of +forgetting, but sunk in some black despair when he remembered; a young +man she could not at all understand. And Mrs. Laithe, puzzling over his +trouble, divining that Teevan would somehow be at the bottom of it, +determined on a move to aid him, a move that would take her once more to +Teevan himself. She had sought him the night after her talk with +Sydenham, but the interview had come to nothing. Teevan had been so +plausibly solicitous about Ewing's success that she had found herself +unready to tax him with a knowledge of Ewing's identity, or with motives +inimical to him. His excessive amiability, his air of unsuspecting +sincerity, had disarmed her. But this time, she determined, there would +be no more fencing. She would attack straightforwardly. + +The day they left the girl lightly bade Ewing farewell with talk of +meetings in town. He had not told her of a resolve formed the day before +when they had ridden to a hill above the village from which they could +see veritable mountains in the distance--his own delectable mountains +they had seemed, calling to him. Instantly he had determined to go back +to his own. Not in defeat, but for fresh courage. He would stay there +working as he could, until Teevan was paid. Then the Rookery would know +him again, and the men of the Monastery--know him going his own way. + +He was meditating gloomily on his retreat as the train bore him back to +town with Mrs. Laithe. And she, alive to the distress that showed in his +face, forgot everything but him, the one she had helplessly and +irrevocably taken for her own, half her entreating child, half her +master, terrible and beloved. She watched his face from half-closed +eyes, finding it unutterably sad, and, without her being able to +withhold it, her mind constantly repeated the image of an embrace, to +soothe and sustain him. Incessantly this unsubstantial enfoldment took +place in her inner sense, like some wild drama among ocean-bed things, +far below an unrippled surface. Over and over the phantom woman beat +down his enemies, encircled him from harm, consoled him against her +heart, cherished him like the dear walls of a home. And she could not +halt this phantom play. Once she divided her arms and raised them a +little, as one in a dream faintly acts his vision. Ewing thought she was +drawing her chiffon boa about her, and he replaced it on her shoulders. + +Floating about this obsession in her mind was the dismayed thought of +Teevan. She was fixed on going to him for the truth, and this disturbed +her like a coming battle. She was not used to the feeling of antagonism, +she, with her gentle woman's life, but she felt an unknown energy +welling up in her--the fierceness of the defender. She would have the +truth from Teevan. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +EWING INTERRUPTS + + +Eleanor Laithe started from a half sleep. She had begun to dream while +still conscious of the library walls, the couch on which she lay, the +curtains swelling in and out of the opened windows with a heated breeze +of late afternoon, the rattle of a wagon through the street, and the +shrilling of boys at a game. + +She turned her face from the wall, fixed the pillows more easily under +her head, and stared into the room, her eyes narrowing in calculation as +she went lucidly back for the hundredth time since she had flung herself +there, to check off the details of that half hour with the man who +healed--or did not heal. + +She had shrewdly rejected the specialist Birley had named for another +who would not know her. She wanted no mistaken kindness, no polite +reluctance or glossing, and she feared to find this in one who might +regard her as something more than a casual human body in evil case. She +had felt bound to have plain words. She would know what she faced as one +knows heat or cold. + +And she had gained the full of her wish. The man had taken her as +casually as she offered herself. His questions were few, his examination +mechanically impersonal, his diagnosis cool and informing. She had felt +herself a culprit, listening to sentence. + +"You think I have a year to live?" + +"Longer, perhaps, if you take it this way, without worry. Worry eats the +tissue even faster than those little vegetable parasites. I take it you +eliminate worry?" He drew on his gloves. + +She smiled now, with pride in her cunning. Her simulation of unconcerned +curiosity had been perfect, as if it were another's wasting body she +brought him. She had hidden all that fond love of life, her life of +action, sensation; of hope ever enlarging, of fruitions certain, +innumerable, and dear. No sign had the practiced eyes read of the inner +rage that maddened her at thought of so much life unlived--life of mirth +and tears, height and depth, grief, ecstasy and common levels. She was +avid of them all, dared them all, wished only to play the game, vaunting +a fine zest for the sport with all its hazards. + +She had found in her hour alone there that she did not fear death--only +detested it. She feared it as little as a child fears sleep; hated it as +a child, torn untimely from play, hates to go to bed. + +"Longer, perhaps, if you take it this way--eliminate worry." But she +knew she could not take it "this way;" could not give up as this judge +believed she had done. She must rebel to the last. As long as she played +she must play in the true spirit. She might be vanquished, but she would +not debase the sport. She smiled at a reminiscence of her brother's +college life, catching at a phrase. "It seems I'm not a 'quitter,'" she +thought. + +Then she halted this race of thought in sudden amusement. She felt her +evening fever rising, the sinister warmth and false glow that burned +like a red flame below the outer corners of her eyes. It had come +earlier than usual, hurried, doubtless, by the very passion of her +rebelling. The man had been right. But she would have no waiting, +half-hearted conflict, for all that. + +She sat up quickly. A certain battle was set for this day, one that +would test her gameness. She rose to look at a clock, and knew that +Teevan probably awaited Ewing. But she could be first there, and she +felt equal to the clash. The very fever would sustain her. And she would +be wary once more that day, cunning to learn what she had to oppose. +Then she would be valiant. If the fever only gave her strength, small +matter the fuel that fed it. + +She smoothed her hair, flung a scarf over her shoulders, and stepped out +into the early twilight. She felt a slight giddiness as she walked the +short distance to Teevan's door, but she had shrugged this away by the +time she rang the bell. There was a wait, and she rang again. Then, when +she began to fear that she assailed an empty house, she heard rapid +steps; the door swung back, and Teevan himself stood before her, Teevan +jaunty in summer negligee of flannels and silken shirt, who deftly +covered with his froth of gallantry whatever surprise he felt at sight +of her. + +"My dear lady! So neighborly of you, and what luck I was in! I'm off +Neville's yacht for the evening only on a bit of business. Come up to my +den. It's stifling down here." + +She followed him up the stairs, feeling a reckless strength for combat. +He took her to a room at the front of the house where there was a desk, +a few lounging chairs, and an air of mannish comfort. + +"I'll not keep you long, Randall," she said, hesitating at first to sit, +illogically fearing that weakness might seize her if she relaxed her +body. After a moment, however, she took the chair he pushed forward. + +"As long as you like, Eleanor. The breeze comes cooler through those +south windows while you're here. Let me offer you a brandy and soda. No? +You'll let me take this alone, then? Thanks! I'm feeling a bit done up +by the heat." He seated himself at the desk, sipped from his glass and +looked a question at her. She debated her beginning. + +"It's about Gilbert Ewing." + +His dark little eyes narrowed upon her with agreeable interest. + +"Ah, to be sure--Ewing." + +"You know he's been staying a fortnight with us at Kensington." + +He nodded a gracious assent, still waiting, still veiled with an effect +that aroused all her caution. + +"He came back to town yesterday." + +"He must have enjoyed the place immensely. I'm nowhere so strongly +reminded of rural England, saving the architecture, of course. Ewing +painted, doubtless?" + +"Oh, no, he did nothing. He played with my sister, chiefly. Virginia +took him about. They were inseparable. He had heart for nothing but +her--no work, nothing else." She had deliberately lengthened the speech, +wishing him not to see that she watched for an opening. Teevan seemed to +feel a leading. He searched her face as he asked: + +"They liked each other immensely, eh?" + +"Oh, yes, I couldn't tell you----" + +He felt the weariness of her tone, almost a faintness. The color burned +darkly high on her cheeks, her eyes showed an exotic and painful +splendor. He suddenly saw that she must have sustained some blow; that +her luster was a fevered glitter sad and terrible, and that she was +nerving herself to some ordeal. He sank back in his seat, all acuteness. +Had she betrayed herself in the beginning, struck open the secret for +him by her first words? A jealous woman, then--a flouted woman come to +turn on the man? It was no conclusion to leap at; rather a piquant +suspicion to verify. + +He set his glass down and picked up a slender-bladed dagger from the +desk before him, absently bending the steel. He knew they were both +veiled for the moment. His eyes challenged her to open speech of Ewing +as he held the dagger up to her and said lazily, "A beauty, +that--undoubted Toledo work. Picked it up in a shop at Newport +yesterday. They knew how to temper steel in those days. See its edge--" +He tore a bit of paper from a pad and slashed it into strips, his eyes +rising to hers at each cut, interrogatory, through the complacence of a +man exhibiting a fine property. + +"Randall, you've been friendly with him, and yet you know who he is; +you've known it a long time. And you--you _can't_ like him." + +He still toyed with his plaything, prickling its needle-like point into +the pad of paper under his hand. Then he turned on her with a sudden, +insinuating droop of the eyelids. + +"Very well--and you've been friendly with him, say until two weeks ago. +And you're no longer so. I name no reason. But you detest him now. Am I +wrong? Can I still read a woman?" He leaned toward her, peering nearer +with each query. He meant them to be like thrusts of the dagger which +he now threw on the desk. Her eyes fell in unfeigned confusion under his +look, her mind running many ways to come on the meaning beneath this +preposterous guess. She looked up to him, seeking a hint, but his eyes +were inscrutable, his mouth set in a sagacious smile, intimating, +accusing. She looked down again, suddenly feeling it wise to let him +think as he did--whatever absurd thing it might be. She sighed deeply, +relaxed in her chair and met his eyes again. Teevan beheld a woman +defenseless to his insight; one too proud to confess in words, but too +weak, too vindictive, perhaps, to attempt denial. + +"I see, my girl--don't trouble to speak." He replenished his glass from +the decanter. He was delighted with his penetration; pleased, also, to +believe that here was an ally, if one should be needed. He glanced at +her again. She sat silent and drooping. + +"You did well to come to me, Eleanor. I fancy you'll be interested to +know what our young friend is about to encounter." + +"Oh, I shall, I shall! Tell me, please." He smiled at her eagerness, so +poorly subdued, recording in a mental footnote the viperish fury of a +woman in her plight. Still, he thought she carried it off rather well. +There had been need for his keenness to read her secret. + +"I'll tell you, my girl, and I'm jolly glad to find some one who can +enjoy it with me. What am I going to do with him?" He rose and paced the +room for so long a time that she felt she could not bear it. She was +about to speak when he abruptly halted and faced her with a petrifying +burst of malignance. "What am I going to do with him?--wring him, wreck +him, choke him, fling the fool back on his dung heap to rot!" She +stared at him, panting; then, summoning all her ingenuity she smiled +slowly above the sickening fear that had rushed over her. Teevan glowed. +That smile of hers--he could detect something relentless in it--was a +tribute to his prowess no less than a confirmation of his power to read +her. + +"I don't understand," she half whispered, still with that restrained +fierceness that gave him joy. + +"Of course you don't. Am I to be read as a primer? I'm subtler, I trust, +than an earthquake, a cyclone, a deluge. You don't understand, but you +shall." He paced the floor again with a foppish air of pride. "Ah, it +has worked so beautifully. Really, I've regretted there was no one I +could let in to enjoy a work of art with me. But you, I see, will have +the taste to applaud it, Nell, now that your eyes are opened. Oh, the +thing has gone ideally! Only applause was lacking." + +"I don't understand, Randall." She could hardly manage the words. She +was afraid her heart would beat them into some wild cry of impatience. + +"You shall--you shall." He gazed meditatively at her. "Yes, and you'll +have to know it all to understand perfectly, even my--my humiliation." +He unlocked the door of a closet and brought out something she did not +recognize until he had placed it across the arms of a chair and stepped +back. It was the portrait of Ewing's mother. His face was contorted now +in a most unpleasant sneer. + +"There's the _motif_." He resumed his seat at the desk, facing the +picture. The sneer had gone, and whatever dignity of soul was in him +sounded in the next words. + +"You can't know what that meant to me when I saw it, when I knew who +had done it, when I thought of the creature who carried it about +parading his own shame and hers--and _mine_!" + +"I think I can understand that, Randall." + +"You can't, I say. No woman could. You can't begin to know the +humiliation, how it tore me, knowing this fellow walked the earth at +all, a nameless spawn, holding my shame over me--over _me_! threatening +every instant to cover me again with it. As if I'd not survived enough! +Good God! was I to go through it again, and know that this puling whelp +was the instrument--a thing to torture me, hold me up to ridicule, to +make men smile and titter and mock me in club corners? Wasn't _her_ +insult enough? Must she breed obscene things to echo it?" He groaned and +turned away with a gesture of warding off. In the mist of her besetment +the woman found herself thinking that the fine little hands in this +gesture should have been lace-beruffled at the wrist. He was the figure +of stabbed vanity, the bleeding coxcomb. He flung an arm toward the +picture with bitter vehemence. + +"Ah, my lady! my fine, loose lady, with your high talk and your low way! +I hope you've watched me with those painted eyes of yours. Did you think +I'd never strike back?" + +"But now, Randall--_how_?" He replenished his glass and turned slowly +away from the picture. + +"How, indeed? That's where you meet me at last. Not every one could have +carried it through, but it was simple for me. Difficult in a way, yes. +It's been hard to stomach the fool, with his conceit and his whining. +Oh, he fancies himself tremendously, for all his ways of a holy +innocent, his damned airs of a sugar-candy Galahad. But I've won him, I +tell you, by that very innocence of his. I'm the one soul in the world +he truly reveres. His sun rises and sets in me. And now he's where I +want him. I've worn out his hope, kept him from doing the thing he +wanted to do, kept him on the edge of despair out of respect and fear +and love of me. The beggar _has_ a certain devilish sort of genius, but +he doesn't know where it lies, and I've taken precious good care he +shouldn't find out. Oh, but I've had a rich time of it--disgusting and +rich. Nearly a year it is now that he's led me this dance, but I've +hooked him beautifully, and to-night I'll pull him in." She had been +watching the play of spite on his face, and it was with difficulty that +she moistened her lips to say: + +"But what will you do to-night--what can you say?" + +"Everything I've laid a train for saying, this year past. Tell him how I +despise him for his empty pretensions, his constant, wretched failures. +Show him to himself as a conceited dawdler and a cheat who has lived on +my bounty--oh, I saw to that--a cheat who has defrauded me of time and +money and faith in man. Never fear but I'll know the things to say. I've +told them to _her_ often enough." He thrust viciously at the portrait. +"And you'll hear it all, my Lady Disdain, with your face to the wall to +hide its belated blushes." + +Again she tried to speak but her lips were dry. At last she achieved a +few rather husky words. + +"Randall, if you please, might I have a glass of something--water, I'd +like." + +"To be sure, my child. You're certain you won't join me in a brandy and +soda? No? I'll get you something below." + +She clutched at the moment to quiet, if she could, that tumult of heart +and brain. Her mind dwelt chiefly on Ewing's dejection as she had left +him the day before. Teevan came back, bearing a carafe and a bottle of +soda water. She drank a glass of the water greedily, and murmured her +thanks as he gave her more. It refreshed her and she seemed to feel a +renewal of strength. Her fever was heating her brain to wild activity. +She felt a crazy desire to cool her head, to lean it against snow or +cold metal. She thought fleetingly of cold things she had touched, of +marble, icicles, a brass rail with frost on it. She was goading her mind +for a way to reach Teevan. She drank the second glass of water, and +again he refilled it, protesting against so poor a tipple as he took +more brandy for himself. + +She watched him narrowly as he prepared his drink. The decanter was so +low that she thought he must be feeling what he had taken, and she +wondered if it might not have softened him, released some generosity in +his poor soul. + +"You must have suffered, Randall, in all this. But won't it hurt you +still more, doing what you mean to do--when you make _him_ suffer?" + +"His suffering!" He waved a deprecating hand. "What can he suffer +compared to me? Disgust I've suffered, yes, and mortification. He could +feel nothing approaching that if I flayed him here. Why, Nell, I pulled +a rose from its bush this morning in Neville's garden, and crushed a +worm crawling on its stem. A poor, tiny green thing, yet it had lived, +and had its successes and failures after a fashion. But you can't +imagine its actual suffering in death to equal my own mere disgust at +crushing it." + +The brandy had not softened him, she thought. Could it have made him +cautious? + +"Have you never suspected, Randall, that there may be a sleeping fighter +in him?" There was a glitter in her tormented eyes, a sudden fierce wish +to behold battle between this puny insulter and Ewing aroused to his +might. + +"Bah! a fighter!" He snapped contemptuous fingers. "There's the look in +his eye sometimes, but I've disarmed him. He _can't_ fight me, his +benefactor, his best friend. Never fear; he'll wilt, wither, shrivel up. +Oh, trust me for that. And suppose the impossible, suppose the worm +turns in some fit of wormish desperation. I've the _coup_, have I not? +You know what his mother is to him, a damned romantic memory of pure +womanhood and all that rot. Suppose him capable of so much as an +eye-flash of defiance. Why, then, my child, he'll know who--he'll know +_what_--his mother was; and he'll know my right to describe her. He'll +know what _he_ is. And the words won't puzzle him: he'll need no +lexicon--crisp, Anglo-Saxon words. Do you think that will leave any +fight in him--her shame and his? By Gad! Nell, it's too good to keep +from him. He shall have it anyway, though I'd meant to keep it back for +my own sake. But that shall be the clincher. Before her face there I'll +tell him what she was." + +"Not that, Randall, surely not that!" Her veil of calmness had flown on +the wind of his hate. She knew she must reveal herself. Her words had +been so near a cry that he turned on her in amazement. + +"Listen, Randall, don't--don't do that. Let him off. I promise to take +him away. It's all true; you've handled him well, and you can break him +now--but don't. Please, please let him go. I'll take him away, I tell +you. I promise he shall never bother you again." + +He looked at her, incredulous. + +"You're asking me to consider _him_--really?" + +"No, no--to consider me. Please, please listen--please consider me." + +"But you--I thought you----" + +"Randall"--she had regained a little of her first coolness--"I'm done +for. I found that out to-day. I've a year to live, at most. A scant +year, if it's to be like this. Try to grasp it. I've wanted so much, had +so little of life. But, I must go, they tell me. Can you understand what +that means, as well as I understood what this meant to you--a sentence +of death, a few little months to snatch at happiness?" + +He stared at her uncertainly, but half comprehending. She saw that the +drink was affecting him at last. His eyes were dulled, his face had lost +its centered look. + +"Going to die, Eleanor? Die in a year? What rot! Don't talk rot. Nobody +dies in a year." He spoke carefully, with a deliberate attack on each +word, as if he mistrusted his tongue. + +"But it's true, Randall, I swear it's true. Can you understand?" + +"Understand?" he repeated, and through her tense absorption she was +astonished to see on his face an incredible look of pity. "Understand? +Why, of course! And it's too bad, my girl. Poor Eleanor! Die in a +year--why wouldn't I understand? But never mind"--he seemed to search +clumsily for words of cheer. "Death isn't anything but an incident in +the scheme of life--a precious contemptible one, I've no doubt. We live, +and that's a little thing--but death's littler. I dare say we live as +long as we need to. Who was the old chap--Plotinus, wasn't +it?--conceived the body to be a penitential mechanism for the soul? All +the better if we expiate early. Gad! I must have had a quantity of +things to atone for--though I'm really younger than you may think, Nell. +Poor girl--poor girl!" He brightened as he drained his glass to her. +"Here's to you, wherever you are. Come, be cheerful anyway. What was it +struck in my mind yesterday?--a sentence from one of Arbuthnot's letters +to Swift--just the meat for you--'A reasonable hope of going--a +reasonable hope of going to a good place and an absolute certainty of +leaving a bad one.' That's the sentiment--keep it in mind, my dear." + +She was nerving herself to new appeals, half fearing she could not hold +his attention. She seized on that unprecedented look of compassion. + +"But, Randall, you'll let him off--let him off for me--for my sake." In +her eagerness she rose and fluttered to the desk, standing before him. +He whirled his chair about, and the look of commiseration had gone. + +"No, no, no! You can't understand, Nell. I couldn't let him off if I +wanted to. It's fate, its retribution--the sins of the father--it's +scriptural, I tell you--" His eyes were gleaming again with steely +implacability. + +"But for me, Randall, for my sake, for me alone--not thinking of him?" + +"Ah, lady, set me a harder task, but one of dignity--as difficult, as +dangerous as you like, so it has some dignity. But not that. Here"--he +gracefully extended the handle of the dagger to her--"slay me an' you +will--the blade is keen--a toy, but deadly--I'll die smiling if you +wish. But don't ask for that cub's happiness. Don't rob me of my pay, +Nell, my pay for all I've endured from him, his boastings and +snivelings, and his detestable handshakes. Don't talk rot, I say, +even if you must die." + +Again she set herself to plead, desperation feeding the fire in her head +until she knew not her words. She was conscious only of a torrent of +speech, coaxing, imploring, wheedling, even threatening. But all she +evoked was the steady, smiling negative, his head shaken unwittingly to +the rhythm of her phrases. + +She stopped at last, panting, striving to keep back the passionate words +of entreaty that still formed, crushing them down in a maddened +consciousness of their impotence. She stared wildly, feeling only a +still stubborn determination. Ewing would soon come--yet it seemed that +she had no resource save appeal. She felt this and raged against it, +striding away from Teevan across the room. For the first time in her +gentle life she was feeling the sensation she thought a man must feel in +fighting. She had an impulse to strike blindly, to wound, to beat down +with her hands. Without volition she measured her antagonist and +wondered deliriously if she could throw him to the floor. He seemed so +small to her, and hateful--hateful and small enough to kill. She closed +her eyes to shut him out, but opened them again quickly, for everything +rocked in the darkness. She incessantly pictured this creature, naked in +his poverty of manhood, smiling up at Ewing, the friendly one, who stood +bowed down, blighted and broken of heart. Sometimes Ewing had his arm +over his face, and she felt that he would never take it away--move on +thus forever, like a figure in an anguished dream. + +Constantly beside her thoughts, like a little refrain, went the +remembrance that she had brought him there, torn him from his youth and +splendid dreams to give him to this--she the betrayer! The fever waxed, +the tortured blood trampled in her head like hurrying hoofs. + +But she could not strike Teevan, extinguish him with blows, and she set +herself again to play the beggar. And she could not beg across the room. +Bit by bit she crept to the entreated one, her great eyes full of flame +and fear, and laid pitiful hands on his shoulder. Still the shaken head +met her, the icy smile, the dulled eyes. + +"No good talking, Nell! No good! You mortify me, my word you do. Demand +something great, something to task a man; ask me----" + +Again he picked up the dagger with a return to that extravagant air of +the sighing gallant. + +"--here, I point it to my heart, see! A mere thrust--your beautiful hand +is still equal to it. I'd be proud of the blow. I'd give you my life +gladly--but not my self-respect. You're too stunning a woman, Nell, to +waste yourself on that cub--a woman to die for indeed. You were never +finer than at this moment." In the excess of his emotion he threw an arm +about her waist. She started back but he held her. + +"Never finer, Nell, on my soul--too fine for that damned----" + +She put out her hands in an instinctive, shuddering movement of +repulsion. Still he clung to her, muttering his insupportable phrases. +He clung and she could not release herself without doing what she had +thought was impossible--exert her unused hands in striking, thrusting, +beating off. She hesitated: she did not like to touch him. He looked +very small and low in his chair. How low he seemed from her dizzy +height! And yet he held so well. His voice came faintly, too, as if from +afar, floating up faint and hateful. So he would hold Ewing and slay him +with his voice. He was playing with the dagger again and proffering his +heart with maudlin eyes. Prisoning her still with his right arm, he took +her hand in his left and clumsily set it on the dagger's hilt. + +"It would be a sweet death, Nell. Press home!" He drew her closer, so +that she staggered on his shoulder. "Gad! your eyes are fine. What a +woman you are! Too great, Nell, for that beaten whelp, even before he +took to your sister----" + +She gave a desperate little cry and struck out to free herself. It was +hardly more than a gesture to have him away, but she was conscious, with +a lightning shock, that the blade moved under her hand. She heard +Teevan's shrill scream of fright and pain---- + +"You're killing me--you're killing me!" + +But she saw only Ewing with covered face, and pushed the harder, lost to +all but her blind sense of opposition. Then she heard a new note in +Teevan's cry. + +"Ewing! Ewing!" + +She turned quickly, while Teevan retreated round a corner of the desk, +snarling his rage--turned to see Ewing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MRS. LAITHE IS ENLIGHTENED + + +He stood just inside the door, hat in hand, regarding the scene with a +look that was troubled yet cool. She felt her way cautiously back to a +chair, afraid of fainting, and grasped it for support. Finding that her +hand still clutched the dagger, she dropped it with a shudder of +disgust. + +Ewing shrewdly noted where the dagger fell, then his eyes flashed to +Teevan. There was a stain of blood on the silken shirt, and the little +man was staring down at this, incredulous. + +"By God! she meant it!" he muttered. Then his eyes rose to meet Ewing's, +and a look of sudden malignance blazed into them. + +"So you've come!" The cry, like the look, was full of hate. "You've come +in time, you whelp! Now you'll hear something you might have heard that +first night when I had to fuddle you with tales of a seizure. Now you'll +know----" + +But the woman started toward him with a suddenness that broke his +speech. + +"If you tell him he'll kill you--" The words came with a quick, +whispering intensity, and there was a rapt, almost rejoicing look on her +face, as of one eager for the deed. + +Teevan looked scornfully to Ewing again, but was chilled by a certain +sharp, cold light in his eyes, the look of one alert and ready. His +words gave meaning to this look. + +"If you tell me, I'll kill you," said Ewing. The sentence was evenly +uttered, and the tone was low, almost deferential, but the intention was +not to be mistaken. + +Teevan laughed, flourishing a gesture of scorn for the threat. + +"I'm no coward"--but he broke off, waiting, watching, with fear in his +eyes. + +"I'll take this," said Ewing. He lifted the portrait tenderly from the +chair and thrust it under his arm with a protecting movement. Teevan +stared at this with an air of fine disdain, but did not speak. + +The woman had been waiting for his words with parted lips. Now she +breathed a long, trembling sigh of relief and turned to Ewing. + +"You see, he has nothing to say. Let us go." + +He opened the door for her and closed it after them without looking +again at Teevan. + +"There's a reason why I can't do it for you now," he said, as they went +down the stairs. She wondered what he could mean, but was too little +alive to ask. When they reached the street she became at once interested +in a belated laborer going home with a loosely tied bundle over his +shoulder, odds and ends of small boards, refuse from some building. He +whistled in a tired way as he trudged on, not looking at them. She felt +pleased at the thought that his wife was going to have wood with which +to cook the poor fellow's supper. The dark was fast gathering, but +children still romped in the street. An elderly stout man passed, his +hat off, wielding a palm-leaf fan. She was surprised at this, for the +outer air had fallen on her with icy clutch, making her draw the scarf +more closely about her. + +Ewing would have left her at her door, but she urged him to go in. She +took him to sit in the unlighted library, and there, when he could no +longer see her face, he was astounded to hear her talk of her girlhood, +her schooldays, of the few people they knew in common, of Piersoll's new +book, of her brother's ranch life; of a score of little gossipy matters +that would occur to the untroubled mind in a twilight chat. But when he +rose to go after a little time, she was in an instant wild panic of +protest, seizing one of his hands with a convulsive grip. He covered her +poor hand with his own and regarded her with pity. She lifted her face +to him with a sudden wild entreaty for shelter. "Oh, stay with +me--stay--stay--and comfort me. I am so ill, and I--I would comfort +you." He soothed her as best he could, protesting that he would stay, +and in a few moments she was talking cheerfully of Kensington and of +Virginia. She tried to amuse him with tales of Virginia's childhood--how +she had been such a droll and merry little creature. She still retained +his hand, gripping it with an intensity through which he could feel the +quivering of her whole body. + +Only once did she refer to Teevan. "Please don't see him again," she +urged. "Promise me, promise never to let him tell you--anything. Please, +please promise that!" + +Believing she pleaded for herself, he felt that old longing to lift her +in his arms and show her there without words how little she had to fear. +But he controlled himself to answer simply, "I promise; I'll never let +him speak to me again. Don't be afraid; he shall never say anything to +me." + +Her father came in presently, grumbling about the lack of light as he +stumbled against a chair. He let it be known that he had returned to the +city in some alarm about her, inspired by a letter from her aunt. She +hastily assured him that she was well--never better. But he demurred at +her remaining longer in town. + +"You'll have to get out, daughter. It's beastly unpleasant doing those +slum things in summer. You need life and gayety. You come with me and +dance, play bridge, swim, sail--enjoy yourself with your own kind for a +while. You're going on Tom Neville's yacht to-morrow. He's to pick us up +about noon with Randy Teevan." + +"Will he be there?" she asked. + +"He will, and he'll be one of a jolly crowd that will 'liven you up. +Here's Clarence--he must come, too." + +Her brother had felt his way through the darkness, and before she +guessed his intention he had found one of the electric lights and turned +it on. She shrank back with a strange, smothered cry, under the sudden +light, her hand before her face as if to ward off invisible horrors, her +eyes staring at them under it, wild with appeal. They were speechless +for the moment, alarmed by her manifest illness, her frightened, haggard +face, in which the fever raged. Her brother was the first to speak, +going to her and taking the blind, defending hand she had put out. She +clung to him when she felt his touch, but turned her face away. + +"See here, Nell," he began, in tones of savage decision, "no yachting +trip for you, my girl. 'Twon't do, governor, you can see that for +yourself. But I'll tell you what she's going to do--she's going to pack +up and go back to the mountains with me and stay there till she's well." + +She still clung to him, drawing his arms around her with an effect of +hiding. + +"Yes, yes, that's it--let's go there--out where there's room. It's +stifling here. Have you noticed how curiously stifling it is? Too many +people, dead people and live people, and all hobnobbing. We must get +away, brother." + +"You hear that, dad? She'll go back with me. How soon, Nell?--I say, how +soon?" he repeated, for she had not seemed to hear him. + +"How soon?" She raised her eyes to them with sudden intelligence, then +sprang wildly to her feet. + +"Oh, soon, at once!--Well, not to-night, perhaps,"--she sank back +again--"but to-morrow, next day. We'll all go. Mr. Ewing is going." Her +eyes rested on Ewing a moment, then, with a difficult smile, she turned +to her brother. "And Virgie must go, too. Telegraph her to-night. She'll +make us gay, she'll make us--as we used to be. We couldn't go without +Virgie. She will--comfort us." + +"She'll go, too, Sis. It's all right. I'll telegraph. But what are you +afraid of? You'll be a well woman there in a month." + +"Afraid--I afraid?" She looked up at him in wonder. "I don't know. Oh, +yes I do. Why, I just tried to kill--I've just killed--killed a hundred +people--killed----" + +"Good Lord--there--she's fainted! Get some water and a drop of brandy, +dad!" + +"Poor child--it's so fearfully unpleasant," murmured Bartell as he came +back with a glass and decanter. "It's that tenement house thing that's +got on her nerves." + +"An unpleasant business," returned his father, "all that rot--mighty +unpleasant!" + +Ewing waited in the outer room until he heard the broken murmur of her +voice and knew that she had recovered. Then he went quickly out, the +portrait under his arm. He had the feeling that it had been contaminated +by Teevan's touch. + +He began dismantling his studio that night. He stopped in the work once +to look out over the roofs, glowing luridly under a half moon. This was +because the pleading of the woman still rang in his ears--"Don't let him +tell you anything"--and the whole entreating look of her flashed back to +him. Then the big, slow tears of pity gathered in his eyes to set the +chimney pots dancing before him. + +"If only I hadn't owed him money!" he muttered, beside himself with pity +and hatred. + +It was not until the day before they started West that Mrs. Laithe +learned the secret of this pity of Ewing's that had so puzzled her. +Alden Teevan begged a moment with her in the afternoon of that day, and +she, sunk in the languor of her sickness, received him where she lay, in +her own sitting-room. + +He swept her with a long, knowing look as he entered, reading, she saw, +the truth about her condition. + +"I'd gladly go with you, Nell," he began--"let my own walls close at the +same time." But she would have no bald admissions. + +"I'm not going, Alden--I'm only a bit run down. I shall pick up in a +month out there." He detected her insincerity but only smiled in a hurt +way. + +"That's one of your rules of the game, isn't it, to keep up the +pretense? Of course I can't expect you to break rules for me." She faced +him stanchly, looking denial. + +"But I must tell you something," he went on quickly, "something horrible +and absurd and unbelievable." She listened, and grew faint in an agony +of unbelief, while he told her what had inspired Ewing's behavior the +night before. She made him repeat it, testing each detail, weighing its +credibility against Ewing's inexperience; dazedly trying to see herself +as he must see her now. Alden Teevan regarded her with quickening +sympathy. + +"It wasn't a pretty thing to do, Nell, but I saw he had some deviltry +afoot, and I got it from him--I half choked and half wheedled it from +him. Fortunately he was drunk or I couldn't have got it either way. But +now you know. It began, as nearly as I could gather, one night last +spring when Ewing saw you leaving the house. The vain little fool +guessed he'd seen you, and told him the tale about a woman who'd been +harassing him because he was trying to break off an affair with her." + +"I remember----" + +"And then last night----" + +"Last night--ah, last night!" She laughed weakly, recalling the scene +that had met Ewing's eyes, perceiving what he must have thought. "I'd +have done it for you," she heard him say again, and shuddered. She +recalled, too, her own later urging, "Never let him tell you anything." +How pitiful she must have seemed to him, and how monstrous! She laughed +again wildly, suddenly struck by the cunning of this satire on truth. +Alden Teevan recalled her from the picture. + +"It was like him, wasn't it, Nell?--like both of them--like him to say +it, and like the other to believe. But the harm can be undone. You can +explain--a word or two." + +She stared at him in sudden consternation. It had flashed upon her that +no half truth would satisfy Ewing. She knew she would be unequal to any +adequate fiction; she would falter and he would see to the heart of her +lie. She must let him think as he did--or blacken his dearest memory. +But to Alden Teevan she only said: + +"Ah, yes--a word will explain--and I'm so grateful to you." She was +wondering then if she were glad or sorry that he had told her. She might +have lived out her time without knowing, she thought. + +"Of course, if you'd like me to tell him, Nell----" + +"No, no, Alden, thank you; but that's for me." + +They had not spoken Ewing's name, but his concern in the matter, the +meaning of his faith in the woman, was a matter that seemed to lie open +to them both. Alden Teevan had assumed it and she had made no denial. +His recognition of it colored his leave-taking. + +"All happiness for you, Nell. The game ought to be worth playing with +you--and with him. You both live so hard." He found it difficult to say +as little, there was such gratitude and such misery in her eyes as they +fell before his, trying to veil at least a part of what she felt. But he +left her so. + +She lay a long time trying to realize Ewing in this new light. She had +never read anything in his eyes but the fullest devotion, and yet for +months he had believed this sinister thing. She caught again his young, +sorry, protesting look, and the poignancy of it brought her tears. +There came into the tenderness she had felt for him something of awe for +his unquestioning allegiance, a thing that had not wavered under the +worst he could believe. Then the monstrous absurdity of what he did +believe came upon her once more and she laughed; but her tears still +fell. And so, with laughter and tears, she set him up anew in her heart, +her beloved child and her terrible master. She was glad now that she +knew. It made him more to her. And the time would be so short. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE SUNSET TRAIL + + +Ewing had looked forward pleasantly to meeting Virginia Bartell again, +but it was a new Virginia who met him with a nod when he joined the +party on the evening of the start. She had eyes only for her sister, the +white, weak, phantom thing who smiled terribly as her brother half +carried her into the stateroom of their car. Through the days of the +journey he sought to cheer her, wistfully making jests about the flat +land and its people as they sped through the little wooden towns, +promising her a land that would be "busy every minute." But she would +only say, "I'll like your land when it makes sister well." + +"It's bound to," he assured her. "Nobody dies there unless he gets +careless. Here, this is the way it happens. Here's Ben Crider's last +letter. You'll like Ben. Listen to this and see if it doesn't make you +hopeful." He opened the scrawled sheet and read: + +"'Dear Kid, I thought it about time to write you a few lines. If you +seen the lake now you would want to of been here. Life and nature seems +very complete here. I heard Chet Lynch shot Elmer Watts. I been building +a haystacker for Pierce. Plenty deer sign around the lick. Lee Jennings +was killed by a bucker falling back on him. I can sell your saddle for +twenty-two dollars to Ben Lefferts. I put a new latigo on it. Let me +know. Say, Kid, I sent two dollars to the Mystic Novelty Company. The +address is Lock Box 1347. The ad. said they would send you a book how to +read past, present and future from the hand and a genuine ten-karat +Persian diamond pin set in solid gold, if you sent on one dollar in +stamps or P. O. order. Well, the diamond may be all right enough +Persian, but the solid gold setting has turned black. You go there and +ask for the head man and raise particular--'" He broke off the reading. + +"You see, they only die by getting shot, or falling off a horse." + +The girl shuddered and turned to him with a sudden helpless yielding. + +"I can hardly bear it," she said, almost in a whisper. "You don't know +what she is to me, how I've loved her and loved her and loved her. And +yet I've accepted her as a matter of course, a thing that couldn't be +taken from me, like the world itself. How could I think she might be +like--like those others? Oh, I never dreamed I could lose my dearest--my +dearest!" + +He waited a moment, and at last said gently, "You won't lose your +dearest--we won't lose her." + +"Oh, but she's going, before our eyes." + +"Listen to me, listen now! She's going to get well. She'll be strong +again--I know it. I say she can't die; but you must be sure of it--as +sure as I am--do you hear?--as sure as I am." + +"Yes, yes--I will be sure." She tried to look at him through her +tear-wet lashes. He smiled at her confidently. + +"If we're both sure, we can have your sister crying in a month because +Ben won't let her work in the garden." + +"Oh, if you only--" She broke off to look at him in wondering gratitude. + +"And I'll go in and tell her so now," he added, rising. + +"Yes, yes, make her feel sure, too," she implored. She turned quickly to +the car window, where twilight was blurring the fields to a far, dreamy +horizon, level and vast. He stood a moment, tracing with mental point +the line of her profile under the boyish cap pinned to her yellow hair. + +Mrs. Laithe lay on a narrow sofa in the stateroom. She had moved from +that only to the berth at night since their start, and had betrayed a +preference for being alone in the little compartment. Ewing had felt, +however, that she liked to talk with him as evening drew on. She had +sent for him at this hour the day before and they had sat together in +the dusk. He was reassured by the cheerfulness of her tone as she +greeted him now. + +"We're flying so fast," she said joyously. + +"To make you well the sooner. I've just been telling Virginia what we'll +do for you even in a month. You'll be riding and climbing, and you'll +cry because you can't fell trees or rive out shakes, or something." + +"I'm not worrying about that. It will come right very soon." + +"We'll make it come right. No one ever dies a natural death there, you +know. I was just reading your sister a letter from Ben. Lee Jennings +killed breaking a horse, Elmer Watts shot by Chester Lynch. Of course, +in a way, that was a natural death for Elmer. He was bound to go that +way sooner or later, but you're not going to ride a bucker, and you're +not a gunfighter. Oh, you'll thrive, with a little stall feeding." + +"And there's so much room out there." She smiled. "So much room to--to +live. And life is so full. I like to hear it, through Virgie and through +you. You are shells that give me the roar of it." + +He was sensitive to some pathos of aloofness which her whole being +expressed for him, and he strove to meet this with pictures of herself +returning, a well woman; but she turned her face from him at length, and +did not speak for so long that he thought she might be sleeping. He went +carefully out, with a last enveloping look. + +When he had gone the woman laughed in a helpless, shuddering way, then +raised herself far enough toward the window to see the fields rushing by +outside. There was timidity in her look until she had seen a mile of +that relentless earth rush back and away from her. She seemed to need +this assurance that she was going away from the trouble in the crude, +literal sense of earthly distance--going off where there was room "to +live," she had told Ewing; "to die," she had amended the phrase to +herself. For death was now a solace she faced. She who had been so hot +for the fight, so avid of life, had been cheated of a combatant's +privileges. She could not tell Ewing the truth, and she could not live +while he believed the lie. It was well, she thought, to know that she +had only to let herself float down that placid current of the white +death. She was amazed at her own calmness and tested it in all subtle +ways, making sure of its foundations. She could find no weak spot. She +craved only a moderate speed in the descent. Too long a wait would be +wearisome, and the wise man had assured her against that. Yet she felt +that she had the right to be a little glad when her brother told her the +next day of a change in the plan. + +"It will be better for you and Virgie to go to Ewing's place, Nell. +It's always quiet there, and my place is pretty busy and noisy. I'll +manage to stay over there with you a good deal, and we'll get a woman to +come and do for you--I know one that will be glad to come. It will only +be for a little while, you know." + +She smiled at that well-worn fiction, but applauded the plan. + +"I shall like it, dear, and Virgie will, too, I'm sure, if you think it +best, and if Mr. Ewing----" + +"Ewing suggested it, and he didn't waste any words telling what a good +plan he thought it was. We'll have some extra things brought up from +Pagosa to make you comfortable, and you can have a bully long rest +there." + +"A long rest, yes--and let us have a piano. I'd like to hear some music +while I'm resting." + +"Sure! we'll have one up from Durango. You might need to stay there +until--well--into the winter, you know." + +"I think so, Clarence." She was tempted sometimes to confide to him the +truth about her sickness, but refrained. + +"Well, it won't be very long. All you want is a rest." + +Her mind echoed it when he had gone. Yes, a rest. She looked up at +Virginia, who had entered softly. Her face still shone with the thought +of rest and release, and she smiled up at the girl, who had laid a cool +hand on her flushing cheek, and now regarded her with devouring eyes. +She stood so a moment, then knelt to peer at the wasted face. She looked +a long time without speaking, looked shrewdly and, at last, accusingly. + +"What is it, dearest? I saw it in your face yesterday. What is it I see? +Something has frightened you--beaten you." + +The other smiled protestingly, chidingly, with a raised finger; but the +girl was not to be appeased. + +"You won't tell me, Nell; I know you; you'll keep it in. But, oh, +dearest!" She suddenly gathered the sick woman into her strong young +arms, raising her head from the pillow, holding the fevered face to her +breast, pressing her own cool cheek to the hot brow. + +"Dearest dear, let me in. Trust me. Tell me where it hurts. Let me +mother you." + +"There, there, dear! Everything is all right. Lay me down again and be +easy in that mind of yours." + +But once more on the pillow she had to endure again the girl's accusing +eyes. + +"Nell, someone hasn't loved you enough. That's what I feel. Who is it?" + +"Nonsense! You're only worried because I'm a little run down. Everyone +loves me enough--all I deserve. There, dear, I think I can rest." The +girl kissed her shut eyes, and went out, after a long, doubting look. +The sick woman raised her arms once, like a child who would be taken, +but they fell back, and she painfully laughed the old low laugh of +secrecy. + +She mused on her brother's words. "A little rest." Yes, a rest. "Yet a +little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." +She remembered now that it would come to her in the shelter of those +hills, perhaps in that room to which her thoughts had flown so many +times, where she had seen the awakening man in the sleeping boy, and +caught misty shadowings of the portent he bore for her. Her eyes might +fall before his now, but they need not fall before the eyes of his +mother. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE HILLS OF REST + + +Ben Crider waited for them on the station platform at Pagosa. He was +excited to a point of feverish unrest until the train warned its way out +of the last cañon. Then, by a masterful effort, he became elaborately +nonchalant. That train had brought Ewing back to him, but he constrained +himself to handle the occasion as one rising hardly to common levels. He +would have considered any other demeanor "shameless." + +He nodded to Bartell, who supported his sister from the car, and stared +politely at the pretty but anxious-looking girl who followed them. But +when Ewing appeared, burdened with handbags, Ben ignored him, and rushed +to shake the hand of Beulah Pierce, returning from a three-days' trip to +Durango. So effusive was his greeting that Pierce mentally convicted him +of having lingered at the "Happy Days" bar for one too many drinks, and +broke from his affectionate grasp with some embarrassment. + +Ben strolled forward to the baggage car, humming lightly, and, with the +bored air of a man creating diversion for himself, laid listless hands +on the trunks as they were unloaded. He was whirling one of the heaviest +of these to the waiting wagon when Ewing fell on him with a glad shout. +Ben paused briefly, balancing the trunk on a corner, glanced up with +moderate surprise, and spoke his welcome. + +"Oh, that you, Kid? Howdy!" He resumed his struggle with the trunk, +blind to the other's outstretched hand, and when Ewing thereupon hissed +at him, "You damned Mexican sheep herder!" he allowed pleasure to show +but faintly in his face. But when he was seized by the collar, hurled +half across the platform, and slammed brutally against the wall of the +station, he protested with pleased annoyance as he picked up his hat, +"Aw, quit yer foolin', now, Kid! I got to hustle them trunks." He was +sufficiently refreshed by the attack, however, to sing to himself as he +labored. And when the start was made he insisted that Ewing should +drive. Ben sat in the rear seat. He wanted to look at Ewing's back for +five hours. + +The sick woman, in another and easier conveyance, rejoiced that she was +going still farther into the peace of her last refuge. As they left the +brown-floored valley and began to climb the mountain road, she was glad +that the green walls closed in behind them; glad of every difficult +ascent; every stream forded; every confusing turn of the way. She was +hiding herself, cunningly insuring the peace of her last hours. + +She was troubled now only by Virginia, who hung upon her with an +agonized solicitude. But she promised herself to wear this down by her +own cheerfulness and expressed certainty. Virginia would see her +peaceful, hopeful, happy; she would become used to the idea of her +wasting; and the actual going out would come gently to her as something +fit and benign. Life so abounding as Virginia's could not long droop +under the shadow of death. + +Made at home in the lake cabin, she still felt the world rushing back +from her as had the fields rushed by when she looked from the car +window. And she rested in this. Affairs went on about her, plans were +made, talk of the future or of the day; all went by her unheeded, save +for a blurred and pleasant effect of swiftness. Outwardly she was +serene, languorous, incuriously placid. Inwardly she thrilled with a +luxury of inertness. She had loosed herself in the ebbing tide, and she +folded her hands and smiled from this with the assured indolence of one +who knows that some earned reward will not long be delayed. The +slow-paced even life was a balm to her, the gathering about the table at +mealtimes, the evenings in the studio, when her sister played or talked +with Ewing; when she could lie still on the couch and try to make +herself forgotten, regretting only the short dry cough that racked her +night and morning and brought her to the minds of the others. + +She had thought that she could adjust herself, after a little, to the +new look in Ewing's eyes, knowing as she did its secret spring. It was a +look of blind acceptance, of unquestioning adoration--and mingled with +it was a maddening pity. But there flashed from him, too, at times, a +look of purpose and assurance, steady, secret, determined. She detected +this chiefly when he glanced up to her from his drawing. He had brought +with him a story to illustrate for the _Knickerbocker_, and he was, at +last, to finish that series of Western scenes for the same periodical. +And he had flown to this work with a frantic haste, with the look, as he +bent over the board, that seemed to say: "This is for you. Be patient +with me, it will soon be done." + +When the work did not claim him he stayed by her side, watchful for +service, jealous of Virginia for little acts he might not himself +perform. His eyes seldom left her, she thought, though she could not +long endure their look, and she knew that he read this evasion of hers +in the light of what Teevan had told him. Through all his devotion there +was a gentle aloofness, a constant withdrawing, as if he knew that he +must never come close. + +She had laughter and tears again for this when she was alone, though +there were times when, in her weakness, her wild craving for the +fullness of what she might not have, she would have told it all in one +surrendering cry to him but for the eyes of Kitty Teevan. They were +always upon her now--Ewing had hung the portrait in the studio--holding +her with passionate entreaty, the mother pleading for herself in the +son's memory. She could never tell him, she knew, under those eyes. She +must live out her few days in content with that wondrous thing his own +eyes revealed for her. She thought it comic and tragic and beautiful. +One night she dreamed that she was not to die, and woke in horror of +what his belief would then mean. But morning restored her serenity, and +she reposed placidly again on the unquestioned sureness of her going. + +Best of all times she liked the late morning and midday, when she could +be alone in the sun-heated nook out of doors and give her body to the +warmth. She knew it was a primal, sensuous pleasure, but she surrendered +to it; turned and bathed writhingly in the sun flood, feeling herself +transparent to it. And the pleasure had its reverse side. Autumn came +presently in these upper reaches; a less splendid autumn than would set +the Eastern woods ablaze with flaunts of gold and scarlet, but an autumn +more eloquent of death, the faded yellow of the aspen groves, broken but +rarely by some flaming shrub that only emphasized the monotone. This, +the unending, lifeless yellow, and the dead green of spruce and +hemlock--a false green, she felt, with its tale of ever-living--made a +coloring of nice symbolism for her state. + +Had she felt the need of a death's head at her sun feast, this neutral, +denying flatness would have sufficed. The end had come home to her. It +was her unseen familiar, voiceless, but ever present, with a look +unhurrying but constant. + +And there were the mountains themselves, things that had once leaped +alive and tortured themselves into frenzied furies of striving only to +be stricken and left at last in all the broken tossing of their folly. +They had tried the fighting death, and it had availed only to fix their +last agonies. Their scarred hulks testified to the wisdom of submission. + +Yet her mind was normal in these sun-warmed hours of musing. She knew +that those dead hills with their dying leafage told another tale to the +pair of young lives housed with her. To them they were but inspirations +to life vital and triumphant; eminences to be scaled in joyous effort, +offering to youth's dreaming, half-true clairvoyance, unending reaches +to provoke; near enough to seem attainable; far enough to be plausible +with promise of delights. + +Nor did she fail to rejoice in the fervor of this fresh view so unlike +her own. She was conscious of its truth to untouched souls like theirs, +and she sought to throw them together, urging them to excursions through +the hills. She thought of them at first as her pair whom she had set in +a garden where the fruit of no tree was forbidden. + +She coolly studied Ewing on the days when he worked indoors, detaching +herself from his life as one about to go on a long journey. From her +shadowed couch she scanned his face as he bent over the drawing board. +It had filled in the year since she first saw it, and was an older face, +the strength of it more conscious, the promise of it almost kept in its +well-controlled, level-eyed maturity. Much of the boy remained to flash +out, but she saw that this would never go; that it would kindle his eyes +when the brown hair had gone white. It was this eternal boyishness, she +saw, that made him quick of response to another's interest; this that +had made him seem too ductile under Teevan's manipulation, when in truth +he had merely been loath to hurt, fearing nothing so much as another's +pain. The forward line of the nose and the smoldering fierceness of eye +should have been more informing. That was the face, vital, fearless, +patently self-willed for all its kindly immaturities of concession, that +Teevan had thought to prevail over by his stings of waspish contempt. +She smiled pityingly for Teevan, until she recalled that she also had +misread its lines. There were moments when her beaten spirit fluttered +up at thought of Teevan's being blasted by what he had thought to blast. +But a look at the mother's restraining face, or, still more, a look at +Ewing as he would glance from his work up to the portrait, stilled this +craving for battle. It was well, she thought, as it had fallen. + +Ewing had set to work doubtingly at first, but with laughing energy when +he found that the lines came again at his call. He felt, indeed, that +his facility had been increased, and he confided this to Mrs. Laithe one +day as she lay watching him. + +"I don't have to 'squeeze' the way I did," he said. "Perhaps I really +learned something there in spite of myself, in all that messing with +colors. I didn't learn to paint, but I seem to have a new line on +bucking bronchos and bucked cowboys." He stopped in sudden thought. + +"There, I've forgotten that old painting of mine. I'll treat us both to +a look at it." + +He went off to Ben's room beyond the kitchen and came back with the +dusty canvas. He wiped it with a cloth and placed it on the easel. + +She did not look at this. She knew it too well. Her look was for his +face as he studied it. She saw surprise there, bewilderment, +incredulity, and then, slowly dawning, a consternation of dropped jaw +and squinting scowl. Yet this broke at length, and, to her great relief, +he laughed, heartily, honestly. She smiled, not at the poor painting, +but in sympathy with him. Then he remembered that she had looked at this +same canvas once before, and that neither of them had laughed. His face +sobered, and he went over to her. + +"You had nerve, didn't you--after seeing that thing?" + +"You remember I didn't praise it." + +"But you saw I didn't know any better, and you never let me see that +_you_ did. You must have thought highly of me, I can see that." He +stooped and laid one of his hands on hers with a friendly, thanking +pressure. + +"I saw plainly enough what you could do," she protested. + +He went to stand again before the despised canvas, playing upon it with +humorous disparagement. + +"But if you see now," she said, "that it's so--if it seems so----" + +"Say the word--do!" + +"If it seems bad to you now, that's a good sign. It means that you've +learned something about color. Suppose it had still seemed good." + +He took the thing off the easel. + +"If I've learned as much about color as I think this is bad--well +there's only a little left for me to learn." + +"Now you will paint others that will seem faultless at the time and bad +a year later. That's the penalty of growth, but it's the proof. Make +your prayer to the god of painting: 'May everything I do seem bad when +it's a year old!'" + +"I'll try to," he returned gravely. Then, "Let's put this out of sight +quick, before Virginia sees it." + +"You didn't burn it," she asked, when he returned. + +"I should think not. I'd have to fight Ben if I burned that. Of course I +didn't know any better when I gave it to him, any more than I knew about +his songs. That's another thing you must have laughed at me for." + +He laughed himself as she looked up at him with puzzled inquiry, and +went on to confess how he had sung Ben's choicest ballad at the +Monastery. + +"Of course it's a funny song," he continued, as he returned to the +drawing board, "but it isn't so very much funnier than a lot that aren't +supposed to be funny at all. Come, now," he rallied her, "don't they all +rub in the sadness, even the ones you might think serious? There must be +a million songs about 'Dreaming,' 'I Dreamed that You Were with Me, +Love!' and 'It was All a Dream!' and 'Could I but Recall that Day!' and +'Alas, It was not so to be!' and 'Must We, then, Part Forever!' Always +crying about something! Always moaning 'if only' something or other. +They're about as teary a lot as Ben's songs. I told Virginia last night +I never wanted to hear another 'Could I but--' song; they're as bad as +'The Fatal Wedding.'" + +Though he had rushed at the drawings with a powerful incentive--to make +himself free so that he could perform one great service for his lady--he +yielded often to the persuasions of Mrs. Laithe and took Virginia out +for adventures. They explored box cañons that she believed to be +impenetrable until he nonchalantly opened a way to their secret +recesses. They whipped trout streams and he complacently caught fish +from holes she would angle in without result. He tried to persuade her +that certain brown patches he professed to detect off through the forest +from time to time were deer; but vainly each time, until there would be +a sudden terrific shattering amid the underbrush, and perhaps a fleeting +glimpse of the brown patch with its white center, flying in swift rebuke +to her unbelief. They climbed hills together, and he irritated her by +his continued ease of breath under the strain, while her own "wind" that +she had thought so well of in Kensington was exhausted by the first +moments of effort. She believed him guilty of a polite fiction when he +explained that the altitude made all the difference. She disbelieved his +tale of the lake water's coldness--it was annoying to be told that even +he wanted no more than a single plunge in it--and bathed there one day +to her undoing. She refused to believe that he could shoot accurately +with a rifle that made so much noise, or with a revolver that wobbled +when one tried to hold it still, until he had demonstrated these +matters. And she refused to concede that she could not ride a certain +half-broken little mare--which Ewing rode without apparent +difficulty--until the mare proved it to the satisfaction of all +concerned. + +These little disbeliefs were not unpleasant to Ewing. He revenged +himself for having been proved a "duffer" at her own games. + +It was on their return from an afternoon's fishing one day that they +found Bartell bestowing Cooney on his sister. + +"I bought him for you from Pierce," he was explaining. "Of course Virgie +can ride him until you're fit again." + +The sick woman greeted her old friend formally in the presence of the +others. But when they had gone inside she led the little roan around to +the corral, and there, sheltered by its wall, she put an arm tightly +over his lowered neck and laid her face to his with fond little words of +greeting and remembrance. He had carried her so well on a day when +nothing had happened; when she was a girl herself, it almost seemed, +more curious of the world than knowing. + +That had been an age--a year--ago. The little horse had been bravely +doing his work, carrying his inconsequent burdens as they listed, while +she had been losing herself in protests. She had begun doing that, it +seemed, the first day he brought her there. She wondered if he could +remember it. She doubted that; but at least he remembered Ewing and +loved him. She clasped the arm more tightly about his neck, and the +little horse whinnied, pawing the earth with a small forefoot, and +moving his head up and down in a knowing way. To the woman he had the +effect of seeking to return her caress, so that in a moment she was +sobbing in a sudden weakness of love for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE WHITE TIME + + +The days went, shortening. She kept to her couch through all but those +hours when the sun was high. Then she lay to be warmed in the open while +the year died before her. She could not see another year. She must read +all her meanings into this one. September went and October waned. The +sky was often overcast. They had ceased to talk of her going back. Her +brother reminded her cheerfully that he had half expected a long stay +for her. She must be patient. She spoke in his own vein of hopefulness, +promising patience, and smiled as ever on her pair, who still wandered +in that garden, bantering comrades, tasting the fruit of every tree but +one. + +And one day she knew that all her imaginings about this pair had been +vain, caught it in the deepened look of Ewing as he turned from Virginia +to herself. It was a thing to bask in--that look--like the fervid sun +itself. But it hurt her, too; made it harder to let go of life. Yet +always before her was the face of Kitty Teevan with its beseeching eyes: +"You have so little time to live, and I must live in his memory always!" +And so she put the thing away, letting him think as he must, wincing +under his look of pity, and that devouring thing that lurked always back +of his pity, and striving for lightness when she talked with him. + +"I understand why our land seemed unreal to you," she said to him while +they loitered in the blue dusk of the pine woods near the cabin one day. +The peaks beyond were misty behind gray clouds that lay sullenly along +the horizon. "I understand why you called our land a stage land, for +this is unreal to me, painted, theatrical, impossible. I keep hearing +the person who's seen the play telling his neighbor what's to come +next." + +"It's real enough," he answered, looking away from her. "I have a way of +telling when a land is real." + +"You have?" + +"Any land is real where you are. New England or Colorado or Siberia +or----" + +"There, there!" she soothed him mockingly--"or India's coral strand. +That's quite enough. You have learned your geography lesson. What a busy +traveler you must have been!" + +"And no land can be real where you are not," he went on gravely. "I go +where you go, follow you around the world and out into the stars beyond +the moon, up and down and on forever, and it all seems real to me--all +except you." + +"Oh, I--I'm real, real enough, but this land is a sad, fearful, +threatening land, so heartless." She shivered. "Let us go in!" + +"That's only because it's closing up now for the winter; that's why the +sky is sorry. The leaves are nearly gone, and the fat old bears are +slouching down from the high places to curl up in the holes, and the +deer are moving down into the valleys, and pretty soon the hills will +crawl under white blankets and go to sleep. And we shall have to do the +same. We shall be shut in before you know it, snowed in, frozen in, like +the bears. But the winter--it can't take you from me." + +"There, there!" But she could not finish. She flashed a helpless smile +at him and fled indoors. He went after her, crying that winter was upon +them. + +And then, all in a day and a night, winter came. The wind fell to an +ominous hush one midday, and a leaden quiet lay over the hills. Blurred +masses of cloud rose slowly above the peaks, shaping themselves with +ponderous sloth. Below these a white mist formed. Then one tiny snow +crystal fell. It was followed presently by another, and then by more, +floating down with unhurried ease. Meaningless wisps they seemed, +fugitive bits of wool, perhaps, from a sheep losing its fleece in some +nearby shearing pen. More of them came with the same slow, loitering +grace, as if they would lull suspicion of the fury they heralded. + +By night the storm had shut off the hills so that the cabin might have +been set in a plain, for all the eye could see. The flakes no longer +came saunteringly, but swiftly now, in a slant of honest fervor, frankly +threatening. + +By morning the land was muffled in white. The sun shone pale and cold +through the mist, and the wind began a game with its new plaything, +still light and dry, and quick to dance to any piping. Spruce and +hemlock seemed to have darkened their green, and their arms drooped +wearily under the white burdens they bore. The second day's fall buried +their lowest branches so that not even the circle of bare earth was left +about them. + +Inside the cabin they sought the peace of the earth under its cover, the +trustful repose of the live things sleeping there. The days sped by +almost unmarked. Scarcely ever were they certain of the day of week or +month, especially after Ben forgot to mark his calendar on the days he +and Ewing devoted to getting deer for their winter's meat. There were +but opinions as to the date after that. + +Ben, after his work with the stock each morning, hibernated gracefully +in a chair by the kitchen stove, sleeping with excited groans, like a +dreaming dog. Or, awake, he stared at the wall with dulled eyes. At +times he would touch his guitar to life and sing very softly, or hold it +affectionately in his lap, a hand muting its strings, while he pondered +dreamily of far-off matters, of cities and men, and the folly of +expecting ever to receive treasure such as the advertisements promise. + +Ewing and Virginia, after the snow packed, went forth on snowshoes far +into the white silence; over open spaces so glaring that the eyes closed +in defense; through ravines where once-noisy streams were stilled; and +under forest arches of green where the snow was darkened to hints of +blue--they agreed that Sydenham would paint it blue without +condescending to hints--and where the hush was so intense that they +instinctively lowered their voices. They passed long times without +speech, as they would have done in a church, worshiping the still beauty +about them, beauty of buttressed peak, of snow-choked cañon, of +green-roofed cathedral, of pink light at sunset on endless snow-quilted +slopes. + +Mrs. Laithe, too, sought the open when the sun was high, and one day in +midwinter she walked as far as the lake in the path beaten by the stock. +It did not occur to her then that this was no feat for a dying woman nor +even on the succeeding days when this walk became her habit. It was a +change for her eyes from the cabin prospect; the sun warmed her +genially, despite the intense cold, and she liked the stillness, all the +movements of life going on in a strange, muffled silence. This helped +her to remember her own plight. Life still abounded with all its warmth +and glad clashing, but she must have only eyes for it--no heart of +desire. She had been so sure of this from the first that she gave but +heedless smiles to the others when they told her she was better. They +had always said such things. + +She slept the long nights through now, seeking bed like a tired child, +and waking in strange refreshment. And milk no longer appeased her +hunger as it had wholly done when she arrived. The savor of baked meats +was now sweet to her. She was presently walking to the lake both morning +and afternoon, breathing deep of the dry air that ran fire in her veins +as she absorbed it. And the flush on her face when she returned was not +that of fever. + +But more eloquent than these physical symptoms was a sullen current of +rebellion rising slowly within her, the old fighting instinct, a lust +for sheer living, a thing she had believed was long since extinct. + +She did not lose her certainty of death all in a day. For weeks she was +haunted merely by an unquiet suspicion. The cough still racked her night +and morning, and the fever came each evening, but the old potency seemed +to have gone from both. She tried to believe at first that this was one +of those false rallies so common before the end. + +The full, maddening realization came to her on a day when Ewing walked +with her to the lake. He turned on her suddenly when they had mounted a +slope, seized both her hands, and looked long into her eyes with a +certain grave wonder. + +"You are made new," he said at last. She trembled in a sudden panic, +divining the truth of it, feeling, as he spoke, a great rush of life +overwhelming her. + +"You are living again, you are going to live. I knew you would live." He +still gripped her hands. It was as if he had drawn her, warm and +pulsing, out of all the wintry death about them. She could not face him, +but released her hands and turned away. He had seen truly. She had +relaxed utterly when she came, to waver unresistingly down into the cool +abyss of her despair. But some indomitable brute thing had risen in her +while she slept, to fight for life, and to fire her whole being with its +triumph. While she had rested and waited in that luxury of +self-abandonment she had been cheated of her victory--betrayed back to +life. + +Trying now to think what life would mean to her, she was overwhelmed +with shame and dismay. With death so near things had been simple. But +how could she live on and face Ewing, shaming herself and shaming him in +the darkness of his belief about her? + +They walked back to the cabin in silence. Ewing, too, she felt, saw the +future to be less simple now. + +"I shall know what to do," he said, as they reached the door; and there +was again in his eyes that puzzling look of some fixed purpose. For the +first time this vaguely alarmed her now, and she questioned him swiftly +with her eyes. But he only pointed to his mother's portrait--they had +entered the studio--and said, "Do you think I'd do less for you than I +would for her?" + +She could endure neither his own look nor the mother's, and fled to her +room. There she studied her face in the glass. It was all true. She was +going to live, and she sickened at the thought. Again it was a time for +tears and laughter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE AWAKENING + + +The white giant, sun-stricken, drooping languidly, crumbled and +dissolved before their eyes. The air softened. The streams rushed full, +the southern hillsides showed bare and gaunt. + +In the lake cabin they felt aged by their imprisonment. It had been so +long, so remote from the world rush. Like prisoners long confined, they +were loath to leave a dungeon where life had been well ordered if not +exhilarating. Benumbed in the first days of the change, they returned +indoors to the soothing evenness of their six months' hibernation. They +found those first changes unbelievable. Winter would surely go on +forever; too mighty a jailer it was to be vanquished by a mere breath of +honey and flowers. They stayed in to warn one another against false +appearances. + +But there came a day when, in the blaze of noontime, Ben Crider moved +his chair out by the door and sang softly to the strains of his guitar. +His eyes blinked in the sunlight as he sang, yet they did not fail to +detect the signs of spring so plentiful about the clearing in bud and +leaf and tiny grass shoot, even though patches of snow still lay in the +shaded spots. + +The woman who cooked came also to the door as Ben sang. He had spoken of +her the winter through as "the woman," dimly perceiving her as a spirit +that mumbled endless complainings as she toiled, for she was one who +had been disillusioned by much cooking. She cooked acceptably, and Ben +had burgeoned in the uncanny luxury of food prepared by another hand +than his own, but he had given her little attention beyond discovering +her opinion that cooking was a barren performance, since people +perversely ate and thereby destroyed, and the thing must be done again +endlessly. He had vaguely observed that this woman was not beautiful, +and now, as she faced him with a sudden joviality in the spring +sunshine, he saw that she could never have been beautiful. She beamed +amicably on the balladist, and he, turning casual eyes on her, was +stricken to dismayed silence; the tuneful praise of young love fainted +on his lips as he stared, aghast, and his startled hand hushed the +vibrant strings. A moment he looked, recovering from the shock. Then, in +swift recoil, he grasped his chair and went resolutely out under the big +hemlock, there to resume his song and his absent contemplation of +Nature's awakening--his back to the cabin door. In this sensitive mood +he wished not to incur again a vision that blighted song. + +It was no longer disputable that spring was real; no baseless tradition, +but an unfolding reality. Ben had divined it, and the other prisoners +were not long in proving it. + +One of them surveyed it in panic wonder, turning in upon herself to face +the ordeal of enforced living. They wandered in the open, three of them, +now, finding it good to feel the bare, elastic earth under their feet +again, and prove the noiseless but sensational life of growing things +all about them. They plucked buds to see their secret hearts, and +exposed the roots of peeping herbs that had begun their strivings +before the snow went. + +When the sunny places had been dried and warmed, and were pulsing in +their myriad hidden hearts, so that winter began to fade in their minds +as some dream of night, they would penetrate the sunless depths of a +narrow cañon where the snow yet lay deep and the stream was a mere +choking of ice in a gorge. + +It was in the flush of this exultation over winter's downfall that they +planned camp life in a vale at the edge of the lake, where the spruces +thinned to leave wide-vaulted arches, and spread the floor with yielding +brown rugs of the pine needle. They began it as a play, and finished +with a permanent camp into which they moved from the cabin. There were +tents and beds, a table, a sheet-iron stove, chests for their stores, +and hammocks in which to be fanned by the south wind. + +Bartell promised his sister vast benefits from this life. + +"This will put the finishing touches to you, Sis. A month here and +you'll be loping over the range, high, wide, and handsome. It'll take an +elk-high fence to hold you after you've slept awhile out here." + +She felt the truth of what he said, and was appalled by it. Almost daily +she dismayed herself by recalling some unpremeditated feat of strength +or endurance. Life had crept back to her like a whipped dog, and +bitterly she felt the sting of its satire. She was loath to leave the +cabin in which she had so long nursed death. She had impregnated the +very walls with an atmosphere of dissolution. But she understood now +that that prison house could no longer suffice her. Stubborn life had +prevailed over all its powers of suggestion. There she had clung +stubbornly to the old solution, cherishing a hope of some sudden +relapse, despite the new life that taunted her with its animal buoyance. +But once in the open, her brain was washed of that. Her mind was as +clear as the fathomless blue above them at noon; and the stars at night +were not more coldly luminous than the reasoning she bent upon herself, +nor sharper than a certain deduction she made. + +Ewing brought his drawing to the camp and spent the mornings in work. He +had finished his series for the _Knickerbocker_ during the winter, and +these drawings, with the illustrations for the story previously made, +had brought him enough to discharge the Teevan debt. He had reported +this transaction significantly to Mrs. Laithe, and was now busy on +pictures for another story for the _Knickerbocker_. + +"Only a little longer," he said, with a meaning she could not fathom, +and he returned to his work with a singular absorption. Not even Ben +could distract him when he sauntered up for his daily criticism. Ben was +respectful to the drawings after he saw the checks they brought, but his +summing up of the purchaser's acumen never varied. + +"Well, well--fools and their money! The idee of payin' out cash for a +thing that looks as much like Red Phinney as that there does!" + +When work was done for the day Ewing would turn to Mrs. Laithe with a +smile of release, and they would stray along some dim trail or off into +pathless, shaded silences of the wood, lingering in grassy mountain +meadows, or skirting the base of bleak crags where streaks of snow in +shadow still clung to the gray walls. She was conscious then of a tumult +throbbing wonderfully beneath the surface of their companionship--a +tumult of life aching for release. In little chance moments of silence +this rumbled ominously, leaving her fearful, but curiously resigned, +moved to blind flight, yet chained and submissive as were the hills +themselves. + +One afternoon they sought their cañon of delayed winter after many days' +neglect of it. They wondered if spring might not have reached even that +secret recess at last. They left the trail that skirted the edge and +descended a rocky way that Ewing found, emerging at last through a +fringe of the stunted cedars into the gloom of the depths. + +At first glance this last stronghold of winter seemed to have remained +impregnable. Snow lay deep along the bottom, enormous stalactites of ice +depended from overhanging ledges, and the stream itself appeared to be +still only a riven glacier. But, listening intently, they heard a steady +liquid murmur, the very music of spring come at last to sing the gorge +awake. As they stood, listening, there was a shivering crash; one of the +huge icicles had dropped, shattering on a lower ledge and raining its +fragments into the soft snowbed below. + +"It's the very last of winter," said Ewing mournfully. "That snow is +eaten through and through. See how those bits of ice drove into it. And +hear that running water. It will be off with a rush now. It's the very +last of it--all I shall have to look back to--that winter of ours +together." His tone was full of a meaning she dared not question. They +climbed in silence to the summer above and traversed, still silently, +the stretch of green woods that grew beyond the cañon wall. Only at the +first mountain meadow, a dazzle of emerald under the slanting sun, did +they halt to gaze at each other. His eyes were wonderfully alight with +sadness and rejoicing as she faced him, radiant in a moment of +forgetfulness, flagrant in her beauty's renewal. + +"You're wonderful again," he said, almost whisperingly, "you're all in +flower now!" She quickened under his look, feeling the glow on her +cheeks. But that faded at his next words. + +"I finished the last of those drawings to-day. Now I must go." + +"Ah--go?" It was a little cry, half of question, half of understanding. + +"Yes--I can go now. I couldn't go before, but I have the money now." + +She sickened as they walked on in silence, fearing to question him, and +when they reached the camp she ran to throw herself on the bed in her +tent, covering her eyes with her hands, pressing the lids down, but +making no sound. + +As they sat about their camp fire that evening Ewing was struck by a +certain view he caught of her. She sat in shadow on a stool at the foot +of a towering hemlock, and once when he rose to stir the waning fire a +flame shot up from a half-burned log, with a volley of sparks that fell +back in a golden rain. He glanced over to be sure that she escaped +these, and saw her sharply revealed in the sudden light, unconscious of +it, unaroused by the crackling explosion. She was staring fixedly into +the darkness, her body relaxed, her hands half clasped, her head, the +profile toward him, leaning wearily against the tree. Before this +background she seemed frail again, her face pallid under the dark of +her hair and against the rough, ruddy brown of the tree bole, her whole +body contrasting in its fragile lines with the tree's strength--human +weakness showing starkly against the vigor of the woods. + +To dull the sudden wanting of his heart for her he walked off alone over +the path that bordered the lake, to reduce the amazing actuality of +things, if he could, to proportions seemly with normal life. But the +lake was a mirror of enchantment, the booming of an owl was a magic +portent, the shadowed wall of granite was a turreted castle of +mysteries, vague in the starlight, and the very stars themselves huddled +down on him excitingly. He was in a world of the unreal, and must do an +unreal thing. He stumbled blindly back to camp. He was surprised to find +Mrs. Laithe as he had left her, still drooping against the rough-barked +tree, weak, submissive, overborne. He touched her arm gently to recall +her from some troubled distance. She looked at him with eyes unseeing at +first. + +"Isn't it bedtime?" he suggested. + +She smiled and stood up to shrug away the spell of her dreaming. She +spoke with such clear strength of tone that he was at once reassured of +her vigor. + +"Yes, it's sleeping time--in a moment. I haven't said much to you, but +there's really little to say. You feel that you must go?" + +"How could I stay here--after that?" + +She repressed a sudden spasm of wild, weeping laughter that threatened +to overcome her. + +"And you'll not come back?" She waited breathless. + +"There isn't much chance of it." + +"You dear, dear fool!" was on her lips, but she held back the words and +said very quietly: + +"Go out, then, and live as you must. Only don't let life cow you. Don't +ever fear that living is intricate or hard or tragic--a thing to be gone +about warily. The wary people make the same mistakes as the careless +ones, and feel them ten times more. Don't be afraid to dream--afraid to +believe. I'm glad I've dreamed every dream of mine--false or true. Never +be afraid to want." She turned half away as if to go, but halted, and he +thought she had grown suddenly weak. + +"You're going----" + +"To-morrow, I'd thought--the sooner the better." + +"Ah, but that's so soon. Can't we have one more day here? One more day +to think of it?" + +"I've thought of it all winter, days and nights as well; but I'd like +another day--" He watched her longingly as she went beyond the +firelight. + +"Not a day to think about it," he called softly--"a day to forget." + +They made it a day of forgetting, as he had said. In the morning they +planned to ride, and their spirits were such as they rode off that Ben +was moved to regard them knowingly, as one who had taken a fling at life +in his time. + +The day long they rode or rambled, talking of all but obvious +things--making it, indeed, a day of forgetting and a day to remember. +Deep in the woman's heart stirred an instinct of primal coquetry, an +impulse to wield her charm upon him, to make the woman prevail over the +man, beating all reason down, blindly, madly. And she yielded to this, +watching its effect on him, divining the power of her freshened beauty +each time she compelled his eyes. Instinctively she would have had him +say, "I give up. I can't go. Let me stay--stay by you!" The natural +woman in her fought for that. But reason reigned above the conflict. She +knew he would not surrender and knew she would not have him surrender. +Still she could not resist that impulse to enchain him, and exulted each +time she made him tremble at their nearness. + +Not until night had come did the imminence of his going seem to lie upon +them. But then it lay with a weight. Together they left the camp and +felt a way over the darkened trail to the cabin. Ewing had spoken of +packing he must do, of matters in which she might help him. + +But when they were in the studio, and he had started a great blaze in +the fireplace he sat before it with her, silent. She spoke at length of +the packing. + +"There's none to do," he answered. "I'm taking scarcely anything--only +what I can carry back of the saddle." + +Her blood leaped with a quick hope. + +"Then you're not going for long--you _will_ come back--" But he only +shook his head. + +"I can't expect to come back." He looked at her with a sudden lighting +of his eyes. "Come near to me this once." He moved a stool in front of +him. "Sit here, this once." + +She sat on the low stool at his feet and felt herself drawn slowly +forward until her arms rested on his knees. She laid her head on them, +shaken to the heart. Then she felt him bending over her, hovering, +sheltering her, and at last, with a long sigh, come to rest, his face +buried in her hair. They remained so, immovable, without further speech. + +The absurdity of the thing between them had never seemed so egregious +to her. The words rang in her mind, burning behind her closed +eyes--"It's all a mistake, that. How could you believe it, even you, +unused to the world though you are?" But she knew the questions this +would bring from him, the doubt that would stay with him; knew she could +never satisfy him with less than the truth. For a moment she heard +herself telling him this truth, gently, delicately, tenderly. But he +spoke, even while she was thinking this. + +"I wanted to be here to-night with you, and with her." He raised his +head at last, to look at the portrait of his mother. "She understands, +I'm sure. And she would have me go--she would have me do as I am doing." + +She knew finally, then, that she could never tell him. She ceased all +vain considering of that. He was going away from her because of the lie +he believed. The truth might come to him some day, but it must never +come from her. The certainty brought her a kind of rest. She could fall +back on laughter and tears for the thing. + +A long time they sat there, speaking little, her head still cradled on +his knees. But when the fire died they knew it must be late and rose to +go. Ewing looked long at the portrait, then turned to her. + +"I'm doing what I would do for her," he said, "and I'm glad I had you +both with me this last time. You'll always keep that for me, won't you?" +He raised a hand toward the portrait. + +"If you wish it," she said. + +When they came in sight of the camp fire they stopped and turned to each +other. He caught her by the shoulders. + +"Good night and good-by!" he whispered. + +She tried to speak, but could not for the trembling of her lips. She +turned to go, and took a few faltering steps, then flew back, and with a +wild gesture, drew him down and pressed his head against her heart. + +Ben came sleepily from the cabin next morning as Ewing was about to +mount his horse. He had felt at ease about this journey, because of the +slender equipment with which Ewing was setting out. An early return was +to be inferred. + +Ewing held out his hand, and Ben, observing that it was scarce daylight, +and that the act could in no way be considered a public scandal, grasped +it cordially. + +"So long, Kid--and good luck, whatever you're goin' to do!" + +"There's a man down in New York needs killing, Ben." + +"Now, look a here, Kid, you better look out"--but the practical aspects +of the affair at once seized his mind, and he broke off with, "Got your +gun?" + +"No--a gun's too good for him." + +Ben considered this, and became again solicitous. + +"Well, look a here, now, you be darned careful. If it's needed, why, do +it. But you jest want to remember that New York ain't Hinsdale County. +You want to be mighty careful you don't git into some trouble over it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE HARDEST THING + + +The zest had gone from camp life with Ewing's departure, and the cabin +was again occupied. Mrs. Laithe filled the days with a sort of blind +waiting. It could not end so, she felt, despite the eyes of Kitty +Teevan, so watchful of her, and so certain that it had ended. Something +must happen. That was the burden of her hope--as vague as a child's +hope. She would set no time, nor would she name the thing. But come it +must, and she could wait. + +When Beulah Pierce rode by on his way from Pagosa and left their mail +one afternoon, she felt no eagerness about it. There could be nothing so +soon, she was sure. Virginia brought her some letters and read aloud one +from the aunt at Kensington. Then Mrs. Laithe looked through her own +letters and found one from Ewing. She did not open it, but rose after a +few moments, and walked swiftly over to the lake camp. Only there, +alone, could she trust herself. + +She read the thing staringly, haltingly, testing each phrase as if it +were worded in some strange tongue. + +"I can tell you now what I came for," the letter ran, "because the thing +will be done before this letter can reach you. It's a thing you want +done, but if you had known I meant to do it you would have tried to +prevent me, and that would only have distressed us both. But now, when +it is all over, you will see that I was the one person in the world to +do it for you. Think if you had killed him yourself that night, the pain +you would have brought to yourself and to others. It wasn't a woman's +work. I would have done it for you then, but I owed him money. I +couldn't kill him till I had paid that. + +"I used to dream of doing things for you always, many things, big and +little, but it has turned out that I can do only this. So won't you try +to believe that I am putting all my heart into it for you, all that +thing I would have tried to show you if it had been scattered over the +rest of our lives? I must put it all into this one act. + +"Ben seemed to suspect that such affairs could be managed here with the +informality that often marks them in the San Juan, but you and I know +better. I cannot expect to return, nor to see you again. Yet I shall see +you always; see no one else--while they let me see at all. We must take +life as it falls, do the next thing without complaining, even if it is +the hardest thing. And be sure of this--I shall do it so quickly that he +will have no chance to tell me anything. He will not even speak your +name. Afterwards you can have this to remember, that I did it gladly, +knowing what the consequences would be. I hope that will be, in time, +the happiness to you that it is to me. It is enough for me." + +Over and over she read it, and at last she mastered it--all the horror +of it. A long time she gazed dumbly at the sheets, then once more she +laughed the old, low laugh, with a sinister note in it now. Ben Crider +found her there an hour later, staring blankly out over the flawed +surface of the lake. The breeze was swirling many finely torn bits of +paper about her feet. + +As they walked back to the cabin she reflected that the letter had lain +four days in the postoffice at Pagosa. It had been written nine days +before. Then Ewing had done the thing. She no more believed that Randall +Teevan still lived than she believed that the mountains about her were +phantoms. A sentence from the letter ran in her mind. "We must take life +as it falls--do the next thing without complaining, even if it is the +hardest thing." + +"The hardest thing!" + +She pleaded fatigue and lack of appetite to Virginia and sought her bed +to lie and think in the dark. She saw her own hardest thing, the thing +she must do. + +She had caused a man to be put to death; a vicious, mischievous fool, it +was true, but still a man. That was sad and horrible. But of another +man, one she had thought to guard and cherish and care for in all of +woman's ways--she had made a murderer, and she had murdered him. For she +knew that Ewing must die. It was as if he were already dead. Perhaps out +there in the agonized void of the world he had already killed himself, +his work being done. Or, if not, they would kill him. She felt a blind, +hollow sickness, as if her heart had broken and was bleeding away inside +her. She had made her beloved a slayer and had slain him. She could not +live with it. She hungered for her own death with intolerable desire. + +She arose with a despair-cleared mind the next morning, her resolve +made. Only the smaller details were to be worked out. She walked by the +lake, resolving these. Once she wept, from the very abundance and color +of life about her. Life was so full, and she had taken it from him in +his splendid youth. But she would not shirk the penalty of her +blood-guiltiness. She looked out to the hills beyond the valley that +fell away from the lake, studying headland and wooded slope and cañon +opening, choked with green. Some spot far out there would be secret and +gracious to her--welcome her with a finger on its lips--take her and +keep. Death, to her, was no longer terrible. There had been a long +intimacy with it. She rushed to the idea of it as to a home--a benignant +succor from the unendurable thought. + +Back in the cabin she lay counting the minutes as they rushed--thinking +and counting. She must not let herself be prisoned by a mere body that +exulted blindly, basely, in its vigor. She could make everything right. +She could conform to the law of a life for a life. + +"The hardest thing," she murmured. "I must do the hardest thing." That +would be her expiation, though not a sufficing one; she recognized that. +She longed for it too avidly, for the relief from thought, from +torturing visions. Yet it was formally perfect as a punishment, +according to the world's standards. She would be her own executioner, +and it would satisfy the world if the world knew. And despite her +longing for release, it was still, she thought, the hardest thing, +although it saved--saved her from that old man and that young man slain: +that young beloved one, lying dead with blood upon his hands. Poor +sacrificed, poor betrayed, poor ruined one! Again, the hollow sickness, +as if her heart were bleeding away inside her. To expiate--to do the +hardest thing. She came back to that always. It was the hardest thing, +although it saved. + +When her brother rode up in the afternoon, she instantly saw her plan +completed. There came an hour in which she walked and talked and laughed +in a waking dream, without sensation, except as she could imagine it +felt by a creature she seemed to watch from afar, a creature who had +looked strangely like herself. She saw this woman greet the others and +sit at table with them to laugh and talk with acceptable ease. Their +voices were soundless as voices in a dream, their shapes and flittings +as illogical. So benumbed was her spirit that she suffered little even +at the moment of hurried parting from Virginia. Her rôle was played with +flawless detachment. She studied herself coolly and guarded against +wrong speeches. + +"I shall go home with Clarence; I haven't seen that magnificent ranch +yet," she remarked carelessly, and Virginia and her brother had +applauded this. + +"I'll show you a ranch that is a ranch," Bartell had answered. + +Ben led Cooney around, saddled. She kissed Virginia lightly and was on +the little horse. She turned to wave gayly as she fell in ahead of +Bartell on the trail to the lake. + +The moon had sailed up over the eastern hills with the going down of the +sun, and the shadows were sharply cut in its light. They reined in at +the lake, lingering there a moment in its charm. Under the slanting moon +rays it shone like another moon, radiantly silver in its setting of +cloudlike leafage. She drew a long breath as her brother started on, and +called to him. + +"Clarence!" He pulled up his horse, looking back at her. + +"You'll think me absurd, but I've decided not to go with you, after all. +I believe I'd rather stay with Virginia. She'll be lonesome." + +He came back to her, scolding whimsically. + +"I know I'm foolish," she persisted, "but you're so dreadfully busy and +noisy over there." + +"Nonsense! And Virgie will be all right. She doesn't need you for a few +days." + +"I'm sure she'll need me. No--go on alone, there's a dear. I can ride +over myself and bring you back for a few days, after your rush is over." + +"Well, if you're really set." He submitted, grumbling. + +"And kiss me, dear!" + +He did so, still grumbling. "And you skip back, if you're going back. +You're cold as ice. So long, weathervane! And come over when you feel +like it." + +"I'll be warm, dear--and good-by." + +She watched him down the slope and across the meadow until he vanished +into the black of the forest wall. Then she rode on to the camp. Without +dismounting she took from the end of a broken branch a revolver in its +holster that she had hung there earlier in the day. She made sure again +that it was loaded and buckled the holster about her waist. + +Turning from the ranch trail, then, she found another that led off to +the north and away from the Pagosa road--off into a wooded wilderness of +hills where she would be safe from discovery. She halted again on the +first ridge above the camp, sitting motionless in the shadow, her eyes +on the little moon-flooded opening across the lake where the cabin trail +came down to the shore. That was a walk for lovers, but they could not +walk there now. After a little time she whirled Cooney about in a sudden +gust of fierceness and sent him along the winding ridge, keeping close +within the shadow. + +When the trail fell away into the first of the unknown valleys she +breathed a sigh of relief and release. Her burden was falling from her. +She could not again be cheated back from her refuge. + +She began to rejoice in the wide, wild sweetness of the night, its piny +fragrance, the soft-footed scurryings of its lesser people, the gloom of +its sharply defined shadows, and the silvering haze that enveloped the +peaks. She came on a deer feeding in the open, and was delighted when it +did not run. It only lifted its head to look at her. + +She began to rejoice, also, in the cleverness of her plan. As well as +she might she had preserved the decencies. A week might ensue before +they missed her. Cooney, stripped of his trappings, would appear at the +lake cabin, to be laughed at and chided for his desertion of the Bar-B +ranch, a week before she was missed; and then she would never be found. +There was, indeed, small chance of their having the pain of that. She +would keep to the trail as long as the night hid her; then a climb up +some unpathed slope, over rocks that would show no trace of her passage; +then a tangled thicket, remote, secret, improbable--and the tale of a +lost woman, a woman who wandered confusingly far on a night of tempting +splendor. She thought of Virginia's pain with a feeble pity. It seemed +as if humanity was dead in her. + +The narrow trail wound beckoningly before her, the land stretched off to +peaks of silver or barren gray slopes or shadowed promontories, glooming +above ravines where little rivers turned restlessly in their beds; and +over all hung the mystic shimmer of moon rays, softening all angles and +picking the fronds of trees with dancing lights as she passed. + +An owl boomed from a dead pine, and a little off the trail she heard the +scream of a cougar, like the scream of a woman in some strange terror. +But all sounds were indifferently alike to her, the shrilling of the +beast, the sibilance of running water, the bellow of the owl, the +whistle of a deer, or the throaty mutterings of an awakened bird. She +heard them as receding echoes of a life already remote. + +She kept Cooney moving as rapidly as the trail permitted, checking his +little snatches at the wayside herbage. He could fast with her for one +night, she told him. To-morrow he could feast his way home harassed by +no rider. He stopped at times to test some doubtful bit of trail with a +cautious forefoot; or slowed to feel a sure way down a gullyside of +loose stones; or lingered knee deep in a melody of swift water, to +drink, with swelling sides. She was glad to have this last night with +the little horse that had been Ewing's. Ewing--only not to think of +him--for one cannot ride with the heart all bled away. + +The light faded from the lower ways after a while. The moon had +completed its short arc and fell below the mountain ahead of her; +defining sharp little notches in its rim. + +The hills seemed to steal upon her in the darkness then, huddling close +about her, muffling her with their black plumage. But she was glad of +this--surmounting the mere physical oppression of it--for she felt that +it doubled the secrecy of her going; and Cooney's eyes, with his skilled +feet, sufficed for the trail. + +At times she shrank as under the touch of a palpable hand reached out to +her from the darkness, a thing that frantically protested, pleaded, +expostulated--but she knew it for the hand of mere brute life, a +cowardly, blind, soulless thing, that would subvert all fitness. She +shook it off, knowing herself its superior by right of mind, with power +to inflict justice upon it. And _he_ was dead, he, the young and +strong--alas, poor slayer, poor slain! How her heart bled away. To +expiate---- + +She clung to that: it was an obligation that lay on her, a secret +obligation, but the more imperative for that. She could not hold a +forfeited life. She must redeem herself. The hardest thing was demanded +of her. And then, one could not go on with this bleeding heart. + +"The hardest thing--the hardest thing!" she murmured, shutting her lips +tightly on the words, with a sudden inexplicable fear of some flaw in +her logic. Again and again she forced the words from her lips with +stubborn, deaf insistence, to still some mental voice of inquiry, a +passionless, cold thing that lifted itself in her brain, but which she +could beat down with this bludgeon of her phrase. She was even bold +enough to cross-examine herself presently. The hardest thing was +demanded of her, and she was doing the hardest thing. Her hand fell on +the laden holster at her side with a panic impulse to rush the thing +through. But the touch reassured her and she laughed in the +consciousness of her security. She could not be thwarted now, and she +need not hurry. She could afford to the very end that deliberate +thoroughness with which she had begun. Her will for the thing had lost +none of its iron. + +An hour or so after the darkness had crowded the hills in upon her she +rode into a dense mist, chilling to the bone after the dryness of the +early night. The range of her vision was again shortened, and even the +little horse halted more frequently to feel his way. Once he seemed to +have wandered, and stood a moment in uncertainty. She let him rest, then +flicked his shoulder with the bridle rein, and he struggled stanchly on +over the ridge of loose gravel where he had halted, feeling for the +trail with expert hoofs. He found it a moment later, and was moving +forward again. She patted his neck and blessed him for being so "trail +wise." He, too, was doing the hardest thing, and doing it faithfully. + +She fell again into the rhythm of her battle cry--"The hardest +thing--the hardest thing!" + +And yet it was not hard. She was so near to it now that she could afford +the luxury of this admission. It required only a sense of justice, of +moral symmetry. She had taken a life--two, doubtless--and by the law she +must pay. But no debtor could have had a willinger spirit. And she would +not be paying too much. She recalled certain homely words of an old man +whose life she had watched out, a man whose worn, seamed face showed his +right to speak. + +"Experience, lady, a dear thing sometimes--yes--but never too dear. It +is worth always just what we pay for it. It is had at slightest cost, +high or low. No other thing is like it thus. All else of the world may +cheat us in their price, but not experience. Our fee shall vary as we +are quick to learn, but the good God teaches us what we must know at +flat cost, as says the merchant, with never the penny of profit. This it +saves much to know--much sorrowing, much whining. It would make us +wise--so!" + +"So!" She echoed his rich guttural imitatively and laughed as she drew +in a deep breath of the damp air. She was numb with the cold now, and +laughed at foolish life for registering so petty a discomfort at such a +moment. The humor of it came home to her--that she should sensually feel +the cold. + +Another span of hours the little horse strode on at his quick step, +valiantly lifting her up steep ascents, or descending the sides of +ravines with devoted sureness of foot, treading narrow ways where she +could feel that he hugged the bush-lined bank, and knew that a fall lay +the other side. + +"The hardest thing--the hardest thing!" Again she muttered it, beating +at her purpose. And again, that mental, passionless query lifted its +head. Strike it down as she would, its cool, curious eyes were always on +her, not denying, not disputing, only questioning, calmly but +implacably, until her soul seemed to writhe in loyalty to her motives, +holding them sacred even from questioning. + +"The hardest thing"--but her brain rang with the relentless +question--"are you doing it because it is the hardest thing or because +you want to do it?" + +"I am doing it because I want to do the hardest thing." + +"A quibble!" + +She set her lips, shut her eyes, even to the darkness, and tried to +deafen her ears to the sounding thing. A long time she rode so. And then +she wept because she was alone and cold and dying and unsuccored by the +only one who could have comforted her. + +"I would never, never have left _you_!" she called back toward Ewing, +with the first reproach she had ever given him. Her voice had a broken +sweetness like that of a child speaking through tears. "I'd never have +let you be so cold! I'd have stayed--stayed by you--warmed +you--comforted you!" + +But after a little her tears ceased, as an unpitied child wears out its +crying, and her eyes closed again as she laughed at her own sad lack of +reason. + +When she opened her eyes again she gave a little gasping cry of relief. +The black of the night had faded to gray. A dull, dark, opaque gray it +was, but ghosts of the land already bulked massively through it; +shrouded, vague shapes without line. And the spirit of her purpose +quickened as she looked. + +Slowly the mist lightened, still opaque but silver now, and presently +she saw the murky face of a nearby rock and could trace the cedar that +twisted outward from its summit. They were amazing shapes to her, so +long had she seemed to live in the dark, and she named them over, +wonderingly--"A tree, a rock--a rock, a tree!" + +Again the question struck at her: "You want to do the hardest thing?" + +"I _must_ do the hardest thing--it only happens that I also wish to." + +"Is there nothing harder than what you are doing?" + +Again she shut her eyes and set her lips, but the voice came with +merciless insistence. + +"_What_ would be harder than dying?" + +Then she threw back her head and challenged the voice. + +"_Living!_ To live would be harder." She made the confession without +flinching, even with a laugh, and a weight dropped from her. + +"Then you are not doing the hardest thing--not doing it--not doing the +hardest thing!" + +She coolly scanned the descending bed of a creek that the trail now +crossed. The ravine widened below, and she saw that an ascent would be +practicable farther down. It was time, then, to leave the trail. If the +impossible should happen, if by some chance or trick of woodcraft they +tracked her all the miles of her night-long ride, they must lose her +here. + +She turned Cooney down the shallow stream with a furtive smile of pride +in her own craft. He splashed through the water, stumbling over the +submerged bowlders, but always recovering himself, and picking a sure +way over the creek bed. + +The cool gray of the mist-steaming water reminded her that she was +thirsty, but she would stop for nothing now. She knew herself for a +coward at last, guilty of a cowardice hideously selfish. She had planned +her act to be remote, secret, undiscoverable. But now she faced squarely +the grief her loss would be to others. + +But the sting would pass. And she had her own right--her own obligation +to meet. She had killed--she had killed her love--and she could not +live. There was service she might have performed through the years, but +others would perform it now, quite as acceptably. A gnat dropping from +the ephemeral human swarm could be nothing but a gnat the less. She no +longer pretended to call it the hardest thing. "But it's the next +hardest," she pleaded to herself. Her lips quivered, but she stilled the +spasm with a gust of fierce resolving to be done with the thing quickly. + +The shelving bank along which the stream had wound now fell away, and +she could dimly make out a draw between two hills where she might +ascend. She chose a place of broken stone and loose gravel for Cooney to +clamber out, so that he might leave no sign even to a searcher who had +come this far. Then, ascending the draw a little distance, she turned +and sent him up the side of the lesser hill. The mist still shut her in, +but she could make out that the woods were denser on this hill. + +Cooney made his way through a growth of the thick, wet buck brush, then +between white files of the quaking aspen, and at last into the heavier +wooded forest where his feet slipped and slid on the yielding pine +needles as he climbed. The hill lengthened before her in gradual +ascents, broken by terraces, and the way was rough with bowlders and +fallen trees and the clutching tangle of undergrowth. But the mist, +receding before her, revealed aisles of the wood farther on that allured +her. She would be thorough. Ahead of her were ruddy, yellow hints of the +sun, striking down through the green arches of the forest. + +At last she saw that she had reached the summit of the hill. "It is the +place," she said, then reined in and dismounted by a clump of bushes. +She found herself stiffened by the cold, and a sudden fear of failing +force seized her. She stamped on the ground until she felt warmth in her +feet again, and the stirred blood mounting through her. She drew a great +breath and straightened her body with a consciousness of its strength +and wealth of life. "It is the place," she repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE MISSION OF EWING + + +In a dingy little bedroom of a dingy little hotel in one of the lesser +avenues of New York Ewing sat waiting for his hour. He had sealed his +letter to Mrs. Laithe with the feeling that this was the last +intelligible word he could say to anyone. Henceforth he must be silent; +refuse reasons. He must let them devise reasons for him. Any but the +true reason would suffice. + +When darkness came on he went out into the noisy street, mailing the +letter as he passed through the hotel office. Then, by unfamiliar +thoroughfares he made his way to Ninth Street and resumed his old vigil +in front of Teevan's house. + +There were lights in the house, both above and below. The thing was not, +then, to be attempted at the moment. He walked for an hour through +squalid streets to the west and came back to his post. The house was +still alight. Teevan, apparently, was entertaining. He watched but a +moment, then returned to his hotel and went to bed. He could be patient, +and he must be thorough. Before extinguishing his light he made sure +that he had not lost what was now his most important possession: a key +to Teevan's door. Teevan had bestowed it on him the year before, in +order that he might obtain books during the little man's absence from +town. Ewing had forgotten the key until he set on his present mission; +then he had perceived a use for it. + +He fell asleep, despite the recurrent tumult of elevated trains outside +his window; fell asleep thinking of Teevan. There was no bitterness in +his heart toward the little man. It was only necessary that he die. + +He kept closely to his room the next day, wishing not to be recognized +by any of his acquaintances, and he was at his post early in the +evening. This time the house was dark. Teevan was out, but he would +return. So he paced back and forth through Ninth Street, going only so +far as would let him keep the house in view. He felt no impatience. It +was his last work, and he could bide the time when it might be well +done. A little after midnight two men entered the street from Fifth +Avenue, strolling leisurely in the warm June night, and ascended the +steps of the Teevan house. Ewing felt a slight tingling of relief when +he recognized Teevan, but then he saw the other take a key from his +pocket, and he knew that this would be Teevan's son. They went in +together, and the watcher left his post. He must have Teevan alone in +the house. + +He walked on with strange echoes from another time--from another world, +it seemed, sounding in his ears. The sight of Teevan, the tones of his +voice, faintly heard, seemed to awaken him from some dream in which he +walked, awaken him to a time when the little man was his good friend. He +felt a sudden nausea, but then he raised his eyes to the Bartell house +opposite and was himself again. He crossed the street and stood a moment +before the door, seeing his lady there, seeing her again as he had seen +her that night in Teevan's grasp, striving with Teevan, weakly, but with +the killing light in her eyes. The vision convinced him. The other time +had been the time of dream. He had not been awake until now. + +Again he slept and again he passed a day of waiting. That night there +were no lights in the house, but also no returning master, though he +waited until the night was far on. Yet he went to sleep in all patience, +knowing he had only to wait. + +On the fourth night there were lights again, but about ten o'clock he +saw Teevan's two servants leave. He walked on, to avoid recognition by +them. When he returned a man was leaving the house. He thought this +might be Teevan, but when the figure had descended the steps and passed +under the street lamp he saw it to be Teevan's son. Still he waited. He +must be sure. + +After half an hour the lights in the lower part of the house went out, +save one that shone dimly through the fanlight over the door. A moment +later two windows on the floor above leaped ruddily into view and he saw +a shadow pass across them. This was Teevan's room, and Teevan was +doubtless there, alone at last. + +He did not cross the street directly, but walked east to the end of the +block and came back on the other side. As he passed the Bartell house he +opened and closed his hands tensely, recalling Ben's suggestion about a +weapon. His bare hands were sufficing weapons. + +He went up the steps and softly turned his key in the lock. The door +yielded noiselessly to his push and he was in the hall. Unconsciously he +took off his hat and was about to leave it, but then he smiled and +replaced it firmly on his head. He stood listening a moment. There was +no sound. Then, very slowly, taking each step with caution, he mounted +the thickly carpeted stairs. + +So intent was he on his purpose that he felt no anxiety, no excitement. +As he halted at the head of the stairs to listen again, he thrilled +only with the need for perfect silence, a thing he would have felt in +the same degree if his quarry had been a deer in some green cover of the +hills. Still without a sound he felt his way to the door of Teevan's +room. The door was open and light from it glowed dimly into the hall. He +paused within the shadow and peered into the room. He could see the desk +but not the man who sat before it. Of him he could see only an arm and +hand--writing at the moment. Presently the hand dropped its pen and took +up a tall glass that stood near. The glass ascended and passed beyond +the watcher's range of vision. The hand brought it back, empty, a moment +later, and resumed the pen once more. + +He took a step forward and brought the room into view. Teevan sat at the +desk, his head bent and half turned away. Ewing coolly noted his +position. He seemed smaller than ever, smaller and older. But now no +time must be wasted. + +Ewing stepped through the doorway with noiseless tread and took one long +step toward the desk. Teevan turned his head and looked up. His eyes +rested on Ewing, at first vacantly, his mind still busied with the +matter of his writing. Ewing thrilled with a sudden alertness, his +purpose growing in his eyes, his hands tensely closing and unclosing. +Teevan started back from the desk, conscious now of the intruder's +menace. Yet such was the cool fixedness of Ewing's gaze, the hypnotic +tenseness of his crouch, that the little man made no sound; only stared +as one under a spell, the pen still held in his poised hand. + +Only when the crouching figure leaped toward him did his lips open. But +then, what would have been a cry of terror became a mere gurgling +snarl, for Ewing's hands had met about his throat with unerring +deftness. Teevan was half-raised from the chair, his head was forced +back, and for an instant his eyes met Ewing's in full consciousness. +Then his mouth opened wide, but not for speech, and his eyes rolled in +the agony of that choking grip. Ewing felt the thing writhe in his +clutch, then felt a sudden terrible relaxation, and his pressure ceased +in unthinking response to this. He stood a moment, holding the limp +form, then dropped it in the chair, feeling himself sicken at the sheer +physical horror of what he was doing. There was no pity for Teevan--only +for the animal that suffered. He had had to kill a dog once and his +loathing of that deed was like this. Teevan's head lay over on his +shoulder, his face distorted and purple, his eyes upturned and fixed in +a hideous stare. The fine little hands hung limply down. + +At the moment Ewing believed his task was done, but then he was dismayed +by a gasping, indrawn breath and the convulsive shuddering of Teevan's +chest. The little man was breathing again, though still unconscious. The +dog had shown this same horrible tenacity. He must do the thing all over +again. He bent over the figure, again fixing his grip nicely at the +throat. He would make sure this time. Then nerving himself to exert the +needed pressure, he turned his eyes away--he could not look at the face +in its death agony--turned his eyes away and found himself staring +stupidly at Alden Teevan, who stood inside the door. They gazed at each +other a moment until Ewing had appraised the significance of this +interruption. It meant only that he would be swiftly apprehended, for he +knew that Alden Teevan could not save his father. He had not changed +his position, still bending over the little man, still fingering his +throat. He was conscious of an increase in his purpose; this hint of +opposition would enable him to kill Teevan with a better spirit. He +spoke and his voice was only a little hoarse under the strain. + +"I'm killing your father. I don't want to hurt you, but you mustn't try +to stop me. If you do, by God! I'll kill both of you. If you keep away +I'll go with you after I've done it. I promise that." + +He turned again to the livid face beneath him. But the younger Teevan +called sharply to him, though with only irritation in his voice: + +"Stop! Don't be an ass! You're making an ass of yourself!" + +Ewing only stared at him. The other came a step nearer in his eagerness. + +"You'll be sorry if you don't listen to me. You're a fool, I tell you." + +Ewing smiled confidently, bitterly, not relaxing his hold of the little +man's throat. + +"I'm not doing it for myself." + +"All the more fool!" + +"For some one who couldn't do it--who has reason to do it." + +The other came nearer, clutching Ewing's sleeve with gentle persuasion +and speaking with quick intensity. + +"Ah, so that's it--she never told you! But you're a fool. She had no +reason--she was merely trying to save you from the truth about your +mother, and she has let you believe his lies about herself. What a +rotten fool you were to think that contemptible little mucker could ever +have been anything to her. He lied to you, do you hear me? Lied to you +about her, and she let you believe it--a fool herself for doing that--so +you wouldn't know the truth about your own mother." + +Slowly Ewing unclasped his hands from the throat of Teevan and stood +facing the son. Two phrases rang in his ears: "He lied to you about +her--the truth about your mother." He put up a hand to loosen his +collar. It seemed now as if he himself were being choked. + +"The truth about my mother--_what_ truth about my mother?" + +"Sit down there." + +"_What_ truth about my mother?" + +"Come--get hold of yourself. The truth that your mother happened to be +my mother." + +Ewing passed a hand over his face, as if to awaken himself from some +trance in which he had moved. + +"Sit down there." + +He felt for a chair now and sank awkwardly into it, repeating dazedly: + +"My mother was your mother--" He could get no meaning from the words. +The other answered sharply: + +"Your mother married my father. She left him for your father when I was +a baby. Do you understand that? Mrs. Laithe knew it. He knew it--" He +pointed toward the limp but breathing figure in the chair--"and she was +afraid he would tell you." + +He tried to take it in. + +"My mother--his wife? Ah--you--you are my brother." + +"That's beside the point; but if it means anything to you, listen to +me--try to understand." + +Again and again he told the thing point by point, as simply as he could, +while his listener stared curiously at him. The figure in the chair +stirred, the head rolled, the breathing became quieter and more even, +but neither gave any heed to this. + +At last the incredible thing began to shape itself in Ewing's mind, but +it was not until the very last, and then it came as a sudden blinding +illumination. The man in the chair drew a long, shuddering breath and +opened his eyes on them. Ewing at the same moment caught the full force +of the little man's deceit. He had felt no anger toward Teevan before, +but now rage grew within him as he remembered what the woman had +suffered. He sprang toward Teevan, feeling no longer a specific desire +to kill, but only a mad impulse to beat down and blindly destroy. + +"You lied about her!" he cried, towering above the little man with +clenched, threatening fists. If Teevan had retorted, had raised a hand, +or betrayed anything but abject fear, shrinking in his chair, turning +eyes of appeal to his son, Ewing would have vented his rage. But this +died into mere loathing as he looked. Teevan was near to whimpering, in +his fear. Ewing turned away with a gesture of repulsion. + +"That's best, after all," remarked the son coolly. + +"Doubtless he deserves kicking more than any unkicked man alive, but +you'll be glad you didn't do it." + +Ewing shot another look at Teevan, and then said, almost as if to +himself. + +"How wise my mother was!" He turned again to the little man with a +sudden blaze of scorn. + +"And you believed I could think less of her for leaving you--leaving you +for a _man_!" Teevan merely closed his eyes and cautiously raised a hand +to his neck. + +"You'll be glad you let him off," repeated the son, "and so will she. +She wouldn't have you----" + +"Ah--she!" It was a cry of remembrance. "Why--she's--" He broke off, +glowing with a strange illumination. "Why, I left her----" + +A moment longer he stood, like a sleeper wakened, then rushed from the +room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE TURNING OF COONEY + + +When she again felt sure of her strength she began to unsaddle Cooney. +The cinches bothered her stiffened fingers, but she had them worked +loose at last, and lifted the heavy saddle off, smiling grimly at her +own strength. When she took off the blanket she warmed her hands a +moment in its heat. Then she stripped off the bridle, and the little +horse, after a moment's mouthing to rest his jaws from the bit, fell to +grazing. As he seemed inclined to stay by her, she broke a switch from +one of the nearby bushes and cut him sharply. Even after this he +galloped off but a little way, with astonished, resentful shakings of +his head. She had wanted him to be on his way back over the miles he had +come before the thing was done. + +She glanced shrewdly about her. She was far away from the cabin, a +night's ride at Cooney's best trail pace, and in a region rough and +untraveled, except as an occasional way to the lower valleys. There were +no trails about her, no dead camp fires, no trees rimmed by the axe or +scarred by a "blaze." There was life enough of a sort; jays called +harshly, and squirrels barked their alarm; and half a dozen grouse eyed +her from a few yards' distance, with a sort of half-timid stupidity. But +there was no life to touch hers. She walked about the chosen thicket, +admiring its denseness, not notable in any way, but casual, improbable +to the searching eye. + +"The hardest thing!" It was satire now, and she murmured it as such, +done with all fighting. It was good to anticipate the thing, the +restfulness of extinction--or not, as that might be. That was no matter. +She was beaten in this life. It was good to know that in a moment she +would feel as little as Randall Teevan--or as much. She unconsciously +drew herself up at the thought of facing that withered fop. + +She rejoiced in the warming air. She would take a long breath of it, and +then the triumphant exit. She stepped a few paces forward to peer about +a low-growing spruce that had shaded her. She had a last fancy for +following the echo of her shot to the farther valley wall. + +As she lifted the curtain boughs the sun dazzled her. She would see its +golden points, she thought, when she shut her eyes in the thicket. She +shut them quickly now, to prove this, and saw the myriad dancing lights. + +As she opened her eyes again and turned to draw back into the wood there +was imprinted curiously on her recovering vision a silhouette of the +lake cabin. She shut them quickly again, dreading memories she was +forever done with, and laughing in the certainty that the cabin was +miles away. Then she looked again, blinking dazedly in the sunlight, and +the cabin loomed before her across the clearing. + +As she stared desperately, her mind roused to frantic denials, her eyes +straining to banish this monstrous figment, the door of the cabin opened +and Ewing came out. She sprang forward with an impulse to shatter the +illusion by some quick movement. But her eyes still beheld him, +bareheaded, turning his face up to the sun. He stretched his arms and +drew deep breaths. He had never seemed so tall. His look had a kind of +triumph in it. + +She swayed under the shock of the thing, feeling herself grow faint. +Cooney had betrayed her. Some time in the night, at one of those +confusing bends in the trail, he had turned. He had brought her home. + +Ewing's head had turned as she moved; his eyes were on her. She saw the +rapt gladness in his face and beheld him approach her across the +clearing. She managed another step or two and gained the support of a +felled tree. As Ewing came up she essayed a little smile of nonchalance. + +"Cooney--" she begun. The word came itself, but she felt easier under +the sound of her own voice and went on--"Cooney came with me. I didn't +go at all. I rode--but you see--" She beamed on him with explanatory +embarrassment--"I took an early morning ride--it was so pleasant--and I +thought I was lost--indeed I did, and I took off his saddle. I left it +right there--" She pointed with the literal exactness of a child in its +narrative of adventure--"right there behind that tree, and then I found +I was--found I was closer to home than I thought." + +He had not seemed to hear her, but stood looking narrowly, as if she +were still far away. Gradually his eyes widened, as if he were drawing +her close to him. He took a step toward her, with arms half raised. + +"I'm so ashamed--" he muttered; "but you--you let me think that." + +His voice brought her to sudden agonized alarm. The blood ebbed from her +face and she almost staggered toward him. + +"Did you do it--do _that_?" she whispered, ready to fall. + +"No; I found out in time. I found out everything--everything you didn't +tell me." He was shaken with longing, yet shamed into restraint before +her. + +"I'm so ashamed--I came as soon as I could to tell you. I rode all night +to be here, to tell you as soon as I could." + +"You didn't do it--you didn't do it?" she insisted pitifully. + +"I stopped in time." She muttered this over and over, and at last the +truth struggled into her chilled brain. + +"You dear, dear fool!" she said with a little sobbing laugh. + +Again his arms were half raised to her, but she turned swiftly and ran +to Cooney, who had fallen to grazing a little way off, throwing her arms +about his neck and weeping out incoherent words of endearment. + +Ewing gathered his strength, like a wrestler who has been pressed to the +ground, but lifts himself with infinite effort, and went resolutely +toward her. Gently he unclasped her arms from Cooney's neck. + + +THE END + + + + +A STORY OF AMERICAN LIFE + +David Harum. + +Illustrated Edition. With 70 full-page and text pictures by B. West +Clinedinst, and other text designs by C. D. Farrand, and a biography of +the author by Forbes Heermans. 12mo. $1.50. + + +"What seems to us to be the final judgment of 'David Harum' is given in +the _North American Review_ by no less a personage than John Oliver +Hobbes. This review strikes at the root of the matter. + +"'It would not be presumptuous to say,' opines Mrs. Craigie, 'well +remembering the magnificent ability of certain English authors of the +present day, that not one could create a character which would win the +whole English population as David Harum has won the American public. The +reason is plain. With so many class distinctions, a national figure is +out of the question. A national hero--yes; but a man for "winterin' and +summerin' with"--no. Social equality and independence of thought, in +spite of all abortive attempts to introduce the manners and traditions +of feudal Europe, are in the very air of the United States. One could +not find an American man or woman of the true stock who had not known +intimately, or who did not count among his or her ancestors, connections, +relatives, a David Harum. The type, no doubt, is getting old: becoming +more and more "removed" from the younger generation. In the course of +the next twenty years it may become so changed as to seem extinct, but +it is a national figure--certainly the most original, probably the +purest in blood. And the spirit of Harum is the undying spirit--no +matter how much modified it may eventually become by refinement, +travel, and foreign influence--of the American people. Individuals +may change, but the point of view remains unalterable.'"--_New York +Mail and Express._ + +"'David Harum' is one of those extremely rare and perfectly fresh +creations in current fiction which really enrich our literature. In +brief, it is a masterpiece, and one that deserves an immense popularity. +No words can adequately describe its wholesome, sparkling humor, its +quaint and endearing originality, its genuine Yankee wit and native +shrewdness. A well-nigh perfect work it is--a creation which will take a +permanent place among American literary portraits."--_Literary Review._ + + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + + + +THE LEADING NOVEL OF TODAY. + +The Fighting Chance. + +By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell. 12mo. Ornamental +Cloth, $1.50. + + +In "The Fighting Chance" Mr. Chambers has taken for his hero, a young +fellow who has inherited with his wealth a craving for liquor. The +heroine has inherited a certain rebelliousness and dangerous caprice. +The two, meeting on the brink of ruin, fight out their battles, two +weaknesses joined with love to make a strength. It is refreshing to find +a story about the rich in which all the women are not sawdust at heart, +nor all the men satyrs. The rich have their longings, their ideals, +their regrets, as well as the poor; they have their struggles and +inherited evils to combat. It is a big subject, painted with a big brush +and a big heart. + +"After 'The House of Mirth' a New York society novel has to be very good +not to suffer fearfully by comparison. 'The Fighting Chance' is very +good and it does not suffer."--_Cleveland Plain Dealer._ + +"There is no more adorable person in recent fiction than Sylvia +Landis."--_New York Evening Sun._ + +"Drawn with a master hand."--_Toledo Blade._ + +"An absorbing tale which claims the reader's interest to the +end."--_Detroit Free Press._ + +"Mr. Chambers has written many brilliant stories, but this is his +masterpiece."--_Pittsburg Chronicle Telegraph._ + + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Spelling, grammar, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained as +in the original publication except as follows: + + Page 9 + you'll _git_ somewhur's, I says _changed to_ + you'll _git_ somewhur's,' I says + + Page 14 + comsummation of this mild adventure _changed to_ + consummation of this mild adventure + + Page 23 + considered is so quietly _changed to_ + considered it so quietly + + front of "art emporiums." on _changed to_ + front of "art emporiums," on + + Page 33 + rainment was donned _changed to_ + raiment was donned + + Page 48 + sasshaying down Fifth Avenue _changed to_ + sashaying down Fifth Avenue + + Page 50 + that man every marry _changed to_ + that man ever marry + + Page 84 + vista of heartshaking surprises _changed to_ + vista of heart-shaking surprises + + Page 133 + latest golf and yatching news _changed to_ + latest golf and yachting news + + Page 243 + slay me an you will _changed to_ + slay me an' you will + + Page 292 + walked by the lake, revolving _changed to_ + walked by the lake, resolving + + Page 311 + with a gesture of replusion _changed to_ + with a gesture of repulsion + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ewing's Lady, by Harry Leon Wilson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EWING'S LADY *** + +***** This file should be named 32988-8.txt or 32988-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/8/32988/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Ewing\'s Lady + +Author: Harry Leon Wilson + +Release Date: June 27, 2010 [EBook #32988] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EWING\'S LADY *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<hr /> + +<h1>EWING'S LADY</h1> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="584" alt="Cover" title="" /> +</div> + + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"><span class="tp1">EWING'S LADY</span></p> + +<hr class="black" /> + +<p class="center"><i>By</i><br /> +<br /> +<span class="tp3">HARRY LEON WILSON</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="tp2">Author of "The Spenders"</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 120px;"> +<img src="images/logo.jpg" width="120" height="146" alt="Publisher's Logo" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="black2" /> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="tp5">D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /><br /> +NEW YORK<br /><br /> +1907</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="block"> +<p class="center tp2"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1907, by</span><br /> + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</p> + +<hr class="hr3" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1907, by</span><br /> + +AINSLEE MAGAZINE COMPANY</p> + +<p class="noi mt"><i>Published, November, 1907</i></p> +</div> + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="To_N_B_T" id="To_N_B_T"></a>To N. B. T.</h2> + + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<h2><a name="contents" id="contents"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table summary="Contents"> +<tr> +<th class="thl">CHAPTER</th> +<th class="thr" colspan="2">PAGE</th> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">I.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ewing's Kid</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#i">1</a></td> +</tr> + + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">II.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Lady Loses Herself</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#ii"> 12</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">III.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Private View</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#iii"> 20</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">IV.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Portrait</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#iv"> 32</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">V.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Into the Past and Out</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#v"> 43</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">VI.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Lady and the Plan</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#vi"> 55</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">VII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Two Sleepers Awaken</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#vii"> 64</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">VIII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Journey Wonder</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#viii"> 71</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">IX.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Dinner at Seven-thirty</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#ix"> 83</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">X.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Way of the Little Man</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#x"> 97</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XI.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Night at the Monastery</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xi"> 105</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The New Member</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xii"> 124</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XIII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Searching the Wilderness</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xiii"> 131</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XIV.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Trick of Color</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xiv"> 140</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XV.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Flesh of Her Flesh</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xv"> 147</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XVI.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Teevan as Special Providence</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xvi"> 156</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XVII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Elusive Venus</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xvii"> 164</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XVIII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Laithe is In</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xviii"> 174</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XIX.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Unblazed Way</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xix"> 185</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XX.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Lady Blushes</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xx"> 196</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXI.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Drama in Ninth Street</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxi"> 203</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Revolt</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxii"> 211</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXIII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Little Land</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxiii"> 222</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXIV.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ewing Interrupts</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxiv"> 231</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXV.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Laithe is Enlightened</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxv"> 247</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXVI.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Sunset Trail</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxvi"> 256</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXVII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Hills of Rest</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxvii"> 262</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXVIII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The White Time</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxviii"> 273</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXIX.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Awakening</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxix"> 279</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXX.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Hardest Thing</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxx"> 290</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXXI.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Mission of Ewing</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxxi"> 304</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdr1">XXXII.—</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Turning of Cooney</span></td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxxii"> 313</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span> +EWING'S LADY</h2> + + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<h2><a name="i" id="i"></a>CHAPTER I<br /> +<br /> +<small>EWING'S KID</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">TWO weeks of instructive contact with the Bar-7 school of gallantry had +prepared Mrs. Laithe to be amazed at her first encounter with Ewing's +kid. Riding out from the ranch one afternoon and turning, for coolness, +up the wooded mesa that rises from the creek flat, she overwhelmed him +at a bend in the trail. Stricken motionless, he glared at the lady with +eyes in which she was compelled to believe that she read more horror +than admiration. There was a moment of this; then her pony neighed a +greeting to the statue—of dusty bronze—as if to say that things were +not so bad as they seemed, and the gazing youth broke the spell his +vision had laid upon him. He bowed his head doggedly and vanished beyond +some low-growing cedars that lined the way.</p> + +<p>As he fled the lady laughed softly, yet was silent, with face austerely +set as she passed the point of his evanishment. His behavior recalled +that of a deer she had terrorized one day in this same green isle of the +woods; and she had laughed the same furtive laugh, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> if in confidence +to herself, when the creature tossed its head in challenge, pawed the +earth with a dainty bravado, and then fled in such an ecstasy of panic +that she could hear it crashing through the underbrush long after it had +vanished. But this human woods-creature had gone silently; and no great +way, she suspected—far enough only to screen himself while his eyes +still held her through some opening in the green curtain. Wherefore let +us comprehend the mien of austerity as she passed.</p> + +<p>Elusiveness in the male, be it bluntly said, was confounding to the +experience of Mrs. Laithe since she had ventured into the San Juan +Mountains under the nominal care of an inattentive brother, and her +belief was still firm that the men about her suffered little from +shyness. This latest specimen would be a single variation from type and +of slight value in determining the ways of his kind.</p> + +<p>As her pony picked its way up the trail she mused over the not +unpleasant picture of the youth at bay. It was a thing to be caught at +the moment, for she would find him otherwise, she believed, at their +next meeting. She would come on him some day at Bar-7, or at one of the +ranches neighboring it, and find him quite like his fellows, rigidly +respectful, but with a self-confidence and a simple directness in his +gallantry that had entertained her not a little as practiced by local +courtiers. He would be like the others, from Beulah Pierce, owner of +Bar-7, down to Shane Riley, humble helper in the cookhouse.</p> + +<p>An hour later, refreshed by the balsam-laden air of the upper reaches, +she left the woods at the foot of the mesa and rode out on the willow +flat, lush with grass for Bar-7's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> winter feeding. From the first bench +above the creek she descried the figures of two men in front of the +ranch house. One she saw to be Beulah Pierce, his incredible length +draped lazily over the gate that opened into his wife's flower garden. +Outside this gate, under the flow of his talk (Pierce would surely be +talking) stood one whom the lady, riding nearer, identified as the youth +who so lately had shirked a meeting with her. At this sight she warmed +with a little glow of pride in her powers of prophecy. Truly he had +waited no long time. His hat was off and he leaned restfully against the +withers of a saddled horse, a horse that drooped, head to the ground, in +some far low level of dejection.</p> + +<p>She laughed again, comprehending the fellow at last. His variation from +type had been but seeming, due to an erratic but not constitutional +embarrassment. Brazenly enough now he contrived to await her coming, +craftily engaging the not difficult Pierce in idle talk. And Pierce, as +she rode up, would perform, with stiff importance, the orthodox ceremony +of presentation. Whereupon the youth would bow with visible effort, +shake her hand with a rigid cordiality, once up, once down, and remark, +after swallowing earnestly, "Pleased to meet you, ma'am!" or perhaps, +"Glad to make your acquaintance!" Then, tactfully affecting to ignore +her, he would demand if Pierce had seen anything of that buckskin mare +and colt that strayed off last Tuesday; or if anyone had brought mail up +from Pagosa Springs lately; or if Pierce happened to need two thousand +hemlock shakes. This query he would follow with a popular local +witticism concerning sheepmen or the Colorado climate—nominally +addressed to Pierce but intended for her own refreshment. And, in +readjusting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> the silk kerchief at his throat, he would manage a quick +side glance at her to see how she relished the jest. For Mrs. Laithe had +learned their ways in two weeks, and this was one of them—to favor one +another with witty sallies in her presence, and solely in her behalf. +All the men of Bar-7 practiced this amiable strategy. When a group of +them assembled within her hearing the swift exchange of repartee, +accompanied by the inevitable side glance, was a thing to wonder at.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the lady had learned their ways. Even before she neared the gate +Alonzo Pierce, son of Beulah, appeared round the corner of the ranch +house to take her pony, sauntering with a flagrant <i>ennui</i>, in full +knowledge that Sandy Goodhue had started violently on the same gallant +mission, but from the farthest corral. Shane Riley, chained by his +labors to the doorway of the cookhouse, smirked genially out over a pot +that he polished; and Red Phinney, star rider at Bar-7, seated himself +on the step before the front door, so that he might have to arise with +flourishing apologies—a performance that would move the lady to ask +about his sprained wrist, now in bandage.</p> + +<p>This familiar assembling of her court, professedly casual, was swiftly +detected by Mrs. Laithe. But she saw now, being near the gate, a quick +turning toward her of the strange youth. It was a brief, impersonal +survey that seemed not to disengage her from the background of gray road +and yellowish-green willows; but clearly it sufficed. With a curt nod to +Pierce he was mounted; in another breath his amazed and indignant horse, +spurred viciously from its trance, raged with protesting snorts over the +road to the east. As Mrs. Laithe reined up at the gate she beheld, +through a nimbus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> of dust, the rider's boots groping pathetically for +their stirrups.</p> + +<p>She repressed a little gasp of astonishment in which the natural woman +might have betrayed her view of so headlong a retreat, although, had +Beulah Pierce been alone at the gate, she might have descended to speech +with him about this strangely retiring youth. But as 'Lon Pierce waited +for her pony, with a masterly taunt for Sandy Goodhue, who came up +breathless but late, and as Red Phinney had already risen from his +obstructive seat in the doorway, his wrist held cunningly forward to +provoke solicitous inquiry, the lady passed in with only such easy words +as the moment demanded. She was reflecting, with agreeable interest, +that the young man's avoidance of her would presently begin to seem +pointed.</p> + +<p>This conjecture was to be abundantly confirmed. Returning from her ride +the following afternoon, she saw that the youth must pass her on the +public highway. They were out on the flat, with no arboreal sanctuary +for the timid one. The lady looked forward with genial malice to a +meeting which, it appeared, he was now powerless to avoid. But the +youth, perceiving his plight, instantly had trouble with a saddle girth. +Turning well out of the road, he dismounted on the farther side of his +horse and busied himself with the mechanics of proper cinching. As Mrs. +Laithe rode by she saw only the top of a wide-brimmed gray hat above the +saddle.</p> + +<p>The day following, when, in an orderly sequence of events, they should +have met at the ford, he turned with admirable promptness down the +stream, where no trail was, sharply scanning the thinned edge of a wood +in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> the perfect manner of one absorbed in a search for lost stock. +Clearly, his was a mind fertile, if not subtle, in resource.</p> + +<p>Not until a day later did he come truly to face her, and then only by +the circumstance of his being penned by her within the high-walled +corral where Red Phinney broke green horses to ride, work or carry. +Returning this day earlier than was her wont, and finding no one at the +front of the house to take her pony, she had ridden back to the corrals. +Here she delivered the animal to Phinney, but not before the timid one +had been compelled to pass her. He did this, she thought, only after +swiftly calculating the height of the walls that pent him. And though +his hat was doffed as he hurtled by, his eyes were on the ground. Mrs. +Laithe, feeling thus at liberty to stare brutally at him, felt a +prodigious heightening of that tower of amazement he had been rearing +within her mind, for she saw him blush most furiously; beheld it under +the brown of his beardless face.</p> + +<p>Yet there was more in the young face than this flaunted banner of +embarrassment; and scanning it intently, she resolved forthwith to know +him.</p> + +<p>Late that day she was pleased to come upon Beulah Pierce alone in the +big living room of the ranch house. Smoking a last pipe before the call +to supper, Beulah relaxed on the "lounge" after a toilsome season of +ditch-making.</p> + +<p>"Oh, him?" he answered, luxuriously extending legs that seemed much too +long for any reasonable need of man, and pulling at his ragged red +mustache. "Why, that's Ewing's kid."</p> + +<p>"Ewing?" retorted Mrs. Laithe, provocatively, winningly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>"Ewing," affirmed Pierce, with unaccustomed brevity, his mind at +dalliance with other matters.</p> + +<p>"Ewing's kid," murmured the lady, as if in careless musing.</p> + +<p>"Sure, Ewing's kid—Hi Mighty! I struck one o' them willow roots to-day, +on that piece o' ditch over on the west forty, an' say! it yanked me +clean over the plow handles. It did, fur a fact—straightened me out +like a whiplash. It scraped all the wall paper off'n this left shoulder +o' mine when I landed, too, say nothin' o' the jounce it give me. Ma, +whur's that embrycation fur man <i>and</i> beast?" And Beulah laid a gentle +hand on the abraded member.</p> + +<p>"After you've et a bite," called his wife from the next room. "Shane has +the things all on, so come along an' set up."</p> + +<p>Beulah erected himself with an unctuous groan and spoke his favorite +jest: "Wa'al, le's go out an' see what the neighbors has brought in."</p> + +<p>The meal over, Mrs. Laithe again found herself with Pierce in the living +room. She sat on the bearskin before the open fire, her hands clasped +about her knees. Through the dancing jets of flame she observed the kid +of Ewing with his downward, troubled face. Pierce, tucking shreds of +tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, glanced toward her, the light of +coming talk in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"How'd you like that there little red roan you're ridin', Mis' Laithe?" +he began.</p> + +<p>"Cooney? Oh, Cooney's a dear, generally. Sometimes he's stubborn and +pretends to know the way better than I do."</p> + +<p>"Sound and kind, though, I bet you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; but when I want to ride down the east<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> side of the valley, why +does he always try to go up that steep trail to the left? Sometimes I've +quite a struggle to keep him in the valley road."</p> + +<p>"Wa'al, you see I bought him off'n Ewing's kid an' he wants to git back +home. Sure's ever we dast let him loose with the saddle band, he's over +to Ewing's place, come sun-up. You give him his head any time—he'll +carry you straight there."</p> + +<p>"He will?"</p> + +<p>"Surest thing <i>you</i> know! When that kid breaks a pony he gits it all +gentled up so's it hones to git back to him."</p> + +<p>"How interesting!"</p> + +<p>"Naw—makes lashin's o' trouble fur them that buys off'n him. Say, Mis' +Laithe, you was askin' about Ewing's kid."</p> + +<p>"Was I?" She looked politely blank.</p> + +<p>"Sure you was—jest 'fore supper. Wa'al, Ewing's kid is the son of a man +named—now hear me <i>talk</i>! Course he's his father's son. Wa'al, anyway, +this man Ewing comes in here with this kid about fifteen, sixteen year +ago, an' takes that place over there by the lake to git cured up o' the +consumption. He was a painter, painted pitchers an' all sech, +understand?—puts up a big stoodio with a winder in it six feet high to +paint by. But he was puny. He couldn't fat up none. You never seen a +critter so gaunted as he was. Some said he never got over losin' his +wife. Anyway, 't wa'n't no surprise when he was took off, seven, eight +year ago. An' since he died that there kid has sort o' half run the +place along with a feller named Ben Crider that the old man had got fur +help. O' course we all kind o' looked in on the boy at first to make +sure he wa'n't in need, an' done<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> a day's work now an' then, an' they +raised a few horses an' a few cattle an' one thing an' another. Trouble +with that boy, though, he's always putterin' round with his dad's paint +brushes, an' talkin' about portrayin' art an' all like that, understand? +I've told that kid time an' time again, 'Kid,' I says, 'never <i>you</i> mind +about portrayin' art an' depictin' the linnerments an' the varied +aspecks o' nature,' I says; 'you jes' burn up them foolish little +long-shanked paint brushes in your Charter Oak cookstove,' I says, 'an' +ten' to portrayin' a good little bunch of cattle an' depictin' Ben +Crider to work also, an' you'll <i>git</i> +<a name="quote" id="quote"></a><ins title="Added single closing quotation mark">somewhur's,'</ins> I says. But +him—why, he jes' moons along. An' Ben Crider ain't much better. Ben +ain't no <i>stimulant</i> to him. Ben had ort to been the only son of a +tenderhearted widow lady of means. That's what he'd ort to been. You +give him a new coon song out of a Sunday supplement an' his guitar, an' +Ben's fixed fur half a day at least. <i>He</i> ain't goin' to worry none +about a strayed yearlin' or two. Why, one time, I rec'lect——"</p> + +<p>"Then young Mr. Ewing is a painter, too?" she interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Wa'al"—Pierce became judicial—"yes an' <i>no</i>. He ain't a reg'ler one, +like you might say—not like his pa was. Still, he can do hand +paintin'—if you want to call it that. Made a pitcher o' me this summer, +bein' buckjumped by old Tobe. Tobe was cert'n'y actin' high, wide an' +handsome, comin' down with his four hoofs in a bunch, an' me lookin' +like my works was comin' all apart the next minute. A <i>lively</i> +pitcher—yes; but, my Lord! it wa'n't a thing you could show! It made me +out that reediculous. Course, I ain't Mrs. Langtry, but you got to draw +the line somewhurs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> hain't you? Now there"—Beulah pushed an informing +thumb toward crayon portraits of himself and Mrs. Pierce that graced the +opposite wall in frames of massive gilt, one on either side of the +organ—"that's what you can call art—drawn by a reg'ler one down to +Durango—everything showin' like it ort to, expressions <i>an'</i> all, even +down to Ma Pierce's breastpin an' my watch chain, made out o' my own +mother's hair. They're <i>decent</i> pitchers. That other one was plumb +indecent, I can tell you. Ma she up an' hid it away, quick as she seen +it."</p> + +<p>"And has he done other things?"</p> + +<p>"Hey?"</p> + +<p>"Painted other pictures?"</p> + +<p>"Slathers—horses an' animals an' Ben Crider with his gun an' all sech, +an' deer. Say now, I seen another artist down to the Durango fair last +fall that was a genuine wonder an' no mistake. He was writin' callin' +cards at a little table, an' he could draw a runnin' deer all in +flourishes an' curlycurves, without liftin' his pen from the card, all +slick an' natural as you'd want to——"</p> + +<p>"Did you know his mother?"</p> + +<p>"No-o-o—didn't even know him. I jest stopped to look an' he drawed a +fine big bird right while I watched, havin' a ribbon in its bill with my +name on it in red ink; about as tasty a thing as you'd care to see, fur +a quarter of a dollar. It's round the house somewhur now, I reckon, if +you——"</p> + +<p>"Ewing's kid's mother?"</p> + +<p>"Hey? Oh, no, I never knew that lady. She passed away sommers off up the +state before these other parties moved in."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>"Does the boy resemble his father?"</p> + +<p>"Ewing? Wa'al, not to <i>say</i> resemble. In fact he didn't favor him, not +at all, that I can rec'lect. He must of been most like his ma."</p> + +<p>The lady had been speaking as from a distance, staring fixedly into the +fire, with the distraction of one engaged in some hopeless feat of +memory. So intently aloof was she that Pierce had to repeat his next +remark.</p> + +<p>"I say, you don't never want to let Cooney git you started up that trail +you was speakin' about. First place, it's steeper'n the side of a house. +Next place, ever let him git you to the top, he'd land you slambang over +to Ewing's, spite of all you could do."</p> + +<p>"Thank you! I'll be sure to remember that. Good night!"</p> + +<p>She left him, still with the far-centered, puzzled look on her face—the +shadow of some resemblance, indefinite, nameless, but insistent.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +<a name="ii" id="ii"></a>CHAPTER II<br /> +<br /> +<small>A LADY LOSES HERSELF</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">ONLY a few miles separate Bar-7 from the Ewing place; but they are +interesting miles and at least one of them will be found exciting by the +town-bred novice. There is a stretch where the trail leaves the valley +road and zigzags up the face of the east bench to a height from which +one may survey the whole sleeping valley of the Wimmenuche as through a +reducing glass. The way seems no broader than one's hand, and to Mrs. +Laithe, who approached it from across the flat and studied it for the +first time as a practicable thoroughfare, it looked to be impossibly +perpendicular; a climb that no horse in its right mind would attempt, an +angle of elevation that no rider could sustain.</p> + +<p>Brought to incredulity by this survey, she pulled Cooney to a walk as +she neared the parting of the ways. Then, indecisively, she let the +bridle rein fall on his neck. The little horse loitered on, splashing +through the creek with a few leisurely sips of its icy water (taken +merely in the spirit of a connoisseur), and a moment later halted where +the bench trail turned out. At the beginning of his intimacy with his +present rider he had adopted rushing tactics at this point, leaping at +the trail in a fine pretense that no other way could have been thought +of, and showing a hurt bewilderment when the sudden pull brought him +about and into the valley road. For that was a road that led nowhere, +since it led away from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> his home. Day after day he had played this game, +seemingly with an untouched faith that some time he would win. Day after +day had he exercised all his powers of astonished protest when the +frustrating tug was felt. But these tugs had become sharper, to betoken +the rider's growing impatience, and it may be surmised that on this day +Cooney had lost his faith. If it were inevitable that one should be +whirled back into the broad, foolish way, one might save effort by +omitting that first futile rush; one might stop and let evil come. +Cooney stopped now, drooping in languid cynicism.</p> + +<p>His rider waited, wishing that he had not stopped; wishing he had rushed +the trail as always before. She felt the need of every excuse for daring +the hazards of that climb. Cooney waited—and waited—morosely +anticipating the corrective jerk of a rider who refused to guide him +properly by pressing a rein across his neck. The shock was delayed. +Cooney thrilled, aspiring joyously. He waited still another uncertain +moment, bracing his slim legs. At last, with a quick indrawing of +breath, he sprang up the only desirable trail in all the world, with an +energy of scurrying hoofs that confined his rider's attention wholly to +keeping her seat. She hardly dared look down even when the little horse +stopped on a narrow ledge to breathe. Nor did Cooney tarry. Still +fearful, perhaps, of that deadly backward jerk, he stopped but once +again before the summit was reached. Doubtless he suspected that the +most should be made of this probably fleeting mood of compliance in one +who had hitherto shown herself inveterately hostile to his most +cherished design.</p> + +<p>Looking back over the ascent while the stanch little animal panted under +her, Mrs. Laithe discovered that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> thing had been worth while. The +excitement had been pleasurable and the view was a thing to climb for. +On the north the valley narrowed to a cañon, its granite sides muffled +in clouds of soft green spruce. To the south it widened away until, +beyond a broad plain, quickened with flying cloud shadows, a long, +low-lying range of blue hills showed hazily, far over the New Mexico +border. Straight before her, across the valley, were mountains whose +rough summits leaped gray and barren above their ragged hemming of +timber—mountains not to be seen from the ranch because of the +intervening mesa.</p> + +<p>But the picture was not long to be enjoyed—no longer a time than Cooney +needed to recover his wind. He was presently off through a sparse grove +of aspen, breaking by his own will into a lope as they crossed a wide, +grassy meadow, level between the wooded hills that sloped to its edge on +either side. And this was the horse who, when he bore her lazily up and +down the valley, constantly cropped the good green stuff to right and +left, a horse always before willing to loiter, or to stand motionless +for an hour with his bridle rein on the ground, while she adventured +beyond him on foot. The rider caught his new spirit and laughed as she +felt herself hurried to the +<a name="consummation" id="consummation"></a><ins title="Original has comsummation">consummation</ins> of this mild +adventure; hurried up the long ridge, over a cross system of sudden +gullies, through another wide meadow of the mountains where strange +cattle paused to regard her rather disconcertingly; on through the gloom +of other woods, the trail worrying itself up another ascent, and then +out upon an open summit that looked down upon a tiny lake set in a cup +of the hills. On one side the water, its shining surface pierced only by +the heaps of hungry trout, flashed the green of chrysoprase up to the +spruce trees that crept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> to its edge; on the other it mirrored a scarred +wall of rock that rose sheer from the water to some far, incalculable +height, its summit carved into semblances of buttressed castles with +gray and splendid battlements.</p> + +<p>But Cooney was still loath to linger over mere scenery. He hurried his +rider down the ridge and out on a flat of marshy grass, thickly starred +with purple gentians. Here he delayed only to recall, as it later +appeared, a duty familiar to him in the days before he was sold into +bondage. Standing across the trail where it neared the margin of the +lake, a sedate-looking cow grazed and was at peace with the world.</p> + +<p>Looking up as the horse bore down upon her, and observing that she was +expected to move, the cow did so with but slight signs of annoyance in +the shaking of her head. The incident, however, was not thus simply to +be closed, for now began that which enabled the lady to regard the day +as one of red adventure. Cooney swerved from the trail with a suddenness +that was like to have unseated his rider. Then as the cow halted, head +down and forefeet braced, he swerved once more, heading so obviously for +the beast that she turned and trotted off on the trail, mumbling +petulant remonstrance. With a knowing shake of his head Cooney fell in +behind her.</p> + +<p>His intention might no longer be mistaken. He meant to drive the cow. +Did she turn aside, Cooney turned aside, ever alert for her slightest +deviation. The trail now lay through a grove of spruce and balsam that +had been partially cleared, but the trees were still too many for the +lady to relish being hurtled among them by a volatile and +too-conscientious cow pony. She found herself eying their charge as +alertly as did Cooney<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> himself, praying that the driven beast might +prove less reluctant. When she did break from the trail Mrs. Laithe +braced herself to meet Cooney's simultaneous detour, and thereafter, +until the indignant animal was again in the beaten way, the rider was +engaged in avoiding fearful impact with trees and entanglement with +low-growing branches. She debated the wisdom of dropping from the saddle +and abandoning herself to the more seemly fate of starvation in this +wooded fastness. To be sure, there was a chance that Cooney would rush +on to find his late master, who might return to solve the problem of the +empty saddle. But even so, that young man would only glance at her and +run swiftly away, after he had blushed. Moreover Cooney, whom she now +believed to be demented, had increased his speed, despite her +restraining pulls, while the cow, in a frenzy of desperation, became +more daring in her sorties.</p> + +<p>Then, to the glad relief of the rider, an opening showed through the +trees close ahead, and in another moment Cooney had galloped her out +into an extensive clearing. Swiftly about its edge he circled, to thwart +a last dash of his prey for the glad, free grazing life from which she +had so summarily been withdrawn. Half round the clearing they went in +the startled gaze of a person who had been at work over a deer hide in +the shade of a mighty hemlock. Then, with lightning swerve pursued and +pursuers fled straight and swiftly across the clearing—Cooney close on +the flanks of his prize—into the astounded vision of Ewing's kid, who +had sauntered to the open door at the sound of flying hoofs.</p> + +<p>Hereupon the little roan abandoned his task, halting before the figure +in the doorway. The halt was so abrupt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> that Mrs. Laithe never knew +whether she dismounted or was thrown.</p> + +<p>They looked at each other helplessly, the lady's eyes still wide with +the dismay that had been growing in them since Cooney's mysterious +seizure. She felt herself trembling and she tried to smile. The young +man released the arm he had seized to support her and stepped back, +putting a hand up to Cooney, who had been mouthing his sleeve with +little whinnies of rejoicing.</p> + +<p>Then the lady heard the voice of Ewing's kid, heard him say with quick, +embarrassed utterance, "It's too bad you went to all that trouble. We're +not milking Clara any more."</p> + +<p>Still breathing rapidly, she turned half away, confused by this cryptic +utterance.</p> + +<p>"Clara?—I didn't know—I don't—I beg your pardon, but I'm afraid I +don't understand."</p> + +<p>"Yes, we don't drive her in any more. Midge came in fresh a few weeks +ago, and we let Clara run along with her calf again."</p> + +<p>Pondering this item, she put her hands to her head. One of them found +her cap which a low branch had raked awry; the other grasped a tangle of +hair that muffled the other side of her head, regrettably out of place. +From this surprising touch of things she divined the picture she must be +making. More, she saw herself dash into this sylvan opening apparently +in mad pursuit of a frenzied cow; for, as a requisite to keeping her +seat in the saddle, she had been compelled to seem as eager in the chase +as Cooney himself. She sank—collapsed, rather—upon the broad slab of +stone before the door, laughing weakly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>The youth looked down at her with puzzled eyes in which she saw alarm +rising.</p> + +<p>"But I didn't try to chase your cow—I didn't want to," she broke out. +"It was your horse; <i>his</i> idea, his alone."</p> + +<p>There was such fine, shy commiseration in his face as she rose that she +laughed again.</p> + +<p>"Of course it must have been Cooney's fault," he said. "I might have +known that. He used to have to drive her in every day." He regarded her +for a moment with a sort of dumb chivalry, then politely offered his +hand, saying, with a curious little air of taught formality: "I'm very +glad to see you. Thank you so much for coming!"</p> + +<p>In avoiding each other's eyes, as their hands fell apart, they both +looked out to the person who stooped busily over a deer hide in the +shade of the big hemlock. His view of the circumstance was revealing +itself. Only his rounded back could be seen, but this rose and fell in +the rapid, rhythmic convulsions of silent laughter. They turned quickly +back to each other and smiled in a sudden sympathy with his mirth.</p> + +<p>"If I may have a glass of water—" she suggested, as a device for +establishing ease between them.</p> + +<p>"Of course!" He called to the person under the tree, arresting the back +at the height of one of its recurrent spasms. The face turned upon them +was rigidly sad, a face of almost saturnine solemnity, the face of one +who has been brought to view life as an engine of woe. As he ambled +dejectedly toward them, his head bowed from his work-bent shoulders, the +lines of grief in his face seemed to deepen, and a gnarled hand tugged +at the already drooping ends of his long mustache, as if he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> would be +assured that they, also, testified to the world's objectionableness.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Crider, this is Mrs. Laithe—she has come to see us." The youth +achieved this with austere formality. The sad one nodded and put forth +his hand with a funereal "Glad to know you, ma'am!" as if they met at +the open grave of a friend.</p> + +<p>"Ben, won't you go to the spring and get her some fresh water? She's +thirsty. She's had a hard ride."</p> + +<p>The other turned quickly away, and there was a sound as if he had +manfully stifled a sob. Ewing faced his guest with eyes that twinkled a +bit, she thought, beneath their apologetic droop.</p> + +<p>"I'd be glad to have you come inside," he ventured.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +<a name="iii" id="iii"></a>CHAPTER III<br /> +<br /> +<small>A PRIVATE VIEW</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">FROM the first room, a kitchen and general living room, such as she had +learned to know in the other ranch houses, he conducted her up two steps +to a doorway, from which he pushed aside a Navajo blanket with its rude +coloring of black and red. There was disclosed beyond this an apartment +of a sort with which she was more familiar, a spacious studio with its +large window giving to the north. In the clear light her eyes ran +quickly over its details: the chinked logs that made its walls, the huge +stone fireplace on one side, the broad couch along the opposite wall, +covered with another of the vivid Navajo weaves, the skins of bear and +lynx and cougar on the stained floor, the easel before the window, a +canvas in place on it; the branching antlers over the fireplace, +contrived into a gun rack; a tall, roughly made cabinet, its single +shelf littered with half-squeezed tubes of paint, a daubed palette, and +a red-glazed jar from which brushes protruded. Above the couch were some +shelves of books, and between it and the fireplace was a table strewn +with papers, magazines, a drawing board with a sheet of paper tacked to +it, and half a dozen sharpened pencils.</p> + +<p>He indicated the couch. "It will be a good thing for you to rest a +little," he said. She seated herself with a smile of assent. He rashly +began to arrange the pillows for her, but left off in a sudden +consciousness of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> temerity, withdrawing a few paces to regard her. +He was still apprehensive, but his boy's eyes were full of delight, +amusement, curiosity, and, more than all, of a wistfulness like that of +a dumb creature. He stepped to the door for the pitcher of water and +glass that Ben now brought.</p> + +<p>She had studied him coolly as he spoke—the negligent out-of-doors +carriage of the figure, not without a kind of free animal grace, the +grace of a trampling horse rather than that of soft-going panthers. The +floor boards reëchoed to his careless, rattling tread, and occasionally, +his attention being drawn to this reverberation, he was at great pains +for a moment to go on tiptoe. He was well set up, with a sufficient +length of thigh. Mrs. Laithe approved of this, for, in her opinion, many +a goodly masculine torso in these times goes for nothing because of a +shortness of leg. His hair was a lightish brown and so straight that a +lock was prone to come out behind and point uncompromisingly toward +distant things. This impropriety he wholly disregarded, whereas the more +civilized man would have borne the fault in mind and remembered +occasionally to apply a restrictive hand. His face was a long, browned +square, with gray eyes, so imbedded under the brow that they had a look +of fierceness. His lips showed only a narrow line of color, and trembled +constantly with smiles. These he tried to restrain from time to time, +with an air of pinning down the corners of his mouth.</p> + +<p>She had noted so much while he poured out the water, and now he came to +her, walking carefully so as not to thunder with his boots.</p> + +<p>"You must have been frightened," he said, and his eyes sought hers with +a young, sorry look.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>"Not after we left the woods; it wasn't funny among those trees."</p> + +<p>He brightened. "I'd always thought women don't like to look funny."</p> + +<p>"They don't," said the lady incisively, "no more than men do."</p> + +<p>"But you can laugh at yourself," he insisted.</p> + +<p>"Can you?" She meditated a swift exposure of his own absurdity at their +meetings in the valley, but forbore and spoke instead of his pictures.</p> + +<p>"You must show me your work," she said.</p> + +<p>For a moment it seemed that she had lost all she had gained with him. He +patently meditated a flying leap through the door and an instant +vanishing into the nearest thicket. She had an impulse to put out a hand +and secure him by the coat. But he held his ground, though all his +geniality was suddenly veiled, while he vibrated behind the curtain, +scheming escape, like a child harried by invading grown people in its +secret playhouse.</p> + +<p>She looked cunningly away, examining a rip in her glove.</p> + +<p>"I tried to paint a little myself once," she essayed craftily. Nothing +came of it. He remained in ambush.</p> + +<p>"But it wasn't in me," she continued, and was conscious that he at least +took a breath.</p> + +<p>"You see, I hadn't anything but the liking," she went on, "and so I had +the sense to give it up. Still, I learned enough to help me see other +people's work better—and to be interested in pictures."</p> + +<p>"Did anyone try to teach you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but they couldn't make me paint; they could only make me see."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>"Perhaps you could tell me some things," he admitted at last, "if you've +tried." He paltered a little longer. Then, "Ben Crider says this is the +best thing I've ever done," and he quickly took a canvas from against +the wall and placed it on a chair before her.</p> + +<p>She considered <a name="it" id="it"></a><ins title="Original has is">it</ins> so +quietly that he warmed a little, like a +routed animal lulled once more into security by the stillness.</p> + +<p>"Do you get the right light?" he asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>She nodded, and managed a faint, abstracted smile, indicative of +pleasure. She heard him emit a sigh of returning ease. He spoke in +almost his former confiding tone.</p> + +<p>"That's our lake, you know, painted in the late afternoon. Ben is set on +my sending it down to the Durango fair next month."</p> + +<p>It was the lake, indeed, but, alas! an elaborate, a labored parody of +it. The dead blue water, the granite wall evenly gray in shadow, +garishly pink where it caught the sun, the opaque green of the trees, +the carefully arranged clouds in the flat blue sky—all smirked +conscious burlesque. It recalled the things in gilt frames which Mrs. +Laithe remembered to have seen in front of "art +<a name="comma" id="comma"></a><ins title="Original has fullstop">emporiums,</ins>" on +Fourteenth Street, tagged "Genuine Oil Painting," the "$12.00" carefully +crossed out and "$3.98" written despairingly below to tempt the alert +connoisseur.</p> + +<p>She knew the artist's eyes were upon her in appeal for praise. She drew +in her under lip and narrowed her eyes as one in the throes of critical +deliberation.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I should recognize the spot at once," she dared to say at last. +"How well you've drawn the rock."</p> + +<p>"I hoped you'd like it. I don't mind telling you I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> put in a lot of time +on that thing. I 'carried it along' as my father used to say. I don't +believe I could better that. And here are some others."</p> + +<p>He displayed them without further urging, his shyness vanished by his +enthusiasm, in his eye a patent confusion of pride and anxiety. She +found them in quality like the first. In one the valley of the +Wimmenuche from the east bench was as precisely definite as a +topographical map; in another the low-lying range of hills to the south +had lost all their gracious and dignifying haze.</p> + +<p>"They are immensely interesting," observed his critic with animation, +"It may be"—she searched for a tempering phrase—"it is just possible +there's a trick of color you need to learn yet. You know color is so +difficult to convict. It's shifty, evasive, impalpable. I dare say that +lake isn't as flatly blue as you've painted it, nor that cliff as flatly +pink in sunlight. And those hills—isn't there a mistiness that softens +their lines and gives one a sense of their distance? Color is <i>so</i> +difficult—<i>so</i> tricky!"</p> + +<p>She had spoken rapidly, her eyes keeping to the poor things before her. +Now she ventured a glance at the painter and met a puzzled seriousness +in his look.</p> + +<p>"You may be right," he assented at last. "Sometimes I've felt I was on +the wrong track. I see what you mean. You mean you could reach over a +mile and pick up the ranch house at Bar-7—that it's like a little +painted doll's house; and you mean you could push your finger into those +hills, though they're meant to be a hundred miles away. Well, it serves +me right, I guess. My father warned me about color. And I never saw any +good pictures but his, and that was years ago. I've<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> forgotten how they +ought to look. He sold all his when I was young—all but one."</p> + +<p>"You've done well, considering that."</p> + +<p>"He said I must learn to draw first—really to draw—and he taught me to +do that. I <i>can</i> draw. But black and white is so dingy, and these colors +are always nagging you, daring you to try them. If I could only learn to +get real air between me and those hills. I wonder, now, if my colors +seem like those Navajo blankets to you." He flung himself away from the +canvases like an offended horse.</p> + +<p>"Let me see your black-and-whites," she suggested hastily.</p> + +<p>"Oh, those! They don't amount to much, but I'll show you." He thrust +aside the canvases and opened a portfolio on the chair.</p> + +<p>She saw at a glance that he had been right when he said he could draw. +She let her surprise have play and expanded in the pleasure of honest +praise. She had not realized how her former disappointment had taken her +aback. But he could draw. Here were true lines and true modeling, not +dead, as he had warned her, but quick with life, portrayed not only with +truth but with a handling all his own, free from imitative touches. He +had achieved difficult feats of action, of foreshortening, with an +apparently effortless facility—the duck of a horse's head to avoid the +thrown rope; the poise of the man who had cast it; the braced tension of +a cow pony holding a roped and thrown steer while his rider dismounted; +the airy grace of Red Phinney at work with a stubborn broncho, coming to +earth on his stiff-legged mount and raking its side from shoulder to +flank with an effective spur. There was humor in them, the real<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> feeling +in one of the last. Mrs. Laithe lingered over this.</p> + +<p>"It's Beulah Pierce's wife in that flower garden of hers," the artist +explained. "It seems kind of sad when she goes out there alone +sometimes. You know how tired she generally is, and how homesick she's +been for twenty years or so—'all gaunted up,' as Ben says, like every +ranchman's wife—they have to work so hard. And in the house she's apt +to be peevish and scold Beulah and the boys like she despised them. But +when she goes out into that garden——"</p> + +<p>"Tell me," said his listener, after waiting discreetly a moment.</p> + +<p>"Well, she's mighty different. She stands around mooning at the +hollyhocks and petunias and geraniums and things, the flowers that grew +in her garden back East, and I reckon she kind of forgets and thinks +she's a girl back home again. Her face gets all gentled up. I've watched +her when she didn't notice me—she's looking so far off—and when she +goes into the house again her voice is queer, and she forgets to rampage +till Shane Riley lets the stew burn, or Beulah tracks mud into the front +room, or something. I tried to show her there, looking soft, just that +way." He sounded a little apologetic as he finished.</p> + +<p>"It's delightful," she insisted, "and they're all good—I can't tell you +how good. You must do more of them, and"—she paused and shot him a +careful glance to determine how wary it behooved her to be—"and I +believe you should let color alone for awhile, until you've had a +teacher show you some things. You must learn the trick."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'd try to learn fast enough, if I had the chance."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> His eyes +lighted with a kind of furtive wistfulness, as if he would not have her +wholly fathom his longing.</p> + +<p>"Of course you could learn. I believe you can do something—something +fine."</p> + +<p>She rose from the couch and glanced over his books, with an air of +wishing to touch other matters before they dwelt long on this. She +noticed with some surprise a set of Meredith.</p> + +<p>"Do you read these?" she asked, taking down one of the volumes.</p> + +<p>There was an instant return of his former shyness, a hint of the child +and the invaded playhouse. But she knew what to do. Without further +remark she calmly lost herself in "Diana."</p> + +<p>"Those books were my father's," he said at last, with the air of +addressing an explanation to some third person. She ignored this, not +even glancing at him. "But I've read them," he added, still as if to +another person.</p> + +<p>At last, after studying her face a bit, he ventured, "Have you read them +all?" He spoke low, so as not to interrupt her too pointedly. She did +not look up, but nodded, with a smile that said confidentially, "Well, I +should think so!" He edged nearer then, like one who would be glad, if +pressed, to share his secrets.</p> + +<p>"I was sorry when I reached the last one," he began. "It was another +world. Oh, he's a great writer. He writes as if he was thinking all the +time in fireworks, and he makes you do the same thing. Every page or two +he sets off a bunch of firecrackers in your mind that you didn't know +you had there. But he writes as if he didn't care whether anybody +understood him or not. It's a blind trail, lots of the way, and on some +pages I just bog down."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>She smiled sympathetically. "Many of us have that trouble with him." She +put "Diana" back on the shelf and held up the poems of Robert Browning.</p> + +<p>"And this?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you read that, too?" he counterquestioned with sparkling +curiosity. She could see that he was enlivened beyond his +self-consciousness for the moment. "Well, I do, too, in spots. He's +pretty good in spots. But other times he's choppy and talky and has a +hard time getting into the saddle. Why, sometimes when Ben Crider is +talking to himself, it would sound just like Browning, if you broke it +up into poetry lengths and gave it a good title."</p> + +<p>"And this you like, too?" She was opening a volume of Whitman.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sure!</i>" he rang out. "Don't you? There's the man." He began walking +about with a fine smile that was almost a friendly grin. She felt +suddenly sure that he had never talked about the books before, and that +it was a kind of feast day for him.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he continued easily; "when I get to feeling too much alone up +here I pretend I see him striding in off the trail, his head up, +sniffing the air, his eyes just <i>eating</i> these big hills, and he'd march +right in and sit down. Only I can't ever think of what we'd say. I +reckon we'd sit here without a word. He must have had wonderful eyes. +He's good in winters when you're holed up here in the snow and get on +edge with nothing to do for five or six months but feed the stock and +keep a water hole open. Sometimes I wonder if Ben and I won't come out +crazy in the spring, and then I read old Whitman and he makes me feel +all easy-like and sure of myself."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>He paused again, but she only waited.</p> + +<p>"I had a funny thought last winter," he pursued. "It seemed to me that +if people turn into other things when they die—the way some folks +believe, you know—that Whitman must have become a whole world when <i>he</i> +died, whirling away somewhere off in space; a fine, big, fresh world, +with mountains and valleys and lakes, with big rivers and little ones, +and forests and plains and people, good people and bad people, he just +liked all sorts—it didn't seem to make much difference to him what they +were, so they were people—and he'd carry them all on his back and +breathe in and out and feel great."</p> + +<p>He laughed as if the idea still delighted him, and she laughed with him.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to have told him that," he continued, almost meditatively. +"But I'll bet he often thought of it himself. I guess he wouldn't be +satisfied with anything less than that."</p> + +<p>When he stopped they stood a moment smiling at each other. Then she went +back to the couch with rather a businesslike air.</p> + +<p>"How old are you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm twenty-four. How old are you?"</p> + +<p>She smiled, quite disarmed by the artlessness of this brutality.</p> + +<p>"I am twenty-seven."</p> + +<p>"That's pretty old, isn't it?" he commented, gravely. "I shouldn't have +said you were older than I am. Some ways you look younger. And what a +lot you must have seen out yonder!"</p> + +<p>"You should go there yourself, to work, to study." She felt that he was +curiously watching her lips as she spoke rather than listening to her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>"Now I see it's only your profile that's sad," he began in the same +detached, absent way he had spoken of the books, the way of one talking +in solitude. "Your full face isn't sad; it's full of joy; but there's a +droop to the profile. Here—I'll show you." He took a sketch-book from +the table.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you this, now we're such good friends. I could only draw the +profile because—well, that was the only thing I could look at much."</p> + +<p>She looked and saw herself on three pages of the book, quick little +drawings, all of the side face.</p> + +<p>"I didn't dream you had seen me enough," she said. "And you have +everything from cap to boots, and Cooney——"</p> + +<p>"I knew Cooney, and I've—well—I've watched you some when you didn't +know."</p> + +<p>"Certainly you never watched me when I did know," she retorted.</p> + +<p>"I should think not!" He laughed uneasily. "But you see the sadness +there. I tried to locate it, but I couldn't. I only knew it was there +because I found it in the sketches when they were done. I think I caught +the figure pretty well in that one. Stand that way now, won't you?"</p> + +<p>She rose graciously.</p> + +<p>"Here's your quirt, and catch your skirts the way you've done +there—that's it. Yes, I got that long line down from the shoulder. It's +a fine line. You are beautiful," he continued critically. "I like the +way your neck goes up from your shoulders, and your head has a perky +kind of a tilt, as if you wouldn't be easy to bluff."</p> + +<p>She smiled, meditating some jocose retort, but he still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> surveyed her +impersonally, not seeing the smile. She dropped to the couch rather +quickly.</p> + +<p>"Let us talk about you," she urged. But he did not hear.</p> + +<p>"Your face, though—that's the fine thing—" He was scanning it with +narrowed eyes. But a protesting movement of hers restored him to his +normal embarrassment. He writhed in uncomfortable apology before her. +"I'd 'most forgot you were really here," he explained. "I've seen you +that way so often when you <i>weren't</i> here. There now—I see that +sadness; it's in the upper lip. It showed even when you laughed then."</p> + +<p>"Really, this must stop," she broke in. "People don't talk this way."</p> + +<p>"Don't they? Why don't they? I'm sorry—but all that interested me." The +wave of his hand indicated the fluent grace of the lady impartially from +head to foot.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he added, "I knew there must be people like you, out there, +but I never dreamed I'd have one of them close enough to look at—let +alone get friendly with. I hope you won't hold it against me."</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +<a name="iv" id="iv"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /> +<br /> +<small>A PORTRAIT</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">THOUGH she had made him tingle with an impulse to flee from her, he was +at the edge of the east bench early the next afternoon. He might see her +from a distance. If she came close upon him—well, it was worth risking; +he had a good horse. Her eyes were the best of her he thought, big gray +things under black brows, with a dark ring, well defined, about the +iris. He had seen no such eyes before. And how they lighted her face +when she spoke. Her face needed lighting, he thought. It was pale under +the dark hair—her hair stopped short of being black, and was +lusterless—with only a bit of scared pink in her cheeks, after that +ride of the day before. He thought of her hands, too. They were the +right hands for her, long, slender, and strong, he did not doubt, under +a tricky look of being delicate. It was not possible that they could +ever talk together again so easily. He could not make that seem true, +but he could look at her. He had hoped she would promise to come again, +but they had parted abruptly the afternoon before. Riding back with her, +as they breasted the last slope leading to the ranch, he had rejoiced +boldly at the chance that had led her up the lake trail that morning. +Then Beulah Pierce had hailed them from his station at the bars, hailed +them in a voice built to admirable carrying power by many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> cattle +drives. His speech began, "Didn't I <i>tell</i> you where that upper trail +would——"</p> + +<p>Whereupon the lady turned to dismiss her escort rather curtly.</p> + +<p>"Thank you for riding back with me. I shall not trouble you any +further." And he, staring suddenly at her with the wild deer's eyes +again, had fled over the back trail.</p> + +<p>He thought if there had been more time she might have said, "I will come +again soon—perhaps to-morrow." He liked to think she might have said +that, but he could not give it much reality.</p> + +<p>He sprawled easily in the saddle, leaning his crossed arms on the pommel +and gazing out over the sun-shot valley to the group of buildings and +corrals at Bar-7. At least she rode somewhere every afternoon, and he +would see her leave. If she turned down the valley road or up the +cañon—well, that emergency could be met. He thought of speeches to make +it plain that he had not followed her, daring to approach her in his +mind, but knowing well that he would probably hide at sight of her.</p> + +<p>A half hour he waited so, beholding visions of their accidental meeting. +Then his pulses raced. He saw the stocky-barreled Cooney led from the +corral to the front of the house by Red Phinney. He could almost discern +the Sabbath finery of Red across that crystal mile—for this was the +breathing day of the week, when faces were rasped cruelly by indifferent +razors, and fine <a name="raiment" id="raiment"></a><ins title="Original has rainment">raiment</ins> +was donned, black trousers and gay, +clean shirts and neckerchiefs of flaming silk.</p> + +<p>He could not see her mount. The ranch house hid that spectacle. But she +rode into view presently, putting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> Cooney first to his little fox trot +and then to a lope, as the road wound among the willows.</p> + +<p>He straightened in the saddle as she reached the creek. He was eager to +retreat, yet feared to have his cowardice detected. And when Cooney +halted midway of the stream, pawing its rocky bed and making a pretense +of thirst, the woman looked up and saw her watcher on the trail. She +waved the gauntleted hand that held her quirt, and he found himself +holding his hat in his hand with an affectation of ease. Then each +laughed, and, though neither could hear the other, it was as if they had +laughed together in some little flurry of understanding. He could still +pretend to have happened there at that moment, he reflected. And this +brought him courage as he saw her give Cooney his way where the trail +branched. When the little horse had carried her to the summit and stood +in panting gratitude, the waiting youth evolved a splendid plan for +hiding his fright. He dismounted and forced himself to go coolly and +take her hand. Perhaps it was as well that he had not trusted himself to +remain in the saddle at that first moment. But when the thing was really +over he no longer made a secret of his delight at her coming. His first +anxious look at her face had shown him the cordial friendliness of the +preceding day. She was amused by him, he could see that, and did not +resent it; but she was kind, and in his joy at this he babbled, at +first, with little coherence.</p> + +<p>"I rode right over here to make sure I would see you," he began, "and +then if you rode down the valley, or up, I was going to loaf along and +find you by accident, and pretend I was hunting a colt. I was going to +be afraid the mountain lions had got it." He laughed immoderately at +this joke. "And while I waited for you I kept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> trying to think how fine +it would have sounded last night if you had said, 'I think I shall go +over and look at your place again to-morrow.' I couldn't make your voice +sound true, though. It's a good thing we needn't try to paint voices."</p> + +<p>They were riding together over the first stretch of meadow. It seemed to +have been agreed without words that they should ride to the lake cabin.</p> + +<p>"To paint voices?" she queried.</p> + +<p>"Voices, yes; how could yours be painted? It couldn't. You'll see that. +I thought of a jumble of things—wine and velvet, for instance; some +kind of rich, golden wine and purple velvet, and then, warm flickers of +light in a darkened room, and a big bronze bell struck with something +soft that would muffle it and yet make everything about it tremble. You +see, don't you?" he concluded with a questioning look of deep +seriousness.</p> + +<p>His own voice was low and eager, with its undernote of wistfulness. +Already he had renewed upon her that companionable charm which she had +felt the day before, a charm compounded of half-shy directness, of +flashes of self-forgetfulness, of quick-trusting comradeship. She +rejected a cant phrase of humorous disclaimer that habit brought to her +lips. It would puzzle or affront his forthrightness.</p> + +<p>"Very well, we'll agree that my voice can't be painted," she said at +last. "So let us talk of you."</p> + +<p>"I guess I should like that pretty well," he answered after a moment's +pondering. "I don't believe I've ever talked much; but now I feel as if +I could tire you out, talking as we did yesterday. Queer, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>He fell silent, however, when the trail narrowed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> climb the long +ridge, as if the acknowledgment of his desire to speak had somehow +quenched it. She fell in ahead, half turning in her saddle to address +him from time to time, but he would talk only about things of the +moment. In a marshy spot at the edge of the meadow he pointed out a bear +wallow, and farther on a deer lick. "It's a sulphur spring," he +exclaimed, "and deer come from miles around to drink there."</p> + +<p>"Do you shoot them?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"We always have fresh meat when we need. Ben Crider says he won't let a +deer come up and bite him without trying to defend himself."</p> + +<p>"It's like murder, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I never murdered anyone myself, but I hit the first deer I ever +shot at, and I felt as if I'd lain in wait at a street corner and killed +a schoolboy on his way home. But I missed the next three or four, and +that made me blood-thirsty. I guess if you carried that feeling back far +enough a man could go out and shoot his little sister if he'd had to +still-hunt her over rough ground all day, and especially if he'd missed +two or three cousins or an uncle in the meantime. I think that would +raise the savage in him enough."</p> + +<p>They were skirting the lake now, a glinting oval of sapphire in its +setting of granite. Beyond this they rode through the thinned +timber—where Cooney was dissuaded, not without effort, from pursuing +his ancient charge, and emerged into the glare of the clearing.</p> + +<p>As they dismounted at the door of the cabin a melancholy of minor chords +from a guitar came to their ears, and a voice, nasal, but vibrant with +emotion, sang the final couplet of what had too plainly been a ballad of +pathos:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"While they were honeymooning in a mansion on the hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kind friends were laying Nellie out behind the mill."<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>"That's one of Ben's best songs," said Ewing, with so genuine a gravity +that he stifled quite another emotion in the lady as she caught his +look.</p> + +<p>"Indeed! I must hear him sing more," she managed with some difficulty.</p> + +<p>The sorrowful one arose as they entered, hastily thrusting aside his +guitar as might an assassin have cast away his weapon. His face was +shaven to a bitter degree; in spots it was scarified. But the drooping +lines of woe unutterable were still there in opposition to his Sabbath +finery—a spreading blue-satin cravat, lighted by a stone of impressive +bulk, elegant black trousers, and suspenders of red silk embroidered +with pansies and a running vine of green. He greeted the visitor as one +who would say, "Yes, it's a sad affair—wholly unexpected," and, cocking +an eye of long-suffering negation on Ewing, he went out to the horses.</p> + +<p>As they entered the studio Mrs. Laithe saw that the easel had been +wheeled into the light from the big window and that a woman's portrait +had been placed upon it. Had Ewing looked at her on the instant he might +have detected that her face seemed to ripple under some wind of emotion. +But his own eyes had been on the portrait.</p> + +<p>"That's my mother," he said, unconsciously hushing his voice.</p> + +<p>"I should have known it," she answered, with a kind of spurious +animation. "The face is so much like yours. It is a face one seems to +have known before, one of those elusive resemblances that haunt the +mind. It is well done." She ended the speech glibly enough.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>"She was beautiful. My father did it. He had that trick of color, as you +call it, or he could never have painted her. She was so slight, but she +had color. And she was quick and fiery. I used to see her rage when I +was very small. I believed there were coals in her eyes, and that +something blew on them inside to make them blaze. I wouldn't know what +it was about, only that it wasn't us she raged at—not my father or me. +I could go up and catch her hand even when she frightened me. And +sometimes, after a while, my father would get excited, too. He was +slower to take fire, but he burned longer. And at last she would become +afraid and grow quiet herself and try to soothe him. I never could tell +what they were at war with."</p> + +<p>They looked in silence at the vivid young face on the canvas, a thin, +daring, eager face, a face of delicate features, but strong in a perfect +balance. The eyes were darkly alive.</p> + +<p>"You were young when she died?" the woman asked at last.</p> + +<p>"Too young to understand. I was eight, I think. There was a lot I shall +never understand. Sometimes my father would tell me about their life +here in the West, but never of the time before they came here. It always +seemed to me that either he or she had quarreled with their people. They +were poor when they came here. We lived in Leadville when I first +remember. My mother sang in a church choir and made a little money and +nights—you'll think this queer—my father played a piano in a dance +hall. They had to live. Days, he painted. He had studied abroad in Paris +and Munich, but he wasn't selling his pictures then. It took him years +to do much of that. Sometimes they were hungry,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> though I didn't know +it." He paused, overwhelmed by a sudden realization that he was talking +much.</p> + +<p>"Tell me more," she said very quietly. "I wish to hear the rest."</p> + +<p>"Well, at the last my mother was in bed a long time, and my father +worked hard to get things for her, things she must have. But one night +she died—it was a cold night in winter. He and I were alone with her. +I'll not soon forget that. I sat up on the cot where I slept and saw my +father sitting on the bed looking down at my mother. They were both +still, and he wouldn't answer or turn his head when I spoke. Then I +cried, for it was cold in the little cabin and my father's stillness +scared me. But I don't think he heard me crying. He kept looking down at +my mother's face, even when I called to him as loud as I could. Then I +was afraid to see him that way any longer, so I pulled the blankets over +my head and I must have cried myself to sleep.</p> + +<p>"He was sitting the same way when I woke in the morning, still looking +at my mother's face. Even when the people came to take her away he kept +silent—and while they put her in the ground in a great, snowy field +with little short waves all over it. And when we were back in the cabin +not a word could I get from him, nor a look. He just sat on the bed +again, looking at her pillow.</p> + +<p>"In the evening some one brought a letter. I lighted a candle and took +this letter to him, crowding it into his hand. I wanted him to notice +me. I saw him study the envelope, then tear it open and look at a little +slip of green paper that fell out. It was money, you understand, for +pictures he had sent to New York. I knew this at once. I'd heard them +talk of its coming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> and of wonderful things they'd do with it when it +did come. I was glad in an instant, for I thought that now we could get +my mother back out of the ground. I was sure we could when he held the +green slip close to the candle and began to laugh. It wasn't the way he +usually laughed, it was louder and longer, but it was the first sound +I'd heard from him, and it made me happy. I began to laugh myself as +loud as I could, and danced before him, and his laugh went still higher +at that. I ran for my jacket and mittens and cap. I wanted him to stop +laughing and hurry along. I pulled his arm and he stopped laughing and +looked down at me. I shouted 'Hurry—let's hurry and bring her back—let +me carry the money!' He caught my shoulder and looked so astonished, +then he burst into that loud laugh again, after he'd made me say it +over. I ran for his overcoat, too, but when I came with it I saw he +wasn't laughing at all. He was crying, and it was so much like his laugh +that I hadn't noticed the change."</p> + +<p>He had kept his eyes on the portrait while he spoke. He stopped abruptly +now, turning to the listening woman, searching her face with new signs +of confusion.</p> + +<p>"I—I didn't know I was telling you all that."</p> + +<p>She did not answer at once.</p> + +<p>"And you came here after that?" she said at last.</p> + +<p>"Yes; my father found this place. He wanted to be alone. I think he +began to die when my mother went. He couldn't live without her. He +taught me what he could, about books and pictures, but I couldn't have +been much to him. I think it hurt him that I looked like her—he said I +looked like her. He worked on that portrait to the very last, even on +the morning of the day he died."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>"What was your father's name?"</p> + +<p>"Gilbert Denham Ewing. I was named for him."</p> + +<p>"And your mother's name before marriage was——"</p> + +<p>"I'm ashamed that I never knew. It must have been spoken often, but I +was so young; it never stayed in my mind. And a little while before he +died my father burned all his letters and papers. I've wondered about +their life long ago before I came, but I think my father meant me not to +know. He had some reason."</p> + +<p>"I am glad you have told me all you did know," she said.</p> + +<p>"But you have made <i>me</i> glad," he assured her, returning to his livelier +manner.</p> + +<p>"Your mother's first name"—she asked—"what did your father call her?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that—Katharine. He called her Kitty."</p> + +<p>"Kitty!" She repeated it after him, softly, as if she spoke it in +compassion to the portrait.</p> + +<p>"But see," he continued, "it's late. Stay and eat with us and I'll take +you back by moonlight. I've ordered a fine, big, silver moon to be set +up in the sky at seven, and Ben is already getting supper."</p> + +<p>He pulled aside the blanket portiére, and through the doorway she could +see the saturnine one—a man fashioned for tragedies, for deeds of +desperate hazard—incongruously busied with a pan of soda biscuits and a +hissing broiler.</p> + +<p>When they rode back to Bar-7 the hills were struck to silver by the +moon. They were companionably silent for most of the ride, though the +youth from time to time, when the trail narrowed to put him in the rear, +crooned stray bits of a song with which Ben Crider<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> had favored them +while he prepared the evening meal. The lines Mrs Laithe remembered +were:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"Take back your gold, for gold it cannot buy me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Make me your wife, 'tis all I ask of you."<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>When they parted she said, "You must think about leaving here. It's time +you rode out into the world. I think my brother will be back from his +cattle-driving trip to-morrow, and I mean to bring him to see your +pictures very soon. Perhaps he will suggest something for you."</p> + +<p>"This moonlight does such wonderful things to your face," he remarked.</p> + +<p>"Good night! I'm sorry you have so far to go."</p> + +<p>"It isn't far enough," he answered, still searching her face. "Not half +far enough—I have so much thinking—so much thinking to do."</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +<a name="v" id="v"></a>CHAPTER V<br /> +<br /> +<small>INTO THE PAST AND OUT</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">IT was not without concern that Mrs. Laithe awaited the return of her +brother the following day. The cattle drive that had beguiled him from +habits of extreme and enforced precision had occupied a fortnight, and +she understood the life to be sorely trying to any but the rugged. +Earnestly had she sought to dissuade him from the adventure, for +insomnia had long beset him, and dyspepsia marked him for its plaything. +Eloquently exposed to him had been the folly of hoping for sleep on +stony ground after vainly wooing it in the softest of beds with an air +pillow inflated to the nice degree of resiliency. And the unsuitability +of camp fare to a man who had long been sustained by an invalid's diet +had been shrewdly set forth. None the less he had persisted, caught in +the frenzy of desperation that sometimes overwhelms even the practiced +dyspeptic.</p> + +<p>"It can't be worse, Sis," he had tragically assured her at parting. "If +I've got to writhe out my days, why, I shall writhe like a gentleman, +that's all. I can at least chuck those baby foods and perish with some +dignity."</p> + +<p>"But you're not leaving your medicines, those drops and things?" she had +asked, in real alarm.</p> + +<p>"Every infernal drop. I've struck all along the line—not another morsel +of disinfected zwieback nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> sanitary breakfast food nor hygienic prunes +nor glutenized near-food—not even one pepsin tablet. It's come to where +I'd sooner have no stomach at all than be bullied night and day by one."</p> + +<p>With which splendid defiance he had ridden desperately off, a steely +flash in his tired gray eyes and a bit of fevered color glowing in his +sallow cheeks.</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Pierce loudly announced the return of the men early in the +afternoon, therefore, the invalid's sister was ready to be harrowed. +There would be bitter agonies to relate—chiefly stomachic. She had +heroically resolved, moreover, not immediately to flaw the surface of +her sympathy with any gusty "I told you so!" That was a privilege sacred +unto her, and not to be foregone; but she would defer its satisfaction +until the pangs of confession had been suffered; until the rash one +should achieve a mood receptive to counsel.</p> + +<p>At the call of Mrs. Pierce she ran down the flower-bordered walk to join +that lady at the gate, and there they watched the cavalcade as it jolted +down the lacets of the mesa trail—four horsemen in single file, two +laden pack animals, another horseman in the rear. The returning invalid +was equal, then, to sitting a horse. The far-focused eyes of Mrs. Pierce +were the first to identify him. As the line advanced through the willow +growth that fringed the creek she said, pointing, "There's Mr. +Bartell—he's in the lead."</p> + +<p>"But Clarence doesn't smoke; the doctors won't let him," his sister +interposed, for she could distinguish a pipe in the mouth of the +foremost horseman. "And, anyway, it couldn't be Clarence; it's too—" On +the point of saying "too disreputable," she reflected that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> the person +in front looked quite like the run of Mrs. Pierce's nearest friends and +might, indeed, be of her own household.</p> + +<p>"It's sure your brother, though," insisted Mrs. Pierce, as the riders +broke into a lope over the level, "and he <i>don't</i> look quite as—" Mrs. +Pierce forbore tactfully in her turn. She had meant to say "dandified."</p> + +<p>"And I tell you, Mis' Laithe, he does look husky, too. Not no ways so +squammish as when he started. My suz! Here we've et dinner and they'll +be hungry as bears. I must run in and set back something."</p> + +<p>The other men turned with the packhorses off toward the corrals, but +Bartell came on at a stiff gallop to where his sister waited. When he +had pulled his horse up before her with perilous but showy abruptness, +he raised himself in the saddle, swung his hat, and poured into the +still air of the valley a long, high yell of such volume that his sister +stepped hastily within the gate again. She had heard the like of that +yell as they passed through Pagosa Springs, rendered by a cowboy in the +acute stage of alcoholic dementia.</p> + +<p>"Why, Clarence, <i>dear</i>!" she gasped, fearing the worst. But he hurriedly +dismounted and came, steadily enough, to kiss her. She submitted +doubtfully to this, and immediately held him off for inspection. He was +frankly disreputable. The flannel shirt and corduroy trousers were torn, +bedraggled, gray with the dust of the trail; his boots were past +redemption, his hat a reproach; his face a bronzed and hairy caricature; +and he reeked of the most malignant tobacco Mrs. Laithe had ever +encountered. Only the gold-rimmed spectacles, the nearsighted, peering +gray eyes, and a narrow zone of white forehead under his hat brim served +to recall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> the somewhat fastidious, sedate, and rather oldish-looking +young man who had parted from her.</p> + +<p>He smiled at her with a complacency that made it almost a smirk. Then he +boisterously kissed her again before she could evade him, and uttered +once more that yell of lawless abandon.</p> + +<p>"Clarence!" she expostulated, but he waved her to silence with an +imperious hand.</p> + +<p>"Quickest way to tell the story, Nell—that's my pæan of victory. Sleep? +Slept like a night watchman. Eat? I debauched myself with the rowdiest +sort of food every chance I got—fried bacon, boiled beans, +baking-powder biscuit, black coffee that would bite your finger +off—couldn't get enough; smoked when I wasn't eating or sleeping; drank +raw whisky, too—whisky that would etch copper. Work? I worked harder +than a Coney Island piano player, fell over asleep at night and got up +asleep in the morning—when they kicked me the third time. And I +galloped up and down cliffs after runaway steers where I wouldn't have +crawled on my hands and knees two weeks before. And now that whole bunch +of boys treat me like one of themselves. I found out they called me +'Willie Four-eyes' when I first came here. Now they call me 'Doc,' as +friendly as you can imagine, and Buck Devlin told me last night I could +ride a streak of lightning with the back cinch busted, if I tried."</p> + +<p>He broke off to light the evil pipe ostentatiously, while she watched +him, open eyed, not yet equal to speech.</p> + +<p>"Now run in like a good girl and see if Ma Pierce has plenty of +fragments from the noonday feast. Anything at all—I could eat a deer +hide with the hair on."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>Wavering incredulously, she left to do his bidding. As he led his horse +around to the corral he roared a snatch from Buck Devlin's favorite +ballad, with an excellent imitation of the cowboy manner:</p> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"Oh, bur-ree me <i>not</i> on the lone prai-<i>ree-e</i>—"<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>After he had eaten he slouched into a hammock on the veranda with +extravagant groans of repletion, and again lighted his pipe. His sister +promptly removed her chair beyond the line of its baleful emanations.</p> + +<p>"Well, Sis," he began, "that trip sure did for me good and plenty. Me +for the high country uninterrupted hereafter!"</p> + +<p>She regarded him with an amused smile.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad, dear, about the health. It's a miracle, but don't overdo +it, don't attempt everything at once. And the trip 'sure' seems to have +'done' you in another way—how is it—'good and plenty'? You walk like a +cowboy and talk and sing and act generally like one——"</p> + +<p>"Do I, really, though?" A sort of half-shamed pleasure glowed in his +eyes. "Well, you know they're good, companionable fellows, and a man +takes on their ways of speech unconsciously. But I didn't think it would +be noticed in me so soon. Do I seem like the real thing, honestly, now?"</p> + +<p>She reassured him, laughing frankly.</p> + +<p>"Well, you needn't laugh. It's all fixed—I'm going to be one."</p> + +<p>"But, Clarence, not for long, surely!"</p> + +<p>"It's all settled, I tell you. I've bought a ranch, old Swede Peterson's +place over on Pine River; corking spot, three half sections under fence +and ditch, right<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> at the mouth of a box cañon where nobody can get in +above me, plenty of water, plenty of free range close at hand."</p> + +<p>"Clarence Bartell, you're—what do you call it?—stringing."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it. Wait till I come on in about two years, after selling +a train load of fat steers at Omaha or Kansas +City—<a name="sashaying" id="sashaying"></a><ins title="Original has sasshaying">sashaying</ins> down +Fifth Avenue and rounding into Ninth Street with my big hat and +long-shanked spurs and a couple of forty-fours booming into the air. +<i>You'll</i> see, and won't dad say it's deuced unpleasant!"</p> + +<p>"But I'll not believe until I see."</p> + +<p>He spoke ruminantly between pulls at the pipe.</p> + +<p>"Lots of things to do now, though. Got to go down to Pagosa this week to +pay over the money, get the deed, and register my brand. How does +'Bar-B' strike you? Rather neat, yes? It'll make a tasty little monogram +on the three hundred critters I start with. I'm on track of a herd of +shorthorns already."</p> + +<p>"And a little while ago you were off to the Philippines, and before that +to Porto Rico, and last summer you were going on one of those +expeditions that come back and tell why they didn't reach the North +Pole, and you came out here to be a miner and you've——"</p> + +<p>There was an impatient, silencing wave of the pipe.</p> + +<p>"Oh, let all that go, can't you?—let the dead past bury its dead. I'm +fixed for life. You and dad won't laugh at me any more. Come on out now +and see me throw a rope, if you don't believe me. I've been practicing +every day. And say, you didn't happen to notice the diamond hitch on +that forward pack horse, did you? Well, I'm the boy that did most of +that."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>She followed him dutifully to the corrals and for half an hour watched +him hurl thirty feet of rope at the horned skull of a steer nailed to +the top of a post. When the noose settled over this mark his boyish +delight was supreme. When it flew wide, which was oftener, his look was +one of invincible determination.</p> + +<p>As his sister left him he was explaining to Red Phinney, who had +sauntered up to be a help in the practice, that the range of Bar-B had a +lucky lie—no "greaser" could come along and "sleep" him.</p> + +<p>She went back to her chair and book, shaping certain questions she would +put to this brother. But it was not until after the evening meal that +she could again talk with him, for the ardent novice found occupation +about the stable and corrals the rest of the afternoon, and even sat for +a time with the men in the evening, listening avidly to their small talk +of the range, watchful to share in it. When he dared ask a question +knowingly, or venture a swift comment couched in the vernacular, he +thrilled with a joy not less poignant because it must be dissembled.</p> + +<p>But conscience pricked him at length to leave those fascinating +adventurers in the bunkhouse and to condescend for an interval to mere +brotherhood. He found his sister alone in the "front" room, ensconced on +the bearskin rug before a snapping and fragrant fire of cedar wood.</p> + +<p>He drew up the wooden rocker and remarked that the fire smelled like a +thousand burning leadpencils. He would have gone on to talk of his great +experience, but the woman wisely forestalled him.</p> + +<p>"Clarence," she began directly, "I've been thinking over that old affair +of Randall Teevan and his wife,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> Kitty Lowndes, you know. Do you happen +to recall the name of the man—the man Kitty went away with?"</p> + +<p>"Lord, no! That was before I'd learned to remember anything. If you want +to rake that affair up, ask Randy Teevan himself. I'll wager he hasn't +forgotten the chap's name. But why desecrate the grave of so antique a +scandal? Ask me about something later. I remember he had a cook once, +when I was six——"</p> + +<p>"Because—because I was thinking, just thinking. Are you certain you +remember nothing about it, not even the man's name, nor what sort of man +he was, nor what he did, nor anything?"</p> + +<p>"I only know what you must know. Randall Teevan's wife decided that the +Bishop had made two into the wrong one. I doubt if I ever heard the +chap's name. I seem to remember that they took Alden with them—he was a +baby of four or five, I believe, and that Randy scurried about and got +him back after no end of fuss. I've heard dad speak of that."</p> + +<p>"Did Kitty and that man <a name="ever" id="ever"></a><ins title="Original has every">ever</ins> +marry?"</p> + +<p>"No; you can be sure Teevan saw to that. He took precious good care not +to divorce her. They manage those things more politely nowadays; +everything formal, six months' lease of a furnished house in Sioux +Falls, with the chap living at a hotel and dropping in for tea every day +at five; and felicitations from the late husband when the decree is +granted in the morning and the new knot tied in the afternoon—another +slipknot like the first, so that the merest twitch at a loose end +will——"</p> + +<p>"Please don't! And did you never know anything more about them, where +they lived or how they ended?"</p> + +<p>"Never a thing, Sis. It's all so old, everybody's forgotten it, except +Teevan. Of course he'd not forget<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> the only woman who ever really put a +lance through his shirt-of-mail vanity."</p> + +<p>"You forget Kitty's mother. She remembers."</p> + +<p>"That's so, by Jove. Teevan got what was coming to him, he got his +'cone-uppance' as the boys say; but old Kitty—yes, it was rough on her. +But she's always put a great face on it. No one would know if they +<i>didn't</i> know."</p> + +<p>"She's proud. Even though she's been another mother to me she rarely +lets me see anything, and she's tried so hard to find comfort in Kitty's +boy, in Alden. She's failed in that, though, for some reason."</p> + +<p>Her brother glanced sharply at her. "I'll tell you why she's failed, +Nell. Alden Teevan wasn't designed to be a comfort to anyone, not even +to himself. There was too much Teevan in him at the start, and too much +Teevan went into his raising."</p> + +<p>"They're back in town, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes; Teevan must have realized that old Kitty is getting on in years, +and has a bit of money for Alden. Say, Sis, I hate to seem prying, but +you don't—you're not thinking about Alden Teevan seriously, are you? +Come, let's be confidential for twenty seconds."</p> + +<p>She mused a moment, then faced him frankly.</p> + +<p>"There's something I like in Alden, and something I don't. I know what I +like and I don't know what I don't like—I only feel it. There!"</p> + +<p>He reached over to take one of her hands.</p> + +<p>"Well, Sis, you trust to the feeling. You couldn't be happy there. And +you deserve something fine, poor child! You deserve to be happy again." +His inner eye looked back six years to see the body of poor Dick Laithe +carried into the Adirondack camp by two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> silent guides who had found him +where a stray bullet left him.</p> + +<p>She turned a tired, smiling face into the light.</p> + +<p>"I <i>was</i> happy, so happy; yet I wonder if you can understand how vague +it seems now. It was so brief and ended so terribly. I think the shock +of it made me another woman. Dick and I seem like a boy and girl I once +knew who laughed and played childish games and never became real. I find +myself sympathizing with them sometimes, as I would with two dear young +things in a story that ended sadly."</p> + +<p>He awkwardly stroked and patted the hand he still held.</p> + +<p>"Come and live with me, Nell. There's only a one-room cabin at that +place now, with a carpet of hay on the dirt floor. But I'll have a +mansion there next summer that will put the eye out of this shack at +Bar-7. I believe in getting back to Nature, but I don't want to land +clear the other side of her. You'd be comfy with me. And it's a great +life; not a line of dyspepsia in it. And think of <i>feeling</i> yourself +sliding off to sleep the moment you touch the pillow, as plainly as you +feel yourself going down in an elevator. That reminds me, I'm going to +bed down with the boys in the bunkhouse to-night. I'm afraid to trust +myself in that bed upstairs again—I've lain awake there so many +nights."</p> + +<p>For a time she lost the thread of his rambling talk, busied with her own +thoughts. She was faintly aware that for luncheon he had been eating a +biscuit, a thick, soggy, dangerous biscuit, caught up in the hurry of +the morning's packing, wrenched in half and sopped in bacon grease. +There was a word about shooting. He was learning to "hold down" the +Colt's 44, and had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> almost hit a coyote. Later, words reached her of a +cold night on the divide, when ice formed in the pail by the cooking +fire. What at last brought her back was a yawn and his remark that he +must "hole up" for the night.</p> + +<p>"Clarence," she began, looking far into a little white-hot chamber +between two half-burned logs, "listen, please, and advise me. If you +were going to do something that might, just possibly, and not by any +means certainly, rake up rather an ugly mess, in a sort of remote +way—that might make some people uncomfortable, you understand—I mean +if you saw something that ought to be done, because the person deserved +it, and it was by no means that person's fault, not in the least, and +the person didn't even know about it nor suspect anything, would you +stop because it might be painful to some one else—just possibly it +might—or to a number of people, or even to the person himself, after he +knew it? Or would you go ahead and trust to luck, especially when +there's a chance that it mightn't ever come out?—though I'm quite sure +it's true, you see, and that's what makes it so hard to know what to +do."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him with bright expectancy. Clutching his head with +both hands, he stared at her, alarm leaping in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind repeating that slowly?" he began, in hushed, stricken +tones. "No, no—I shouldn't ask that. One moment, please—now it all +comes back to me. I see in fancy the dear old home, and hear faithful +Rover barking his glad welcome. Ah, now I have the answer; I knew it +would come. It's because one is a toiler of the sea and the other is a +soiler of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> tea—then the ball is snapped back for a run around the +end and the man on third must return to his base."</p> + +<p>"I might have known you couldn't understand," she said regretfully; "but +I can't possibly be more explicit. I thought if I stated the case +clearly in the abstract—but I dare say it's a waste of time to ask +advice in such matters."</p> + +<p>"You've wasted yours, my child, if that's the last chance I get. Do you +really want help about something?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear, it wasn't anything. Never mind."</p> + +<p>"All right, if you say so. And now, me for the blankets!"</p> + +<p>When he had gone she stepped out into the night under the close, big +stars. She breathed deeply of the thin, sharp air and looked over at the +luminous pearl of a moon that seemed to hang above the cabin where +Ewing's kid would doubtless be dreaming. Her lips fell into a little +smile, half cynical, half tender.</p> + +<p>"I'll do it anyway!" The inflection was defiant, but the words were +scarcely more than a whisper. She said them again, giving them tone.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +<a name="vi" id="vi"></a>CHAPTER VI<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE LADY AND THE PLAN</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">THEY were chatting the next morning over the late breakfast of Mrs. +Laithe. Her brother, summoned from the branding pen, where tender and +terrified calves were being marked for life, had come reluctantly, ill +disposed to forego the vivacity of that scene. He had rushed in with the +look of a man harassed by large affairs. His evil beard was still +unshorn, his dress as untidy as care could make it. He drew a chair up +to the oilcloth covered table and surveyed the meager fare of his sister +with high disapproval.</p> + +<p>"What you need is food, Nell," he began abruptly. "Look at me. This +morning I ate two pounds of oatmeal, three wide slices of ham, five +chunks of hot bread, about two thousand beans, and drank all the coffee +I could get—and never foundered. How's that, against one silly glass of +malted milk two weeks ago? And I slept till seven. I woke up for just +eight seconds at four-thirty to hear the boys turning out. Oh, it was +gray and cold in that bunkhouse—with me warm in the blankets. That was +the one moment of real luxury I've ever known—not to turn out if I +didn't choose. And I did <i>not</i> choose—if anyone should ride up hastily +and inquire of you. When we were on the drive I had to turn out with the +rest of the bunch and catch horses and unbuckle frosty hobbles with +stiff fingers, and fetch pails of ice water and freeze and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> do other +things, but this morning I just grinned myself asleep again. That was +worth living for, my girl."</p> + +<p>But his sister was for once unresponsive. She had not seemed to hear +him.</p> + +<p>"Clarence," she began, as if reciting lines she had learned, "there's a +chap over on the next ranch—Ewing's his name—that ought to have +something done for him. He's young, twenty-four, I believe, and boyish +even for that age, but he draws; draws well. His father was a painter +who died here years ago, and the boy has lived in these mountains ever +since. His father taught him to draw, but he has had no chance to study, +and he's reached a point where he must learn more or lose all he has. +I'm almost certain he can make something of himself. He ought to go to +New York, where he can study and see pictures and find out things. Now, +please advise me about it."</p> + +<p>"How's his health—his stomach?"</p> + +<p>"I believe we've never spoken of it. That's hardly the point."</p> + +<p>"Well, I call it a big point. Suppose he went off to New York and got +plumb ruined, the way I did—no eats, no sleeps. If you want my advice, +he ought to stay right here where everybody's healthy. He shouldn't be +foolish."</p> + +<p>"Clarence!" Her eyes shone with impatience. "It isn't whether he's to go +or not. He's <i>going</i>, and he's to have money to keep him there till he +makes himself known. It's on that point I need advice."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn't savvy at first. You're to tell me what +to advise and I'm to advise it? Well, tell me what to say."</p> + +<p>"Don't be stupid, dear—just for a moment, please.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> You're bound to +agree with me when you see his work. And you might offer to lend him the +money—my money, though he's not to know that. Or perhaps you ought to +buy his pictures. I'm sure you'll want some of those things he has. Of +course that's the better way. It will let him feel independent. There, +it's fixed. It was simple, after all." She flashed him a look of +gratitude. "You're a help after all, dear, when you choose to be."</p> + +<p>"But—one moment, my babe! Perhaps after listening to my advice so +meekly you'll let the poor chap say a word for himself. Perhaps he'd +rather stay right here in God's own country if he eats and sleeps well +now."</p> + +<p>"Please, please, let's not be so—so foody! Of course he wants to go!"</p> + +<p>"But what in Heaven's name would you ever have done without my help, +poor mindless child that you are?"</p> + +<p>But she was oblivious to this subtlety.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, you're always a comfort. We'll ride over this afternoon and +tell him he's to go. It will be a fine thing to do—he's so promising."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Nell"—he glanced at her shrewdly—"is this to be his picnic +or yours?"</p> + +<p>She burned with a little inner rage to feel her cheeks redden, but the +black fringe of her eyes did not fall before him.</p> + +<p>"We'll ride over after luncheon," she repeated, "and I do wish, +Clarence, that you'd shave and wear a collar or a stock, and throw that +unspeakable coat away, and have your boots cleaned, and send for some +cigars."</p> + +<p>He looked complacently down over the objectionable attire, pulled +sputteringly at the condemned pipe, then grinned at her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>"Say, Sis, if it's going to be <i>that</i> much fun for you, I'll rope and +throw him, and send him on tied if he acts rough."</p> + +<p>Late that evening the two inmates of the lake cabin sat before the big +fireplace in the studio to talk of a wondrous thing. They had survived +the most exciting half day in the life of either, and the atmosphere of +the room was still electrical with echoes of the big event. Through +their supper Ewing, unable to eat, had sat staring afar, helpless in the +rush of the current, inert as a bowlder in the bed of a mountain stream. +He, so long at rest, was to be swept down from the peace of his hill +nook to the ocean, to life itself. It was a thing to leave one aghast +with a consternation that was somehow joyous. Since supper he had stared +into the fire in dumb surrender to the flood, with intervals of dazed +floor-pacing, in which he tried to foresee his course.</p> + +<p>Ben Crider, submerged by the waters of the same cloudburst, was giving +stouter battle to the current. His face drawn to more than its wonted +dejection, he strove to play the beacon. Between snatches of worldly +counsel he read with solemn inflection certain gems of guidance from +authors in whose wisdom he had long felt a faith entire. His ready mind +harked forward to direful emergencies, and he submitted devices for +meeting these.</p> + +<p>"Remember what that says, Kid," he urged impressively, and he read once +more a saving passage from his well-thumbed "Guide to Polite Behavior." +"'If you cannot sing a song or tell a mirth-provoking story at an +evening ball or party you may well perform a few tricks in legerdemain. +The following are among the simplest and, when deftly performed never +fail to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> provoke loud applause and win you the undying gratitude of your +hostess.' Are you a-hearin' me? Well, I've turned down the pages at that +one with the coin and the hat, and the one where you must tell the right +card by a simple act of mind-readin'. And don't forget what he says +here, 'the hand is quicker'n the eye.'"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ben; I'm listening."</p> + +<p>"Well, listen to this here other book. It's more serious."</p> + +<p>He took up his treasured "Traps and Pitfalls of a Great City," and again +became a voice in the wilderness, waving a forefinger to punctuate and +warn.</p> + +<p>"'It is the habit of these gentry to lie in wait for their intended +victims when they alight at the principal railway stations, and where, +by their plausible and insinuating advances, they ingratiate themselves +into the <i>confidence</i> of those whom it is their purpose to fleece; hence +the name, "confidence men." Only by constant watchfulness and a thorough +knowledge of their methods may the stranger in the great city hope to +escape their wiles, since their ways of approach are manifold.' You hear +that, Kid—their ways is manifold. Here's a pitcher of one of 'em +tacklin' a countryman. See what an oily-lookin' feller he is, stovepipe +hat, fancy vest, big watchchain, long coat, striped pants. You'd say he +was a bank president. Oh, I bet they're slick ones. They'd have to be to +tog out like that every day in the week. Now remember, if one o' them +ducks comes up to you and starts to butter you up with fine words and +wants to carry your satchel, you just let out a yell for the police and +hand him over. That's the way to settle 'em!"</p> + +<p>"I'll surely remember, Ben."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>"And there's thugs and footpads. Always keep your coat buttoned over +your watch, it says, and if you're goin' along Broadway or Fifth Avenue +after dark, get out and walk in the middle o' the street, so's they +can't spring around a corner and slug you. And don't talk to strangers, +and don't look into store windows ner up at the high buildin's, else +they'll spot you fer a greeny and give you the laugh."</p> + +<p>"I can't believe it yet, Ben." He rose to walk the floor again, his +hands sunk deep in his pockets, his head bent low.</p> + +<p>"And don't git into no card game on the train with a couple o' smooth +strangers that ain't ever met each other before and want to pass away +the time pleasantly. And don't bet you can open the patent lock after +you think you found the secret spring. And don't buy any o' that money +you can't tell from real, that was printed from stolen Gov'ment plates."</p> + +<p>"Think of his giving a hundred dollars for that drawing of 'Lon Pierce +on the pinto, throwing a steer, and all that money for the others."</p> + +<p>"Serves him right!" Ben hissed this vindictively, having first +reluctantly laid aside "Traps and Pitfalls." "Serves him dead right! +That feller puts on a wise look that's about sixty-five years beyond his +real age, as I'd cal'late it. I tell you, son, it sure takes all kinds +o' fools to make a world."</p> + +<p>"But he said they were worth the money," Ewing pleaded. "He said I would +do even better, some day."</p> + +<p>"Sure—<i>sure</i> he said it! An' didn't he ask me if I had dyspepsia, an' +did I sleep at night, an' I'd better remember to live an outdoor life of +activity if I ever got<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> that a-way. An' he thinks he's learned how to +grain a deer hide after watching me do it three minutes, an' he's goin' +to pick up a live skunk next chanct he gits, because I told him jest how +to grab it. Oh, he <i>said</i> things all right! He said a variety o' +things!" He glared at Ewing as he rounded out this catalogue of follies.</p> + +<p>"I'm torn in two, Ben. I shan't be glad to leave here, and yet I'll be +glad to go. I've dreamed it so long. It seems as if I'd dreamed it so +hard I'd made it come true."</p> + +<p>"Always pin your money to the inside of your vest, like I told you," +came the voice of warning.</p> + +<p>"I will, I will. But things <i>do</i> happen, don't they? This is like a +fairy tale."</p> + +<p>"Fairy tale!" The wise one uttered this with violent scorn. "Likely you +was the sleepin' beauty, an' this here princess comes along with an +alarm clock!"</p> + +<p>"Not a princess, Ben." He laughed boyishly. "She's a sure-enough queen."</p> + +<p>"Jest remember they's knaves in the deck. That's all <i>I</i> ask."</p> + +<p>"You like her don't you?"</p> + +<p>Ben made an effort to be fair.</p> + +<p>"Well, I do an' then I don't. She's saddle stock, fur looks, that lady +is, but she ain't serious. No, sir! When her eyes is on me I know as +well's I want to she's snickerin' inside; makes no difference if her +face does look like it was starched. You'll find, when all's said an' +done, that she's plumb levitous, an' levitous folks is triflin'."</p> + +<p>"Have you seen how sorrowful she looks sometimes, a sort of glad-sorry, +as if she felt sorry for herself and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> glad for other people? She makes +me feel old when she looks that way—as if I must protect her."</p> + +<p>"Yes, an' other times she's stiffer'n Lot's wife!"</p> + +<p>"Other times she seems older than all the world, a woman who has always +lived and always will."</p> + +<p>"Well, son, when you git put afoot there, you write on an' I'll manage +to scare up a git-away stake fur you."</p> + +<p>"It's wonderful to think of going out into the world that <i>they</i> knew, +Ben—my father and mother. It seems as if they must be out there now, +and that I'm going to meet them very quietly and naturally some day. I +think it wouldn't astonish me."</p> + +<p>"Look a-here, Kid! That'll be about enough o' <i>that</i>! You go to bed."</p> + +<p>The other smiled a little wanly.</p> + +<p>"I can't. I'm afraid to. I'm going to sit here awhile and think, and +when the moon gets up I'm going outside to think. The hills haven't +heard the news yet, and the trail over to the lake doesn't know about +it. I've got to spread it before I sleep. You see, when I do sleep, I'm +afraid I'll wake up and find it was stuff I dreamed."</p> + +<p>"Shucks, Kid, what's the use o' talking like that? It ain't no dream. +It's true as God made little apples." There was, at the moment, a +noticeable relaxation from the speaker's habitual austerity. An awkward +smile of affection melted the hardness of his face as he held out a hand +to Ewing. "An' I'm doggoned if I'd be so <i>all-fired</i> amazed if +everything come out fur the best. Yes, sir, blame me, Kid, if I don't +almost half b'lieve you'll make good!"</p> + +<p>"You can bet I'll try, Ben!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>"That's right; you do your damndest—'angels can do no more,' as the +feller said."</p> + +<p>As he lighted a candle his face was grim once more—savagely grim, even +as he sang, in going to his rest:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"Oh, 'twas on a summer's eve when I first <i>metter</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Swingin' on the garden ga-a-ate!"<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +<a name="vii" id="vii"></a>CHAPTER VII<br /> +<br /> +<small>TWO SLEEPERS AWAKEN</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">It now befell that the imminent adventure of Ewing should bring him a +double rapture. The day after Mrs. Laithe secretly played special +Providence to that unsuspicious youth her brother found profit of his +own in the plan.</p> + +<p>"I've a world of things to do here, Nell," he said. "I ought to stay +here this winter. I'd be that much forwarder with my work next spring."</p> + +<p>"I shall be quite safe alone," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Why go alone? If you insist on robbing the cradle, why not take the +innocent with you? Of course you'll have to see that he doesn't walk off +the train, or lose his hat out of the window, or eat too much candy, or +rough-house the other children on the way, but he'll serve every purpose +of a man and brother."</p> + +<p>"To be sure!" she broke in with enthusiasm. "I worried last night about +his going. We'll put it that I'm in his charge, and he will really be in +mine."</p> + +<p>"That's it. He'll feel important, and you'll be the tidy nurse. And with +both of you off my mind I can start those chaps to getting out logs for +the Bar-B mansion. I'll camp over there till a good tracking snow comes, +then I'll have an elk hunt—I want a good head for the dining room—then +I'll hole up here at Pierce's for the winter and learn how to handle my +stock. So that's settled."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>Mrs. Laithe rode over to apprise Ewing of this plan. The little clearing +slept vacant in the sunlight. She left Cooney "tied to the ground" by +throwing the bridle rein over his head, and knocked on the open door of +the cabin with the handle of her quirt. There was no response save +echoes from the empty living room. Crossing this she drew aside the +blanket that curtained the door of the studio. The big room lay before +her in strange disorder. Pictures and hangings were gone from the wall. +Two yawning trunks stood by the door; canvases and portfolios lay about; +loose drawings and clothing littered the chairs and floor. Beyond this +disarray stood the easel, still holding the mother's portrait. In the +light from the window the eyes looked livingly into her own through the +silence. She was struck by some new glint of meaning in them, something +she read as an appeal, almost a prayer. Her own eyes fell and then she +first noticed the room's living occupant.</p> + +<p>On the couch, in the shadow of the half-drawn curtain, Ewing lay asleep. +He had sprawled there easily, half turned on his side, one arm flung +about his head, the other hanging over to the floor. Now that she saw +him she heard his measured breathing. Some new, quick-born +interest—curiosity, sympathy, she knew not what—impelled her to scan +the sleeping face more closely. She stepped lightly across to the couch +and looked down at him, with a little air of carelessness against his +sudden awakening. It was the first time she had studied his face in +repose. Lacking the ready, boyish smile, it was an older face, revealing +lines of maturity she had not suspected in the arch of brow above the +deep-set eyes, in the lean jaws and sharply square chin, and in the +muscled neck, revealed by the thrown-back head. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> was a new face, for +the unguarded faces of the sleeping, like the faces of the dead tell +many secrets. Ewing's face was all at once full of new suggestion, of +new depths, of unsuspected complexities. As she gazed, scarce breathing, +she was alive to a new consciousness of him. He had been a boy, winning +from her at once by his fresh, elemental humanness a regard that came +partly from the mother lying alert in her, and partly from the joyous, +willing and even wistful comrade which this woman was fitted to be. Now, +bending over the unmasked face, she divined with swift alarm that her +old careless attitude toward the sleeper might never be recovered. What +her new attitude must be she could not yet know, but she was conscious +of being swept by a great wave of tenderness for him; swept, too, by +fear of him; and the impact of these waves left her trembling before +him. Some flash of portent, some premonition born of instinct, warned +her with a clearness that was blinding. Tenderness and fear rolled in +upon her, though her reason weighed them as equal absurdities. Then her +look rose to the mother's portrait and she saw that the eyes had +followed her: they seemed now to challenge, almost fiercely. Only the +briefest of moments could she endure their gaze, a gaze that in some way +drew life to itself from the breathing of the sleeper. Instinctively she +brushed her hand before her own eyes, drew herself up with a little +flinching shudder and moved slowly backward to the door.</p> + +<p>Then she was happily out in the sunlight, breathing deep of the +pine-spiced air, gratefully eying the familiar boundaries of the +clearing, the stumps, the huge pile of cut wood, and the fenced-in +vegetable garden. Over the line of green to the north a gray, bare +mountain shot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> above the lesser hills, rising splendidly from its +timbered base to a peak hooded in snow. It swam in her vision at first, +but presently something of its grounded sureness, something of the peace +that slept along its upper reaches, fell upon her own soul and her +serenity was restored.</p> + +<p>Not pausing to review those amazing moments of inner tumult, she stepped +again to the door and with her old, careless, mildly amused laugh she +beat upon it, loudly this time. She heard an inarticulate call from the +studio, and again she assaulted the panel. Then the curtain was drawn +aside and Ewing stared at her from the doorway.</p> + +<p>"I believe you were sleeping," she started to say, but he came quickly +to her with something between a laugh and a shout.</p> + +<p>"Then it's true, it <i>is</i> true—you're real! I just dreamed that you +became Ben Crider and made me walk in the middle of the street." He +fairly rushed her into the studio and waved excitedly to the open +trunks.</p> + +<p>"There! I began to pack last night so I could see it when I woke up and +have a proof that things were true. I didn't sleep at all till about +eight this morning."</p> + +<p>She sat on the couch, feeling that she was foolish beyond measure to +avoid the eyes of the portrait. Then she smiled at him with an effort to +recover the amused ascendancy of their first meetings.</p> + +<p>"It's all true, I assure you, and I wonder if you'd mind taking charge +of me when you go East. My brother has suggested it, and I'll promise +not to be a trouble."</p> + +<p>His look of wondering delight was so utterly boyish, his helpless +laughter so entirely without reserve that she regained for the moment +her old easy dominance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>"Would I mind—mind going with you? That's a joke, isn't it?" He seized +both her hands in a grasp from which she caught some thrill of his +deep-breathed, electric joy.</p> + +<p>"But of course this is nonsense," he went on; "I'm still lying there."</p> + +<p>"Enough of dreams," she broke in warningly. "You'll find it only too, +too real. You're going to work. It's simple."</p> + +<p>He sat down on one of the trunks, trying to subdue his excitement, his +hands clenched.</p> + +<p>"If this feeling lasts I can do anything, <i>anything</i>, you understand, +learn everything, do everything, be everything. I have power. Ever since +you left yesterday I've felt full of steel springs, all tightly coiled. +Only I must be careful. If they went off all at once there'd be an +explosion, and I'm afraid I couldn't ever be repaired."</p> + +<p>She grimaced with an effort at mock dismay which was not wholly +successful. She divined the literal truth under his jesting. The springs +were coiled and their steel was not too well tempered, she believed. The +thought left a shadow on her face.</p> + +<p>"You're not doubting anything?" he asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"Not doubting, O youth! Only a little innocent wonder."</p> + +<p>"But isn't life an enchantment? Isn't it all miracles? Oh, I understand +poets at last. They can't tell you their secret unless you already know +it. They sing in big numbers. They say a million is true, and you say, +'Yes, that's very pretty, but it's poetry—exaggeration; he really means +that a hundred is true,' and you never know any better till the light +comes. Then you see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> that the poet was literal and quite prosaic all the +time. The whole million was always true, in beauty and bigness and +wonder."</p> + +<p>"Stop!" she protested. "You're making me feel as old as the world +itself, ancient and scarred with wisdom."</p> + +<p>"You!" he burst in, "you're as young as the world. You are foolish and I +am the wise one if you can't see that. Indeed, you're looking +beautifully foolish this minute. You are thinking all kinds of doubts +underneath a lot of things you won't tell me. You're secretive. You hide +a lot from me."</p> + +<p>She laughed, a little uneasily.</p> + +<p>"You are a babe for wisdom," she retorted; "but you're not to be +enlightened in a day—nor by me. I'll give you a year. You shall tell me +then which of us two is the older. Now you must be at your packing. Can +you be ready by Monday?"</p> + +<p>"Monday? and I'd been wondering what would be the name of the day. So +it's merely Monday? How many Mondays there have been, how many, many +Mondays, that were like any other day! And now this Monday steals +up—yes, I'll be ready."</p> + +<p>"I see you are past reason——"</p> + +<p>"Say above it——"</p> + +<p>"Anyway, get on with your packing. So much is true." He would have +ridden back with her, but she demurred.</p> + +<p>"It's so far," he urged.</p> + +<p>"It isn't half far enough," she mocked him, "I have so much thinking to +do!"</p> + +<p>"Monday, Monday, Monday, then!" he chanted, as he went out to lift her +into the saddle. But when he had done this he suddenly bowed his head to +kiss her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> hand, as he had seen his father long ago kiss his mother's +hand.</p> + +<p>"You are all the world, just now, all I know of it," he said.</p> + +<p>She looked back to where he stood, straight and buoyant, his head thrown +back in joyous challenge.</p> + +<p>"And you are youth—dear, dear youth!" she cried; but this he could not +hear.</p> + +<p>A little farther on she breathed softly, "Poor dead Kitty—don't be +afraid!"</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +<a name="viii" id="viii"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE JOURNEY WONDER</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">DURING those last days Ewing brushed only the airy slopes of illusion, +strive as he would to keep his feet to earth. Many were the tricks he +used to this end: vain tricks to forget the miracle of his going, of +going so soon, of going with her.</p> + +<p>Ben Crider would not help him forget. When snatches of warning from +"Traps and Pitfalls" grew stale, Ben coined advice of a large and +general character.</p> + +<p>"Want to be an artist, hey? Ask me? Go down to Durango—let that +professor learn you in ten lessons. Make yer five t' eight dollars a day +canvassin' fur enlargements. Gold frame throwed in. Yes, sir! Ask me? +Durango's fur enough. New York's too gosha-mighty fur!"</p> + +<p>It was not possible to forget under the droppings of this counsel. +Wherefore his spirit tossed in tumult.</p> + +<p>When Ben called him on the morning of the start it was still dark. He +lay a moment, his nerves tightening. This was the last time he would lie +in that bed—for how long? Well, on some unmarked night in the pregnant +future, lying there again, he would look back to this moment and tell +himself all the wonderful things that had come to him—tell his +ignorant, puzzled, excited self, who would, somehow, be waiting and +wondering there.</p> + +<p>Juggling this conceit, he groped for matches and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> candle. He could +hear the singing of the kettle in the outer room. Through the window he +saw a lantern swinging, and knew that Ben would be bringing around the +horses. It was a time to be cool, a time to gird himself.</p> + +<p>He had breakfast on the table when Ben came in, and they ate by the +light of a smoky lamp, tacitly pretending that no miracle was afoot. +Saving the early hour, it was a scene they enacted whenever they drove +to Pagosa for supplies, up to the point when, the meal finished, they +carried two trunks from the studio out to the wagon. But they managed +this carelessly enough, with only a casual, indignant word or two about +the excessive weight of full trunks.</p> + +<p>Only the faintest hint of light showed in the east as the chilled horses +stumbled awkwardly down the hill. A half hour they rode in a silence +broken but once, and then only by Ben's hoarse threat to "learn" the off +horse something needful but unspecified which it appeared not to know.</p> + +<p>The light glowed from gray to rose and day was opened by the bark of a +frantic squirrel that ran half-way down a tree trunk, threatening +attack, in alarm for its store of spruce cones at the foot of the tree. +A crested jay at the same moment mocked them harshly from a higher +branch of the tree.</p> + +<p>Ewing exhaled with gusto a breath of the warming, pine-spiced air.</p> + +<p>"It's sunning up, Ben." Ben grunted unamiably.</p> + +<p>A little distance ahead of them a doe and a half-grown fawn bounded +across the road.</p> + +<p>"She seemed to be in a hurry," Ewing again ventured.</p> + +<p>"She wanted t' git that child away from here, 'fore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> some one stuffed +its head full o' fool talk about goin' off to New York. Can't tell what +notions a young deer <i>might</i> git." With this laborious surmise he shut +his jaws together with repellent grimness.</p> + +<p>Their road now wound down a hill and out of the woods to join the valley +road.</p> + +<p>"Yender's Beulah Pierce!" Ben snapped this out savagely. The wagon was +half a mile ahead. Pierce was driving, and in the rear seat were two +figures whom they knew to be Mrs. Laithe and her brother. As Ben had +pointedly ignored these Ewing did not refer to them.</p> + +<p>They came to a gate in a wire fence that stretched interminably away on +either side, over brown, low-rolling hills. Pierce had left the gate +open for them, and Ewing got out to close it after they had passed +through.</p> + +<p>"Larabie is building a lot of fence," he said, as they drove on. "At +this rate he'll have every school section in Hinsdale County wired in +pretty soon."</p> + +<p>On this impersonal ground Ben seemed willing to meet him.</p> + +<p>"Me? Know what I'm going to do if Wes' Larabie cuts off any more o' this +road with his barb wire? Stick a pair o' wire clippers in the whip +socket an' drive through. <i>That's</i> all! You'd think he owned all +America, the way he makes people sidle along that fence till he gits +good an' ready to make a gate. Me? Make my own gates. Yes, sir! Wire +clippers!"</p> + +<p>With this he was sufficiently cheered to insult vivaciously a couple of +dull, incurious Mexicans whom they presently passed, plodding behind a +laden burro train. To his opprobrious burst of weirdly entangled +Spanish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> and English he added the taunting bleat of a sheep and a +merrily malign gesture eloquent of throats to be slit—the throats of +unspeakable sheep herders. He observed with deep disgust that neither of +the threatened ones gave any sign of interest in their portended fate. +They passed with scarce a lift of their heads.</p> + +<p>"They're takin' supplies up to that sheep outfit o' Rankin's," grumbled +Ben. "Pierce an' some o' the others is talkin' about gettin' in a car +load o' saltpeter an' dopin' the range if Rankin lets his herd work down +any closeter—have it billed in as hardware or pianos, an' unload the +car at night. Serve him right fur bein' a sheep man. An' yet I knowed +Nels Rankin, five, six years ago, when there wa'n't a more respectable +cuss in the hull San Juan."</p> + +<p>In passing the Pulcifer ranch they made talk about the hay-cutting, for +a reaper sent its locustlike click from a brown stretch of bottom land. +Pulcifer had a good stand of hay, they agreed, and probably he wouldn't +have such a big winter kill this year if he didn't act the fool and sell +off too much of it. You couldn't expect to bring cattle through fat on +cottonwood browse.</p> + +<p>So they lamely gossiped the miles away in strained avoidance of the big +event. Only once did Ewing look back, while Ben was occupied with the +horses at a ford. The rocky wall at the verge of their lake was +intimately near, despite the miles they had come, and below it, through +a notch in the hills, he could see a spot of yellow—the new shake roof +on a shed they had built that summer near the cabin. Then his eyes were +ahead to where Pierce's wagon crawled up a hill.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>Ben whipped up the horses and burst into song:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"One evening I was strolling through the city of the dead;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I viewed where all around me their peaceful forms were spread."<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>He took the thing at a quick, rollicking tempo, as one resolved to be +gay under difficulties.</p> + +<p>When they drew up to the station platform at Pagosa, Ewing hurried to +greet Mrs. Laithe and her brother. Pierce busied himself with the +trunks, cautiously watching the man check them.</p> + +<p>Ben Crider, after a long, fervent look at Ewing's back, caught his +breath, sniffled, strangled this, and stepped quickly into his wagon. +Pulling the horses quietly away from the platform he whipped them into a +sharp trot toward the town. Ewing ran back, shouting. Ben would not +turn, but he thrust one arm back and upward with a careless wave.</p> + +<p>Ewing stared hard at the bent head, the eloquent back, longing for a +further sign, but none came. He was at the gateway of the world, a mist +before his eyes.</p> + +<p>A moment later their little train rattled into a narrow cañon where its +shrill whistle, battered from wall to wall, made the place alive with +shrieking demons.</p> + +<p>Having seen his charge to a seat in the one squalid car, Ewing went out +to brace himself on the rear platform. She who was doing this thing had +seemed a strange lady again; in her manner, as in her dress, more +formal. The dark-blue, close-fitting gown, the small toque of blue +velvet, the secretive veil, the newish gloves, instead of the old, worn +riding gauntlets, the glossy-toed black boots so different from those of +scarred tan he knew, all marked a change that heightened the pangs of +homesickness he already suffered.</p> + +<p>With burning eyes and tightened throat he saw the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> floor of the cañon +rush away from him, and watched old Baldy's snow hood flashing +momentarily as the train twisted, now sinking below a quick-rushing wall +of rock, now showing over a clump of cedars. It was as if the old peak +had become sprightly at his going, and sought to bob curtsies to him.</p> + +<p>At intervals the train came to a jangling halt. The little locomotive +would leave it and ramble inconsequently off into the big pine woods, to +return with screeches of triumph, dragging a car load of new-sawn boards +from the mill. Or it would puff away to a siding and come back +importantly with a car of excited sheep. At these halts Ewing would leap +to the ground to feel the San Juan earth under his feet.</p> + +<p>At the junction where they were to take the through train he reflected +that nothing had really happened yet. He could turn back and be out of +the dream. The little train would return up the cañon presently. The +conductor would be indifferent to his presence. To the brakeman, whom he +knew, he could say, "Yes, I thought some of going to New York this +morning, but I changed my mind." He would be back at Pagosa by five and +find Ben at the post office or the "Happy Days" saloon. Then there would +be no more of that curious sickness—a kind of sickish wanting. Yet, +when the through train drew in, he hurried aboard.</p> + +<p>He stood on the rear platform and watched a horseman jogging over the +sandy plain to the west, picturing his ride from the junction to some +lonely ranch on a distant river bottom. He would have the week's mail in +a bag back of the saddle, and a stock of tobacco. He would reach the +place after dark, perhaps, from sheer <i>ennui</i>, shooting at a coyote or +two along the way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> He knew that rider's life, the days of it and the +nights, and all of good or ill that might ever betake him. It was well, +he thought, to dare a bigger life, though he waved a friendly greeting +to the unconscious horseman, jogging at the head of his train of dust. +He flung a tender glance at the diminished junction, now a low, dull +blur on the level horizon, and went into the car.</p> + +<p>For the moment the Pullman had no other occupant but himself and Mrs. +Laithe, and she was sleeping, he thought; but her eyes opened as he +would have passed her seat. She had replaced the toque with a brown cap +he knew, and as she smiled up at him she seemed again almost the +familiar godmother of his fairy tale. He passed on, however, after a +meaningless word or two and, sprawling in another section, surrendered +himself to the troubled pretentiousness of the Pullman school of +decoration.</p> + +<p>He had left the lady grateful for his going. She was in no mood for that +artless lyric chant of youth in which he was so adept. Her brother that +morning had accused her of waning enthusiasm for her protégé.</p> + +<p>"I believe you're funking, Nell," he had said shrewdly. "You're +discovering that mountain slumming is different from the city kind."</p> + +<p>But she had protested that no discerning person of ordinary humanity +could have done less for the prisoned youth. "Of course"—and she had +sighed—"he's a mere bundle of untried eagerness, and we're responsible, +in a way, for Heaven knows what, but we had to do it, didn't we?"</p> + +<p>"Not 'we' had to! <i>You</i> had to. It's all yours, Nell—the credit and the +glory and all the rest. I prefer to get up my own responsibilities, if +you don't mind."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>"But you agreed with me—you <i>did</i>—you advised when I asked you—-it's +perfectly plain—you said, 'Of course!'"—But the train moved off in the +midst of his laugh at this, and he had doffed his hat to her with a +mocking gesture of freehanded relinquishment.</p> + +<p>Now, as she closed her eyes again, her memory dived for some fairy tale +or fragment of mythology in which an unsuspecting humanitarian rescued +an insignificant woods thing, only to have it change on the instant into +a creature troublesome in more ways than one. She was certain some +primitive fabulist had foreseen this complication, but her mind was +weary and shadowed, and the historic solution evaded her. "Mountain +slumming" was truly more exigent than the town sort.</p> + +<p>But this reflection aroused a defensive sympathy. The vision of +Ewing as he had passed glowed before her shut eyes, the active, +square-shouldered, slender figure, garbed in a decently fitting +suit of gray (she was glad to remember that), the quick eyes, ardent +for life, the thinned, brown face, the usual buoyance held down to an +easy self-possession that was new to her, the wild, reliant expectancy +of a boy tempered all at once by some heritage of insight. Outwardly, +at least, he would fit his new life. So reflecting, she dozed on the +look of the man in his eyes, and dreamed that she feared this and fled. +But after mad flight through the windings of an interminable corridor +she awoke to look squarely into his eyes, to cower instinctively under +his touch on her arm. Her waking thought took the thread of the dream, +her flight had been vain: he was there, and his voice throbbed fatefully +within a secret chamber of her mind, even though his words rang little +of portent.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>"We are coming to the supper station."</p> + +<p>She hastened to freshen herself with cold water, and they were presently +eating a hasty meal at a crowded table. Then they were out side by side +to pace the platform briskly.</p> + +<p>There was green about the station, where water had taught the desert to +relent, but beyond this oasis the sand sea stretched far and flat to +murky foothills. Above these they could see a range of sharp-peaked +mountains that still caught the sunlight, some crystal white with snow, +others muffled by clouds turned to iris-hued scarfs of filmiest gauze.</p> + +<p>"El Dorado is beyond those hills," said the youth fervently.</p> + +<p>"It looks accessible from here," she answered, "but——"</p> + +<p>"You're warning me again. You're afraid I'll be discouraged by the +hills."</p> + +<p>"Not discouraged, but there are resting places on the way. They hold the +bulk of the pilgrims, I fear."</p> + +<p>"I shall go on; not even you could stop me."</p> + +<p>She caught a glint in his fierce young eyes that she thought he must be +unconscious of.</p> + +<p>"I? Oh, I shall spur you—if you need spurring."</p> + +<p>"I know; I'm only beginning to realize how much I owe you; I mean to +repay you, though."</p> + +<p>There was an intimation of remoteness in his tone, as if he saw himself +removed from her, mounting solitary to his dream city, a free-necked, +well-weaponed pilgrim, sufficient unto himself. It was as if he had put +distance between them the moment he crossed the threshold of the world. +She drew a full breath. It came to her, as the upflashing of some +submerged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> memory, that all his frank adoration of her had been quite +impersonal. He had regarded her as a bit of line and color. It was +amazing to remember that he had made no effort to know her, save with +his eyes. She divined that she had stopped short of being human to him, +while he to her had been, more than anything else, a human creature of +freshness and surprises. Whatever difficulties might be in the way of an +easy friendliness between them, they would not be of his own making. She +was sure she felt a great relief.</p> + +<p>Ewing awoke in the night at some jolting halt of the train, to feel an +exciting thrill of luxury as he stretched in his berth. Here was no +stumbling about in the dark to search for a lost trail; nor must he rise +in the chill dawn to worry a blaze from overnight embers, cook a +discouraging breakfast, catch horses, and lade unwilling beasts with +packs. Things would be done for him; and the trail was wide and level as +befits the approach to the world. He dozed royally off feeling that he +had bitten into the heart of his wonder at last.</p> + +<p>The following day they sped through a land whose kind he knew, but after +another night he awoke to find their train breasting the brown waves of +a sea that rolled lazily to far horizons. No longer was there one of his +beloved mountain peaks to be a landmark: only an endless, curving +lowness, as of land that had once tried to lash itself into the fury of +mountain and crag, and then ceased all effort—to lie forever impotent +and sad.</p> + +<p>He thought of Ben amid this disconsolate welter. Ben had beheld this +sight years ago, and had described it with aversion, as one relating a +topographical scandal. Ewing favored his companion with heartfelt +dispraise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> of this landscape, applauding the suggestion of a woman she +laughingly quoted that "there should be a tuck taken in the continent." +He was sure nothing would be lost by it.</p> + +<p>The lady beguiled him over the inadequacies of Kansas by promising a +better land farther on. He gladly turned from the car window to watch +the pretty play of her mouth as she talked.</p> + +<p>But the next day—they steamed out of St. Louis in the morning—he +scanned several hundred square miles of excellent farming land with +sheer dismay. From morning till night they ran through what, to Ewing, +was a dead, depressing flatness, a vast and clumsy jest of a +checkerboard, with cornfields for squares. The tiny groves of oak at +long intervals seemed only to satirize the monotony. The rolling plains +of the day before had been vivacious beside this flatness, and there had +been a certain mournful dignity in their solitude. But this endless +level lacked even solitude. To Ewing, indeed, the mystery of it lay in +its well-peopled towns. He wondered how men kept sane there. Mrs. Laithe +insisted that it was an important stretch of our country, that it fed +thousands and made useful objects in its tall-chimneyed factories +(things like wagons and watches and boots, she believed), and that it +ought not to be discountenanced. But he could feel nothing for it, save +an unconfessed pity that it would sleep that night in ignorance of his +glorious transit. He had never suspected there could be so many +thousands of people who took the world as a tame affair and slept +indifferent to young men with great things before them.</p> + +<p>"If New York is like this," he said, with a flash of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> his old boyish +excitement, "what can I ever do without you?"</p> + +<p>"But it isn't at all like this, and you'll do big things without me—or +with me, if I can help you."</p> + +<p>"You will have to help me. Now that I've seen the beginning of the +world, I'm depending on you more than I thought I should when we +started."</p> + +<p>"You will lose that."</p> + +<p>"Will I? But it will be queer to see you as part of the world—no longer +the whole of it; to see how you stand out from the others. Perhaps the +rest of the world will be only a dingy background for you—you are all +color and life."</p> + +<p>"You've made me feel like a lay figure," she laughed. Then, in a flash +of womanish curiosity, she ventured, "Have you ever thought me anything +but a shell of color?"</p> + +<p>He stammered, blushing painfully.</p> + +<p>"Oh, a real person—of course, certainly! A woman, yes—but when I think +of you as a woman, I'm scared, like those first times I saw you. I can't +help it. You may not believe it," he concluded with a burst of candor, +"but the truth is, I don't know women."</p> + +<p>He was again embarrassed when she retorted, with her laugh:</p> + +<p>"O youth! May you always know so much!"</p> + +<p>"Well, to-morrow afternoon we shall be in New York," he said briskly, +when she had shut the deeps of her eyes from him. He had felt the need +to show that there were matters upon which he could speak with +understanding.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +<a name="ix" id="ix"></a>CHAPTER IX<br /> +<br /> +<small>A DINNER AT SEVEN-THIRTY</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">BY five o'clock the next afternoon Ewing had ended his journey in an +upper room of the Stuyvesant Hotel. This hostelry flaunts an outworn +magnificence. Its hangings are dingy, its plenteous gilt is tarnished; +and it seems to live on memories of a past when fashion splendidly +thronged its corridors. But peace lies beyond the gloom of its portals, +and Ewing was glad to be housed from the dazing tumult outside. Nothing +reached him now but the muted rhythm of horses' feet on the asphalt +below, and this but recalled agreeably to him that his solitude was an +artificial thing of four walls. He had no wish to forget that the world +waited beyond his door.</p> + +<p>He fell back on the sofa, a once lordly thing of yellow satin, now +frayed and faded, to eye the upper reaches of the room. The high, +blue-tinted ceiling was scarred and cracked. Depending from its center a +huge chandelier dangled glittering prisms of glass. An immense mirror in +a gilt frame, lavishly rococo, rested on the mantel of carved white +marble. Heavy lace curtains, shrouding the two broad windows, made a +restful half light.</p> + +<p>He had awakened to hills that morning, wooded hills and well towned. +Then had come veritable cities, rich to him with all romance under their +angular, smoky ugliness. And at last had come the real city—the end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> of +the world and its center. He discovered it beyond a stretch of +white-flecked water alive with strange craft. Its clean, straight, +myriad-windowed towers glowed under a slanting sun in an air as crystal +clear as that of his own hills. A vista of +<a name="heart" id="heart"></a><ins title="Added hyphen">heart-shaking</ins> +surprises unfolded ahead of the great boat they boarded, a boat with a +heart strongly beating in tune with his own. Too soon it nosed its way, +with a sort of clumsy finesse, into a pile-walled pocket. There followed +the keen, quick rattling of a cogged wheel and a rush of people who +seemed insufficiently impressed by the magnitude of the event. Then they +entered a cab, to be driven from a throng of other cabs and jostling +pedestrians through the maze of a dream come true. He tried not to +ignore his companion for glimpses of that strange life through the cab +window.</p> + +<p>Very casually she had said at parting, "Thank you so much for all your +care of me—and dine with us at seven-thirty, won't you? I shall try to +have a friend here that I think may help you."</p> + +<p>A long time he lay, reviewing that chaotic first hour in the world. +Everything throbbed here, it seemed. One lived more quickly. And how +long could the body endure it? Suddenly he felt his own pulses beating +at a rate to terrify. He caught his breath and listened. He could hear +the monstrous beats—they were actually shaking the sofa on which he +lay. He thought of heart disease. He might be dying there—and they +would wait dinner for him. He sprang up desperately. The sinister +beating ceased. He put his hand to his heart, listened tensely, and +heard again that which had alarmed him, the pulsing beat of a steam pump +somewhere far below. In his relief he laughed aloud.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>As he set about opening his trunks he was marveling at clothes lines he +had seen stretched high between the rear walls of houses. How did people +ever hang clothes on lines fifty feet from the ground? Truly it was a +city of wonders.</p> + +<p>He took out a suit of evening clothes that had been his father's. He had +found that the suit fitted him, and he and Ben had assured themselves by +reference to the pictured heroes in magazine advertisements that its cut +was nearly enough in the prevailing mode. Ewing had also found some +cards of his father's which would convey his own name to all who might +care to read it.</p> + +<p>As he sauntered out at the dinner hour he wished that Ben could be +watching him. The Bartell house was in Ninth Street, less than a long +block from his hotel, a broad, plain-fronted, three-story house of red +brick trimmed with white marble. Caught in a little eddy from the stream +heading in Washington Square and sweeping north, it had kept an old-time +air of dignity and comfort. Ewing observed a cheering glow through the +muslin curtains at the windows as he ascended the three marble steps. +The old white door, crowned with a fanlight and retaining its brass +knocker, had suffered the indignity of an electric bell, but this was +obscurely placed at the side, and he lifted the knocker's lion head. As +no bell rang, he dropped it, and was dismayed by its metallic clamor. He +swiftly meditated flight, thinking to return for a seemlier +demonstration. But the door swung back and a person in evening dress +stood aside to bow him in.</p> + +<p>"Ah, good evening!" exclaimed Ewing cordially. Then, embarrassed, he +felt for a card, recalling that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> was in a land where, probably, one +could not be cordial to persons who opened doors.</p> + +<p>"For Mrs. Laithe," he said, in grave tones, eying the man's bluntly cut +features with a severity meant to dispel any wrong impression. The +person received the card on a tiny silver plate, relieved him of hat and +coat with what seemed to Ewing an uncanny deftness, bowed him to the +gloom of a large apartment on the left, and vanished. An instant later +he reappeared, drew portiéres aside, revealing another warmly lighted +room, and Ewing beheld a white vision of his hostess.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to have a word with you," she began. "Sit here. You're to meet +a friend, Ned Piersoll, who will tell you a lot of things. I telephoned +him directly I came in, and he found he could come, though he must run +when he's eaten—some affair with his mother. But he'll have found out +about you."</p> + +<p>"I'm much obliged to you," he stammered, having caught little of her +speech.</p> + +<p>"Ned will tell you what to do. He knows everybody. He's on the staff of +the Knickerbocker magazine, and he had a novel out last spring, 'The +Promotion of Fools,' that you must have seen advertised everywhere, like +a medicine."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've read that book."</p> + +<p>"You must tell him if you liked it—they all care to hear that—and +he'll see that you meet men of your own kind." For looking at her he had +been able to give her words little attention. She had revealed herself +anew in the dull white of a gown that brought out the elusive glow of +her face. Her eyes were deep wells, shaded but luminous, under the +lusterless dark of her hair, and her smile flashed a girlish benignity +upon him. Acutely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> alive was he to the line of neck and shoulder and +arm, a slender, supple neck, set on shoulders superbly but lightly +modeled, the small collarbone exquisitely muffled but not lost, and the +little hollow at the base of her throat prettily definite. And all was +white and lusterless save the warning dusk of her eyes and the flash +from her parting lips.</p> + +<p>With such cold passion for line did his artist's eye wreak its joy upon +her that, as she talked, she found herself thinking him curiously dull +to the prospect she opened. It was the impersonal look she had come to +know; and his replies were languid, as if he thought of other matters. +It might have passed for the bored ease of a man of the world had she +not known him to be amid novel surroundings.</p> + +<p>Feeling a slight discomfort under his look, she at length diverted his +eyes to the room in which they sat.</p> + +<p>"It's the room I like best in all the house," she said. "That big +drawing room you came through is inhuman. It terrified me as a child, +and still refuses to make friends with me, but this library—don't you +feel that I've humanized it?"</p> + +<p>He became aware that he had felt its easing charm of dark-toned wood and +dull-red walls. There were low book-shelves, low seats that invited, a +broad table with its array of magazines, and a lazy fire in the open +grate.</p> + +<p>"It's a fine room to be in," he said, bringing his eyes back to her.</p> + +<p>"There's not a chair in it," she continued, "that wasn't meant to be sat +in—most chairs nowadays are mere spectacles, you know—and no glass +doors before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> the books. Nothing enrages me like having to open a door +to get at books."</p> + +<p>"It's the room you need," he replied. "You draw all the light to +yourself. It gives you color, turns your hair to black, and makes your +eyes look like——"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Piersoll!" announced the man.</p> + +<p>His look still engaged her as she floated forward to greet the tall, +pleasant-faced, alert young man with tumbled yellow hair who now +entered. Not until he heard his own name did he relinquish her to +acknowledge the word of introduction.</p> + +<p>A moment later the father of Mrs. Laithe strolled in and Ewing was again +introduced, this time to a stoutish man with a placid, pink face, scanty +hair going from yellow to white—arranged over his brow with scrupulous +economy—and a closely cut mustache of the same ambiguous hue. He was a +man who gracefully confessed fifty years to all but the better informed. +Ewing felt himself under the scrutiny of a pair of very light gray eyes +as Bartell took his hand, tentatively at first, then with a grip of +entire cordiality. One may suspect that this gentleman had looked +forward with mild apprehension to a dinner meeting with the latest +protégé of his impulsive daughter. The youth's demeanor, however, so +quickly caused his barbaric past to be forgotten that, by the time they +were at table, his host had said to him, prefacing one of his best +anecdotes, "Of course you know that corner table on the Café de la Paix +terrace...."</p> + +<p>Ewing floated dreamily on the stream of talk; laughing, chatty talk, +spiced with suggestive strange names; blithe gossip of random +happenings. He was content to feel its flow beneath him and rather +resented the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> efforts to involve him in it, preferring to listen and to +look. But he was courteously groped for by the others and compelled to +response as the dinner progressed.</p> + +<p>Piersoll mentioned his drawings pleasantly and engaged him for dinner at +a club the following evening. "I'll call for you at the Stuyvesant about +six," he said, when Ewing had accepted. "I must have a look at your +stuff. Don't dress; we dine in our working clothes at the Monastery."</p> + +<p>The father of Mrs. Laithe warned Ewing to beware of worry in his new +surroundings.</p> + +<p>"Let life carry you, my boy. That's my physiology in a nutshell. Don't +try to lug the world about. The people who tell you that life in New +York is a strain haven't learned rational living. Worry kills, but I +never worry, and I find town idyllic. Clarence was born to worry: +result, dyspepsia and nervous breakdown. My daughter worries. She goes +into side streets looking for trouble, and when she finds it she keeps +it. That's wrong. Life is whatever we see it to be. Eleanor sees too +much of the black side, poverty, starvation, hard luck—all kinds of +deviltry, and it reacts on her. I look only on the cheerful side, and +that reacts on me. A good dinner, a glass of burgundy—there's an answer +to all that socialistic pessimism."</p> + +<p>"Suppose one hasn't the answer at hand?" his daughter broke in.</p> + +<p>"Keep smiling, my dear," retorted her father with Spartan grimness. +"Skipping a dinner or two can't overturn real philosophy. Down on the +Chesapeake last fall, duck shooting one day, we lost the luncheon hamper +overboard, and hadn't so much as a biscuit from four in the morning till +after nine at night, shooting from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> a chilly, wet blind all day. <i>There</i> +was a test! But I give you my word I never worried. I took it as so much +discipline. My dear, if I had fretted over tenement houses the way you +have, I should be a broken man. Thank the gods that be, I've had the wit +to let my agent do all that!"</p> + +<p>His daughter received this with a shrug of despair. "But confess, +daddy—you <i>have</i> a worry."</p> + +<p>"'Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!'" quoted Piersoll, +divining her mark.</p> + +<p>"I admit, my dear, that legitimate worry has its uses. I only warn +against the too common abuse of it. I maintain," he went on, turning to +Ewing, "that a man with the feelings of a boy should, if there's any +moral balance in the world, retain the waistline of a boy; yet I've not +done it. I go to doctors—they all talk the same ballyrot about exercise +or they harangue you about diet. Why, I've heard them gibber of things +one mustn't eat till I writhed in anguish. Some day I know I shall chuck +it all and let Nature take her course." He glared defiantly about the +table.</p> + +<p>"She's not waiting for you to let her, dear," observed his daughter +maliciously.</p> + +<p>"It's my temperament, I suppose"—he sighed ruefully into his plate of +sweet stuff—"just as it's Randy Teevan's temperament to keep slender, +though I suspect Randy of stays."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Laithe had glanced swiftly toward Ewing at the mention of this +name. She again looked at him alertly a moment later when the man +announced "Mr. Teevan and Mr. Alden Teevan."</p> + +<p>"Alden told me this afternoon at the club, my dear, that he and his +father might stop for a moment on their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> way up town, just to say +'How-de-do.' We can have coffee in the library."</p> + +<p>His daughter received this with a meditative under lip. Then she +brightened.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you men would rather sit here and smoke while I run in and see +them. They'll stay only a minute."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, child! I can't lose sight of you so soon again. We can smoke +in there as well."</p> + +<p>"Coffee in the library, Harris." She gave the order with a submissive +shrug and led the way out.</p> + +<p>Ewing saw two men come to greet her, alike enough of feature to reveal +their relationship at first glance. He detected, however, a curious +contrast they presented. The father, slight and short of stature, was a +very young-looking old man, while the son was an old-looking young man. +The father was dapper, effusive, sprightly, quick with smiling gestures; +the son restrained, deliberate, low-toned with a slow, half-cynical +smile of waiting. He gave the effect of subduing what his father almost +elfishly expressed.</p> + +<p>Father and son greeted the men over the shoulders of Mrs. Laithe, and +Ewing was presented. There was an inclination of the son's head, and a +careless glance of his waiting eyes; from the father, a jerky, absent +"How-d'you do—How-d'you do!"</p> + +<p>They moved by chatting stages to the library. The elder Teevan, +carefully pointing the ends of his small, dark mustache, stood with his +back to the dying fire, a coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette in the +other, twittering gallantly of a town's desolation wrought by the going +away of Mrs. Laithe; and of a town renewed by her great-hearted return. +"A preciously timed relenting,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> he called it, with a challenging sigh +toward the lady, as he gracefully flicked back a ringlet of the lustrous +brown hair that had fallen low on his brow. Ewing thought it wonderful +hair on a man whose face, though ruddy in hue, showed signs of age. +There were deep lines at the corners of those gallantly flashing eyes, +and their under lids drooped. The skin was shrunk tightly over the high, +thin nose, the cheeks were less than plump, and the neck revealed some +unhappy wrinkles. Sadly, too, his voice failed at supreme moments. It +was tragic, Ewing thought, to listen to a sentence valiantly begun, only +to hear the voice crack on a crucial word.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Laithe received the little man's tribute with a practiced +indifference, chatting absently, meanwhile, with the son. Presently she +led Ewing and the younger Teevan to the drawing room to admire a huge +jar of roses for which she thanked Teevan.</p> + +<p>Back in the library Piersoll was listening to a salmon-fishing story of +Bartell's. The elder Teevan genially overlooked the scene, humming +lightly to himself the catch air from a late musical comedy. He turned +to study a bit of Japanese bronze on the mantel behind him, screwing a +single glass into an eye. When he had scanned the bronze with a fine +little air of appreciation he replaced it, resumed his jaunty humming, +and idly picked up a card that had been thrown beside it. Carelessly +under the still fixed monocle he brought the words "Mr. Gilbert Denham +Ewing." A moment he held it so in fingers that suddenly trembled. His +head went sharply back, the glass dropped from his eye, dangling on its +silken ribbon, and his little song died. He glanced about him, observing +the two groups to be still inattentive. Placing a supporting hand on +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> mantel he set the glass firmly again and studied the card a second +time. Another glance through the rooms, and he resumed his song, +crumpling the card in his hand. Then, turning, he stood once more before +the fire, his hands comfortably at his back. One of them tossed the card +into the grate, and his song again ceased.</p> + +<p>Bartell looked up, having, after incredible finesse, slain and weighed +his giant salmon. Piersoll, recalling that the anecdotist had killed +other salmon in his time, made a hasty adieu and went to his hostess, +who lingered in the drawing room with the younger men. Teevan, before +the fire, breathed in smoke, emitted it from pursed lips, studied the +ash at the end of his cigarette from under raised, speculative brows, +and flashed search-light eyes upon his host.</p> + +<p>"Who's the young chap, Chris?"</p> + +<p>Bartell took up a liqueur glass and turned to his questioner.</p> + +<p>"Name's Ewing, I believe. Some chap Eleanor picked up in the far West. +Painter, I believe, or means to be."</p> + +<p>"Painter, yes, to be sure—quite right; painter...." He waited +pointedly.</p> + +<p>"Paints cowboys and Indians, I fancy—the usual thing. Seems a decent +sort; rather a gentleman. You're looking a bit off. Randy."</p> + +<p>"Am I, though? Queer! Never felt fitter. Walked to Fifty-ninth Street +and back to-day. Might have overdone a bit. That chap staying in town +long?"</p> + +<p>"Have to ask Eleanor. It's her affair. By Jove, old boy, you <i>are</i> a +wonder. I wish I could keep it off around here the way you do."</p> + +<p>The little man drew himself up, expanded his chest,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> and bravely +flourished a smile of acknowledgment. This faded into a look of hostile +curiosity, discreetly veiled, as Mrs. Laithe and the two young men came +in from the drawing room.</p> + +<p>"Time to be moving on, Governor," young Teevan remarked.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going, my boy," the little man answered in crisp tones, with +the hint of a side look at Ewing and Mrs. Laithe. "Run on like a good +chap and make my excuses to the dear grandmother. Needn't lie, you +know. Say I chucked her theater party at the last moment because the +places are stuffy. Say that I loathe plush and those crumpy little +boxes where one sees nothing but the gas fellow in a gingham jumper +yawning in the wings. Say I'm whimsical, capricious, fickle as April +zephyrs—in all but my love for her. If you're quite honest she'll +disbelieve you and guess that I'd a reason for stopping away. Run, +like a good lad, while I quench a craving for tales of adventure from +the most charming of her sex and from our young friend here—will you +pardon my oversight—Ewing?—Ah, to be sure, from Mr. Ewing—-Ewing. I +must remember that. I'm a silly ass about names."</p> + +<p>But when his son had gone the little man appeared to forget the craving +that had prompted his stay. From his stand on the hearth rug he jauntily +usurped the talk, winging his way down the world stream of gossip from +capital to capital. Circuitous, indeed, was his approach to art; an +anecdote of studio life in Paris; a criticism of Rodin, "Whitman in +marble;" the vigor of our native art impulse, only now learning to +withdraw a slavish deference from the French schools. "And you—Mr.—Ah, +yes—Ewing, to be sure—our amiable and rotund host<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> tells me that you +are to be a warrior in this fray of brush and chisel. Bravo! You shall +show me work."</p> + +<p>Ewing had listened to his recondite discourse chiefly with a morbid +expectancy of that recurrent break in the voice, straining until it came +and relaxing until it quavered back to the hazardous masculine level. +Finding himself thus noticed he stammered, "Oh, I—I've done some work +in black and white. I hope—Mrs. Laithe has encouraged me."</p> + +<p>"A charming modesty, yours; by no means the besetting sin of your craft, +but is Mrs. Laithe an ideal promoter of genius? I fancy you'll need a +sterner guide, one to be harsh as well as kind. Women can't be that, +least of all the charming specimen who has honored you with her +patronage. I shall be proud to supplement her deficiencies as +critic—her glorious, her fascinating deficiencies. Women, audacious +souls, are recklessly kind. They incur perils to chill the blood of +brave enough men, meaning monstrously well all the time"—his narrowed +eyes sought to read the face of Mrs. Laithe—"but I've yet to see one +worth a second look who had divined that there exists a certain +arbitrary relation between cause and effect. Need I word the +inference?... No?..." Relieved by his scrutiny of her face he broke off, +his heart leaping to the thought, "She doesn't know—doesn't know ... +the <i>fool</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I'll be glad to show you what I have," Ewing answered, rejoicing at +this solicitude in a critic so obviously eminent. "I've been afraid all +along that Mrs. Laithe might be too kind."</p> + +<p>"Kinder than she knew—kindness is no word for her excess. Women lack +fiber where their sympathies are involved. They'll not inflict pain +within scope of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> imaginations—beyond that rather narrow field of +course they're merciless, bless them! But trust me to score your work if +it deserves that, and trust me to praise if it merits praise. You shall +exhibit to me. By the way"—he consulted a small enameled watch—"I've a +bit of time to spare. If you're stepping along I'll not mind looking at +your things this evening."</p> + +<p>Ewing arose, glowing with pleasure. He felt drawn to this wonderful +little man who knew everything, and who was visibly kind—just, at any +rate—under that fantastic cloak of severity.</p> + +<p>"You're very good," he said. "I'm staying close by, at the Stuyvesant."</p> + +<p>"Drop in often, Ewing," urged Bartell as they shook hands. "And don't +let Teevan put you down. I dare say you'll come on, you know, if you +chuck worry."</p> + +<p>As he parted from Mrs. Laithe he was aware of a new look in her eyes. He +had learned to read them. They sought now to tell him ... what? There +was a warning in them, and her glance seemed to enfold him almost +protectingly. But her words were not more than those of formal parting, +with a suggestion that he drop in for tea some afternoon soon.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +<a name="x" id="x"></a>CHAPTER X<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE WAY OF THE LITTLE MAN</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">THEY walked briskly to the Stuyvesant in silence, for Ewing could think +of nothing to say, and his companion seemed preoccupied. He showed, +indeed, the stress of some excitement, for Ewing once heard him mutter +heatedly. Suspecting this to be meant for himself, he evoked by inquiry +only an impatient "Not here—not here!" He believed that his +distinguished companion must be engrossed for the moment with something +profounder than the drawings of a novice.</p> + +<p>At the hotel they ascended to Ewing's room. Indicating a chair to Teevan +he went to the mantel for matches. When he had set the room to sudden +light he stepped quickly back, for the little man, standing there, +glared at him in a panic of fear and disgust.</p> + +<p>In the shock of his embarrassment Ewing fumbled at his overcoat and +slowly drew it off. Teevan's eyes now blazed rage upon him. His small, +withered, blue-veined hands were tightly clenched at his sides. His +attitude was almost a crouch. Ewing felt a furtive amusement above his +dismay, at sight of the dapper little figure in this incongruous battle +pose.</p> + +<p>A moment they stood so, then the upper lip of Teevan lifted slowly to a +snarl. Seeing that he was about to speak, there ran with Ewing's +amazement an absurd apprehension of that break in the voice.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>"What do you mean by it?" The swiftness, the intensity of the utterance +held the voice level thus far, but the break came with the next words, +and the speech ended in a wail.</p> + +<p>"What do you think to gain by coming here—by hounding me—by hounding +<i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>Ewing constrained himself to quiet, with an impulse to soothe this +inexplicable fury.</p> + +<p>"Please sit down, won't you? You were going to criticise my drawings, +you know. You suggested it a moment ago, and I thought—" He took up a +portfolio of sketches from one of the open trunks.</p> + +<p>"Your trash! What's that to me? Do you think to pass this off? You've +learned effrontery in a fine school. Come to the point. What can you +make by this indecency—this——"</p> + +<p>Ewing's look checked him—something genuine in his bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Come," began Teevan again, "is it possible you're no one, after all, +instead of being less than no one? You know me, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I know you; Mrs. Laithe introduced us."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't juggle. You can't swagger it off with me. You shall not hound +me or mine."</p> + +<p>"Hound?" Ewing sought for light, still trying to subdue this absurd +assailant.</p> + +<p>"Hound, I said, you smug brat! You know me—you've not forgotten my name +so soon."</p> + +<p>"Teevan, I believe. Really, Mr. Teevan—I——"</p> + +<p>"Randall Gordon Teevan! The name meant something to you, didn't it?"</p> + +<p>"No; it didn't mean anything to me."</p> + +<p>"Ah! say that again!" He came toward the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> younger man to peer up into +his face with a grinning, incredulous scowl. "Say it again!"</p> + +<p>Ewing drew back from his scrutiny with a slight impatience.</p> + +<p>"Why say it again? Isn't once enough? You hear well, don't you? What +should your name mean to me?"</p> + +<p>"You still try to carry <i>that</i> off? Your game isn't ready to play?"</p> + +<p>Ewing resumed his patient search.</p> + +<p>"See here, Mr. Teevan, let's be very quiet and get at this. I never +heard your name until an hour ago. Perhaps it ought to mean something to +me, but it doesn't. I'm not well acquainted in New York; I only came +here to-day. Now"—his voice became cajoling—"suppose you sit down +there quietly and tell me all about yourself."</p> + +<p>"Your name is Ewing, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course!"</p> + +<p>"What's your full name?"</p> + +<p>"Gilbert Denham Ewing."</p> + +<p>"Damn him!"</p> + +<p>"Damn him? You are speaking of me?"</p> + +<p>"Not you—you cub!"</p> + +<p>"Another Ewing?"</p> + +<p>"Another Gilbert Denham Ewing!"</p> + +<p>"I never knew any other but my father. And you wouldn't be damning him."</p> + +<p>He said this with a confident smile, and the peering little man at last +read him accurately. An impalpable veil seemed to screen his scowling +face. Erect from his peering stoop he passed a small hand dazedly across +his brow, and his face had become pleasantly ingenuous, alive with a +half-comprehending regret. With a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> rueful laugh he put out a hand to +Ewing, who took it, to say the least, doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"A thousand pardons, my boy! I fear I've suffered an attack of nervous +aberration to which I am unhappily subject. It's most distressing. I'm +chagrined beyond measure by the annoyance I must have caused you, I give +no end of worry to my specialist by these seizures. My speech wandered +provokingly, I dare say. It always does. You'd not credit some of the +things I've said to my dearest friends at such times. But you can fancy +the mortification it is to me. You'll pardon me, I trust—youth's +charity for the failings of age. The horrid truth is that I'm a bit +oldish—not aged, not outworn, mind you—my years have come and gone +lightly—but at times like these I'm obliged to admit the count. Come, +you'll forget?"</p> + +<p>Ewing delightedly pressed his hand. He could believe the little man's +tale of his years. The hair that he had remarked for its young look had +been uncannily twisted on the head of its wearer during the flurry of +his transport. An area of luminous scalp now showed above one ear.</p> + +<p>He stammered awkward but heartfelt words of assurance.</p> + +<p>"Doubtless it quite bowled you over," Teevan pursued—"though I never +can recall what I've said; but let us forget, and, if you'd not mind, +let us say nothing of it to anyone—to Mrs. Laithe, for example. If it +came to the ears of my son—he's over-anxious about me already."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, I'll not speak of it, and I'm sorry, very sorry. Lay your +gloves on the mantel there and find a seat." He turned to his trunk, +hoping the little man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> would sight his head in the mirror. When he again +looked up the hair was in perfect adjustment, and Teevan beamed on him +from an armchair.</p> + +<p>"Your father," he began, "I seem to recall your saying it—was a +painter. Doubtless he taught you much."</p> + +<p>"I studied with him there in the mountains till he died. I've nothing +left of his but this portrait of my mother."</p> + +<p>He took the unframed canvas from the tray of the trunk and held it +before his guest.</p> + +<p>"Do you get the right light there?"</p> + +<p>It had been a bad quarter of an hour for Ewing, and, as he adjusted the +picture, he felt a moment's satisfaction in having weathered it so +plausibly. And now that the curious little gentleman seemed restored, it +was pleasant to anticipate his cultured appreciation of that work of art +which was the boy's chief treasure.</p> + +<p>"There isn't any shine across it now, is there?" he asked, and looked up +with a shy, proud, waiting smile.</p> + +<p>But the agitations that had gone before were as nothing to what now +passed in front of his dismayed eyes. One moment his guest hung staring +at the canvas with a goblin horror; then, uttering a kind of sob, he +shot incontinently out of the door.</p> + +<p>The harried Ewing dropped the picture and rushed in pursuit. He came up +with the little man at the head of the stairs. He was trembling, and his +face was ashen gray; but after a few deep breaths he smiled and waved a +hand jauntily to indicate humorous despair. It seemed to say, "I am +frequently like this—it's annoying past words." He spoke of needing a +restorative and suggested an advisable haste in the direction of the +café.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>"They've some choice old cognac downstairs. Suppose we chat over a bit +of it. I'm rather done up. These absurd attacks of mine react on the +heart. A noggin of brandy will fetch me about. You'll come?"</p> + +<p>They were presently at a table in the hotel café.</p> + +<p>"We've the room to ourselves," said Teevan genially. "Delightful old +place, this; restful, reminiscent, mellow—and generally empty. I detest +the cheap glitter of those uptown places with their rowdy throngs. They +make me feel like a fish in a fiddle box, as our French cousins say. +You'll have soda with yours?"</p> + +<p>Teevan drank his own brandy neat, and at once refilled his glass.</p> + +<p>"Now for a chat about yourself, my young friend—for surely only a +friend could have borne with me as tenderly as you have this evening. +You're a fellow of promise—the future clamors for you—your drawings +enchant me."</p> + +<p>Ewing reflected that his drawings had not been exposed, but the +intention was kind, and he was grateful for that. Teevan drank more +brandy with a dainty relish, and begged to hear of his young friend's +adventures in the far hills.</p> + +<p>Ewing expanded in the warmth of this kindly concern. He told, little by +little, under adroit prompting, what he had to tell. Teevan displayed a +gratifying interest, especially in what he recounted of his mother's +death. But at intervals during this recital the young man became +conscious, with astonishment, that there was an inexplicable look on the +other's face, a look which he suddenly discovered to be an unbelievable +veiled pleasure.</p> + +<p>He fell back with a quick, blind repulsion, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> two stared at each +other, the elder man dissolving with difficulty a monstrous smile. He +appeared to recover himself with an effort, finding the lines about his +mouth refractory, but his embarrassment was so poignant that Ewing felt +sorry for him.</p> + +<p>"You <i>must</i> forgive me, old fellow! These damned treacherous nerves of +mine! I shall see that specialist chap of mine directly in the morning. +I'm so weak that the sadness of that poor lady's death set me off into +something like hysteria."</p> + +<p>It was one o'clock when they parted, and then only at a hint that the +place would close its old-fashioned doors for the night. Ewing rejoiced +to feel that he had made a desirable friend. He liked the little man +well. Teevan had said at the last. "You should move on to Paris, my boy. +You'll need the touch they give only in that blessed rendezvous of the +masters." Ewing went to his room realizing that the world of his dreams +did actually abound in adventure. His first day had been memorable.</p> + +<p>Teevan walked through Ninth Street to his own home, a few doors beyond +the Bartell house. It was a place of much the same old-fashioned lines, +that had withstood the north-setting current.</p> + +<p>He let himself in and went to the dining room at the rear. Here he +lighted a gas jet, took a decanter from the sideboard, and brought a +glass and a bottle of soda from the butler's pantry. He sipped the drink +and lighted a cigarette. His musings, as first reflected in his face, +were agreeable. His mouth twitched pleasantly, his eyes glistened. At +intervals he chuckled and muttered. With an increase of brandy in the +glass he became more serious.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>When Alden Teevan entered an hour later he found his father in a mood +astonishingly savage. At sight of his son the little man became vocal +with meaningless abuse. It was as if the presence of a listener incited +him to continue aloud some tirade that he had pursued in silence. But +the younger Teevan, lounging in the doorway, only stared with polite +concern as he was greeted with these emotional phrases:</p> + +<p>"—a damned milk-and-water Narcissus—a pretentious cub with the airs of +a cheap manikin of the world—a squeaking parasite—a toadlike, damned +obscenity——"</p> + +<p>An easy smile came to the son's face as he noted the fallen tide in the +decanter.</p> + +<p>"Night-night, my quaint, amiable father—and cheery dreams!"</p> + +<p>They studied each other a moment. The elder man seemed to meditate some +disclosure, but stopped on the verge of it.</p> + +<p>"That's all, my boy!"</p> + +<p>The young man laughed again.</p> + +<p>"It's enough, I fancy—but don't overdo it, Randy. You know one mustn't +at your age."</p> + +<p>"I'm taking care, taking care of everything, my boy—never you fear——"</p> + +<p>The other passed on, but stopped at the stairway and called back:</p> + +<p>"I say, Randy!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes——"</p> + +<p>"Get to bed, you absurd little rat, you!"</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +<a name="xi" id="xi"></a>CHAPTER XI<br /> +<br /> +<small>A NIGHT AT THE MONASTERY</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">EWING awoke late the next morning, rejoicing that he need not cook his +breakfast. After feeding his hill-born hunger with novel and exciting +foods he sauntered out to become a wave on the tide that flooded those +strange, heart-shaking streets. He mentally blazed his trail as he went. +His soul marched to the swift and cheerful stepping of the life about +him. He remembered Ben's warnings and wished that expert in urban evil +could see how little menacing was this splendid procession. That the +Saturday throng of shoppers and pleasure seekers was unaware of the +greatness of the moment to him lent a zest of secrecy to his scouting.</p> + +<p>Back and forth he wandered on Broadway, the moving crowds, volatile as +quicksilver, holding him with a hypnotic power. Often he stopped before +some shop, hotel, or theater that he had come to know in print. Not +until five o'clock did he find that he was leg weary. Then he took his +bearings and, in his own phrase, "made back to camp."</p> + +<p>A boy brought him Piersoll's card at six, and Piersoll followed. He came +with that alert self-possession which Ewing had come to consider typical +of these dwellers in a crowd where each is the inconsiderable part of a +great organic body, and must yet preserve his unique oneship.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>"Bully old place, this," Piersoll began. "My mother came to balls here +thirty years ago. Show me your stuff."</p> + +<p>He dropped into one of the armchairs and lighted a cigarette.</p> + +<p>Ewing opened a portfolio and placed drawings along the wall. Piersoll +slid his chair closer and studied them.</p> + +<p>"They're only little things I've seen," murmured Ewing. "I haven't had a +chance to see much."</p> + +<p>Piersoll blew out smoke and arose to put one of the drawings in a better +light. He gazed at this closely, swept his eye again over the others, +and exclaimed, "All right! Bully! Good drawing, and the real thing. +That's the point—you've drawn only what you've seen. They're not all +equally interesting, but they're all true. You'll do."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you like them. I never knew if they were good."</p> + +<p>"They're better than I expected, from Mrs. Laithe's talk. She was so +keen about them, I made allowances."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Laithe seemed to think I might sell them."</p> + +<p>"Some of those you can sell, undoubtedly. The others show what you can +do. They'll get your orders. The magazines are using a lot of Western +stuff. That ranchman's wife there in her poor little flower garden, +surrounded by a million miles of sage and cactus—fine! It's a story +picture, and the story's good. The Knickerbocker might use that. They +might want a series from you—six drawings or so—'Scenes of Ranch +Life.'"</p> + +<p>"It sounds too good."</p> + +<p>"It's not, and you'll get stories to illustrate. Can you draw a pretty +cowboy?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>"The kind in the magazine story. Harvard man, half-back, old New York +family, named Van-Something or other; unhappy love affair; tries ranch +life; fearless rider, dead shot 'six feet of clean-limbed, virile young +manhood,' is the approved phrase for him. He's a beautiful thing—his +man keeps his chaps pressed, and he never is seen needing a shave——"</p> + +<p>Ewing grinned appreciatively.</p> + +<p>"Girl comes out from New York," continued Piersoll—"<i>the</i> girl, with +her fierce aunt—home on north side of Washington Square. I'm going to +do an article on the story people who've had fine old homes on the north +side of Washington Square—thousands! That one block would have to be +ten miles long to hold 'em. Girl in tea gown, fierce aunt with +lorgnon—threatened with death—flood, fire, Apaches, stage-robbers, +vicious bull, rattler—anything! Rescued by cool, daring, clean-limbed +Van-Soforth, who says 'By Jove!' as he risks his life. That is, if it's +in one of the respectable magazines. If it's only a young ten-center he +says 'Damn!' right out in print. Then, love scene on mesa, faithful cow +pony and mountains in background, and return to New York by next train, +with clean-limbed Harold in one of our gent's nobby sack suits that sets +off the unconscious grace of his slight but muscular figure—oh, you +know the story."</p> + +<p>"I have read it somewhere—something like it."</p> + +<p>"You'll go on reading it. But you'll have to pretty your cowboys if you +make the pictures for it. Hulston usually illustrates it. He can draw a +cowboy that would make a bunch of violets look coarse."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I couldn't——"</p> + +<p>"Of course you couldn't. But you'll find work.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> Some of the magazines +are becoming reckless and printing stories of cowboys that are almost +real. Come along to the club. You'll meet some fellows there. The chap +that printed my book is dining with me, but he'll slip off early and we +can have the evening together."</p> + +<p>"I liked your book," Ewing ventured, when they were in the street.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's comforting. I dare say it was easier to read than it was +to write. But about this club you're going to—it's a little place we've +started lately—illustrators, newspaper men, book writers and that ilk. +You must join. I believe I'll be safe in putting you up."</p> + +<p>"I never joined a club," Ewing confessed. "Are there conditions?"</p> + +<p>"Rigid ones—you must have ten dollars for the entrance-fee, and not be +a leper."</p> + +<p>"Well"—Ewing debated—"I have the money——"</p> + +<p>"That's all <i>you</i> need think about. The other part is ours. We have you +in to dine and look you over. Lots of men go there with an idea that +they must be witty. One fellow was turned down last week for springing +'made' jokes at the table. I believe he spoke of 'quail on trust' as we +were served with that bird—and in the hearing of three members of the +board of Abbots. That settled him, of course. They didn't need his +imitations of a German dialect comedian, which he sought to convulse +them with later. Another man was turned down lately for saying, 'Oh, how +quaintly bohemian!' after he'd looked about the grill room. Another was +ejected for playing 'chopsticks' on the piano with the edges of his +hands. They didn't even let <i>him</i> get to the table. That's the sort of +thing—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> we're strict, even though we need the money. I'm bursar and +I know. There are weird jests about my decamping with the club funds, +but I've never had enough surplus yet to take me beyond Rahway."</p> + +<p>They ascended the steps of a dingy-fronted brick house in Clinton Place, +a little out of the Broadway rush. Passing through a bare, echoing hall, +they entered one of the two dining rooms of the club, connected by +immense sliding doors, now thrown open. They were broad, lofty rooms +with stained floors, mantels of gray marble, and rich old doors of +polished mahogany framed in white casements—the drawing rooms of some +staid family of a bygone generation, before the trade army had invaded +this once quiet neighborhood.</p> + +<p>Ewing at once noticed the walls. They had been covered with a +grayish-brown cartridge paper, and on this the members of the Monastery +had plied their charcoal in fancies more or less attuned to the spirit +of the organization. There were monks in most of the pictures, monks +combating or, alas! overborne by one or another of that meretricious +trinity which ever conspires against godly living. Over the mantel in +the first room a pink-fleshed nymph in simple garb of chef's cap allured +an all but yielding St. Anthony with one of the club's dinner <i>menus</i> +held before his hunger-lit eyes. On a panel to the right of this a +befuddled lay brother, having emptied a flagon of wine, perched on the +arm of a chair and angled fatuously in a jar of mocking goldfish, to the +refrain:</p> + +<div class="block3"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"For to-morrow will be Friday, and<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We've caught no fish to-day!"<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>To the left, Brother Hilarius furtively ignored his breviary as he +passed a gay <i>affiche</i>, from which a silken-limbed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> dancer beguiled him +with nimble, worldly caperings, and smiles of the flesh and the devil.</p> + +<p>"There's a vacant panel or two in the other room," said Piersoll. "We'll +save one for you. Come down to the grill room—it's early yet."</p> + +<p>They went out through the hall and down a narrow stairway. They heard +the lively hum of voices, and Ewing found himself in a low, wainscoted +room, finished in dull gray, where a dozen or so men talked loungingly +in corners, awaiting the dinner hour.</p> + +<p>Piersoll presented him to several of these in so quick a succession that +their names became a many-syllabled murmur in his ears. They found seats +on a red-cushioned corner bench of churchly pattern, and Piersoll +ordered cocktails.</p> + +<p>Ewing tried to follow the talk running about him. A boyish-looking +reporter for a morning paper was telling at a nearby table how he had +been the first to reach the scene of a railroad wreck in Pennsylvania +late the night before by fording a swollen river. At another table a +successful playwright obligingly expounded the laws of dramatic +construction to a respectful novice, who seemed puzzled by their +simplicity. At their own table a youth of yellow melancholy confided to +Piersoll that the afternoon had witnessed an important transaction in +verse—the sale of his ballade, "She Was a Belle in the Days of +Daguerre." "The editor of 'Quips' took it and paid on acceptance—let's +have another," he added with deep significance.</p> + +<p>The atmosphere of the place was unthinkingly democratic. The cub +reporter here met his city editor as man to man. Piersoll identified +various members of the gathering—the dramatic critic of an evening +paper in busy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> talk with the Wall Street man of the same sheet; a +promising young composer cornered by the star reporter of a morning +paper, a grizzled knight of the world of war, crime, flood, fire, and +all mischance of any news value, a man who had attained the dignity of +signing his "stuff." Old men and young, they were compacted of nerves, +vividly alive, even those in whom the desk stoop could be detected.</p> + +<p>The movable feast of the cocktail waned and the groups drifted upstairs. +The publisher for whom Piersoll waited came at last, a bland but +keen-eyed gentleman of early middle age, introduced to Ewing as Mr. +Layton, of Layton & Company. They followed the others up to the dining +room, and Piersoll found a table for three under the drawing of the +earnest but miscalculating angler.</p> + +<p>Ewing nervously apprehended talk of an abstruse literary character from +which he would be debarred. The talk assuredly became abstruse, but it +dealt in literary values solely as related to public taste in the novel +of commerce, and to the devices of Layton & Company for divining and +stimulating that variable quantity.</p> + +<p>Instead of descanting on Shakespeare, as Ewing had supposed a publisher +would do, Layton, with the soup, plunged into a racy narrative of how he +had "boomed" sales of "The Mask of Malcolm" the year before. That had +been a success compounded of trifles. Witness Layton's chance view from +a car window of a "Mask of Malcolm" poster on a watering cart that +toiled through the dusty main street of a remote Western village. He had +written to the postmaster of that town for the name of the cart's +driver, sent him a copy of the novel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> inscribed by the author, and +enough more posters to cover his cart. Result: a sale in the aroused +village and surrounding country of two hundred and eighty "Masks," where +otherwise not more than half a dozen would have been sold. Further +result: the watering carts of the great mid-West were now cunningly +blazoned with incitements to purchase Layton & Company's fiction.</p> + +<p>Ewing still feared Shakespeare or Chaucer, or George Eliot, at the +least; but the publisher clung to earth, launching into his plans for +Piersoll's next book. "The Promotion of Fools" was in its hundredth +thousand. The next book must go beyond this.</p> + +<p>"You want a smashing good love scene at the end," urged the sapient +Layton, "and plenty of good, plain, honest heart feeling all through it. +Make a quaintly humorous character, simple-minded, trusting, but still +shrewd, and win the reader's sympathy for him by giving him some sort of +hard luck—a crippled child that dies isn't bad, if the father has been +harsh to him some time, not meaning to be, you know. And not too much +dialect; enough to contrast well with the Fifth Avenue people. Then, +with the kind of hero you know how to draw—swell family, handsome, +refined, a real gentleman, and all that sort of thing, with an English +valet—you'll have a story that will <i>go</i>. You can write a winner, +Piersoll, if you'll listen to your publisher. We keep our fingers on the +public pulse; we know the taste better than you can know it, shut up in +your office. And have a good, catchy dedication—people are interested +in your personality. Couldn't you have in the next book something like +'To my Mother in Heaven, whose Memory——'"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>"Our people are all Unitarians," suggested Piersoll.</p> + +<p>"What difference does <i>that</i> make——"</p> + +<p>"And my mother has been graciously spared to us——"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, 'To my Gray-haired Mother, whose Loving Counsel has ever—' +<i>you</i> know the sort of thing, short and snappy, but full of feeling. It +helps, let me tell you, with the people who pick up a book on the +stands."</p> + +<p>Ewing lost the run of this talk for a time, entertaining himself with a +study of the other diners. The rooms had rapidly filled, and two waiters +scurried among the tables. His attention focused on a long table in the +center of the room, whose occupants made savage and audible comment on +diners at other tables, and confided to one another, in loud, free +tones, their frank impressions of late comers.</p> + +<p>The door opened upon a goodly youth in evening dress. Seven pairs of +eyes from the big table fixed him coldly as he removed his overcoat.</p> + +<p>A voice, affectedly mincing: "As I live—handsome Harold Armytage!"</p> + +<p>Another voice, hoarse with rage: "Curse ye, devil that ye are, with yer +oily tongue and city ways! where's me daughter Letty, me little lass, +that ye took up to the big city and threatened to make a lady of?"</p> + +<p>A voice, hushed and slow: "They—say—the—child—is—in—London."</p> + +<p>The newcomer, flicking the ash from his cigarette, glowered at the last +speaker and hissed: "As for you, Black Bart, alias Jasper Vinton, +remember that one word from me would set all Scotland Yard on your +trail!"</p> + +<p>A new voice from the table: "Stand back, Hector<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> Walsingham! I would +rather be the poor working girl I am than the gilded toy your wealth +would make me—and besides, you wear made ties! I'll have to speak to +the stage manager about that," continued the speaker in less dramatic +tones. "Look, it's one of those horrible made things that fasten at the +back of his neck with a harness buckle—see his hand go up to it!"</p> + +<p>The newcomer emitted a mocking laugh, but judiciously sought a seat in +the next room.</p> + +<p>"Say—new idea for a melodrama," came another voice from the long table. +"The old thing with an Ibsen twist. Stern father ready to drive erring +daughter from his door in a snowstorm, but <i>it won't snow</i>! Of course he +can't send her off in pleasant weather. It clouds up every few days, and +the old man hopefully gets his speech ready—'Curse ye, ye are no longer +a daughter of mine!' but the sun comes out again. Girl gets nervous. +Young squire gets nervous, too, though he's married the girl in secret. +He begs the old man to put her out and have it over with, even if the +weather is pleasant. Old man won't hear of such a thing. Got to have a +howling snowstorm. His mind fails; he sits in the chimney corner +driveling about the horrible winters they used to have when you could +curse a daughter out almost any day in the week. Everybody disgusted at +the way things are dragging. Young people quarrel. Divorce! Young squire +sails for Labrador to try it again, where you can count on the winters. +Girl watches ship out of sight, and <i>it snows</i>! Snows hard. But too +late—ah, God, too late! She rushes back home to find the old man +delirious with joy. He starts in to do his speech at last, but she +slowly strangles him with her muscular young hands. Rather good +curtain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> that—yes?" He looked around the table appealingly, but the +others had turned from him to another newcomer, a young man of dark and +sinister aspect, whom they greeted as Simon Legree. Ewing heard Eliza's +despairing cry, "Merciful Heavens, the river is choked with ice!" above +the deep baying of bloodhounds that issued from half a dozen able +throats. The newcomer was obliging enough to scowl and demand fiercely, +"Tom, you black rascal, ain't you mine, body and soul?"</p> + +<p>A fair-haired youth at the table, with the face of an overfed Cupid, +responded pleadingly: "No—no, Massa! Mah body may b'long to yo' but mah +soul to de good Lawd who made it!"</p> + +<p>"Crack! Crack! Crack! Take that, you black hound, and that, and that!" +Uncle Tom cringed under the blows of an imaginary lash, and Legree +seated himself at the long table. A bearded man at the head promptly +became little Eva, with a piping voice. "Uncle Tom, dear Uncle Tom, I +fear I am going to die in the last act."</p> + +<p>The faithful slave gulped at his claret and water and replied tearfully, +"Dar, dar, Miss Eba, yo' bre'k dis pore ole man's heart!"</p> + +<p>"And, dear Uncle Tom, remember that the colored quartet will slink in +and sing 'Rock of Ages' while I am dying on a camp bed in the parlor. +Think of that, you black hound!"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, that is what I am apprehending, Miss St. Clair," returned Uncle +Tom, this time in polished accents and with marked urbanity. "And you +are doubtless aware that I shall have to be present and listen to it. +Come, then, little one! If you must die, come with me into the back yard +where the quartet can't find us, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> I will feed you to the nice hungry +bloodhounds. They've had nothing since tea."</p> + +<p>Ewing listened, aghast. He had once gone with Ben in Durango to see +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and both of them had wept at its heartrending +crisis. It embarrassed him now to hear its pathos blasphemed, +embarrassed him because he felt a sort of shamed mirth. He was glad that +Ben was not by.</p> + +<p>Piersoll and his publisher still discussed literature. Layton was now +setting forth the superior state of the latter-day author over those of +the past.</p> + +<p>"Those old fellows had no market—publishers were a sleepy lot. Think +what could have been done with 'Paradise Lost,' illustrated by Hulston +with about fifty half tones and marginal decorations, and an elegant +binding, properly advertised with testimonials from clergymen and +leading actresses and senators and prominent college presidents. I tell +you, gentlemen," he concluded, earnestly, "this is the golden age of +letters!"</p> + +<p>This phrase unhappily reaching the big table in a moment of quiet, made +an instant sensation.</p> + +<p>"The golden age of letters!" was echoed in concert by eight men who +arose solemnly and bowed to the embarrassed Layton. He tried to smile +tolerantly, as if he knew a joke when he saw one. They sat down and +turned to stare at him with extravagant awe, catching his eye when they +could and drinking to the golden age. Piersoll grinned cheerfully at +them. Ewing was puzzled.</p> + +<p>"I like this place for its literary atmosphere," said one loudly, gazing +over the head of Layton. "Don't you all just love literature?" "Oh, I +simply adore it!" answered the next man. "I really can't say what I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +should do without books. I think they improve the mind."</p> + +<p>Now they hitched their chairs about so that they could regard Layton +more easily, though they affected to be unconscious of his presence.</p> + +<p>"It <i>does</i> seem to me that literature is good to read," ventured another +conservatively, "but then, <i>I</i> love music and flowers and the little +birds."</p> + +<p>"I should die without literature," insisted another—"it's so good and +excellent. Oh, why do not more people read literature and be decent!"</p> + +<p>"Now you take Henry James," began another, judicially, "he's a bright +writer, but he can't touch the great throbbing heart of the public like +Hall Caine can."</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> a Hall Caine can?" demanded the whiskered person bluntly. "I +thought they kept 'em in jars."</p> + +<p>Layton rose, genially bidding his host and Ewing good night. The men at +the long table rose with him, bowed ceremoniously, and chanted "the +golden age of letters" as he passed—all but one, who sobbed bitterly +because poor Shakespeare had not lived to see it.</p> + +<p>Ewing was still dazed, but he had slowly been growing cheerful. He felt +that he could almost understand this strange fooling. He would have been +glad to observe it still from a distance, but Piersoll took him to the +long table when Layton had gone. The others made room for them, and +Ewing responded somewhat timidly to the introductions that Piersoll +performed. He was a little anxious lest he be made a part or target of +their sport and show himself awkward under the ordeal. For the moment, +however, there were remarks about the undesirability of "tradesmen" as +guests of the club.</p> + +<p>"I know a lovely delicatessen merchant," said one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> brightly, "a most +interesting person. He says this is the golden age of cooked provisions. +I must have him round the next time Layton is brought in."</p> + +<p>"I can get a plumber from over on Eighth Avenue," volunteered another. +"We might have a 'trade' night, if Layton will come. Of course they'll +talk about nothing but how to sell their wares, but they'll have a good +time together."</p> + +<p>Presently they forsook this theme, and Ewing found himself talking to +Chalmers, an illustrator with whose work he had long been familiar. +Though Chalmers drew Western subjects, Ewing was amazed at his +confession that he had never been west of Jersey City. Chalmers, on the +other hand, was delighted to learn that Ewing had so long been a part of +that life which he had portrayed from afar, and was at once profuse with +offers of help when Ewing explained his situation. He was eager to see +his work, and would install him in a studio.</p> + +<p>"I know the place for you," he exclaimed, after a moment's reflection. +"There's a vacant studio in our building on Forty-second Street. Billy +Glynn told me to sublet it and sell the stuff the first chance I had. +You can move in right off if you like it."</p> + +<p>Ewing thanked him warmly. It was pleasant to find that the recent Simon +Legree had his human side. Two of the other men at the table had studios +in the same building: Crandall, who made pictures for a comic weekly, +and Baldwin, who was a magazine illustrator. They became, like Chalmers, +solicitous to oblige the newcomer, and were attentive to Piersoll when +he praised, with a quick word or two, the drawings of Ewing. He felt +immensely drawn to these men who had dropped their bantering to be kind +to him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>The crowd of diners had thinned out until only a few lingered over their +coffee. From one or another of these scattered groups would come a burst +of laughter at the climax of a story, or a bar of song from one who had +reached his playtime of the day, and recked not if he advertised this. +It was an hour of ease in the Monastery, when its inmates expanded in +the knowledge that Sunday lay before them. To some, at least, this could +be a day of rest.</p> + +<p>A musical member came from the rear room to the piano near the long +table to play a Liszt rhapsody. When this performer had gone back to his +seat one of the men from the big table—he who had lately enacted Little +Eva, and whose title of "The Brushwood Boy" Ewing at once related to his +beard—seated himself at the instrument.</p> + +<p>"Heard a great song over on Third Avenue last night," he began. "Wish I +could remember—something like this—" His fingers searched for the +melody. Ewing caught a transient strain of it and thrilled to recognize +Ben's favorite, a thing he might be singing to his guitar in the far-off +lonely cabin at that very moment.</p> + +<p>"'The Fatal Wedding,'" he ventured to the performer.</p> + +<p>"Sure—that's it! 'The Fatal Wedding.' Wish you fellows could have heard +it—rich! How did it go, now?"</p> + +<p>Ewing recklessly hummed the opening bars.</p> + +<p>"Go ahead, if you know it!" This came from several of the men. He +protested. He would have liked to sing it, yet feared to do so before an +audience whose ridicule he had learned to dread. He considered the song +to be irreproachable and could understand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> the apparent enthusiasm about +it, but he doubted his worth as a vocalist.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe I'd better try it," he began; "I know the words—it's +the favorite song of an old-time cowboy I've lived with, and he does it +right. I couldn't give anything more than a poor imitation of him."</p> + +<p>The inciting calls were renewed.</p> + +<p>"Go on! Do your worst! Show us how your friend does it! Silence in the +back of the hall!"</p> + +<p>Piersoll smiled encouragingly and the accompanist struck the opening +chords, having at last recalled the air. Ewing diffidently took his +place at the end of the piano, with apologetic protests. "I'll do my +best, but you should hear Ben Crider sing this."</p> + +<p>The little audience listened with unfeigned delight as he sang of the +handsome stranger who wooed the village beauty, only to desert her for +"a lady proud and haughty" who had "houses, jewels, land, and gold at +her command." The words moved his hearers. Had he not promised them to +render the song in his friend's manner? They felt he was achieving this +with rare art. Almost unconsciously, indeed, he sang the song in Ben's +best manner, with a sob in the voice and even with Ben's strained, sad +face as he reached the pitiful climax:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"While they were honeymooning in a mansion on the hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kind friends were laying Nellie out behind the mill."<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>He moved quickly back to his chair almost before the first shouts of +laughter dismayed him. He blushed and glanced appealingly from face to +face as the applause was swelled by the groups in the rear room. He and +Ben had considered this no song to be laughed at. It was too sad. Yet he +saw that the applause was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> friendly tribute to his performance. +Piersoll was pounding him joyously between the shoulders and Chalmers +was urging him to do Ben Crider singing the "Fatal Wedding" at their +next club smoker. Baldwin demanded the last verse again, and Ewing sang +it, from his chair this time, redoubling his efforts to bring out its +pathos.</p> + +<p>In the new applause that deafened him he felt reassured. At least they +were not laughing at <i>him</i>. He joined weakly in the merriment. The gods +had blessed him with a gift for silence at critical moments. He asked no +questions.</p> + +<p>As the mirth subsided voices were heard unctuously rehearsing choice +lines from the song. A passion for the ballad pathetic had been aroused. +Some one called on Chalmers.</p> + +<p>"Chalmers has written a song himself—give it to us, Chalmers—the one +you sang up at Needham's the other night." Chalmers took his place and +bowed low as the accompanist poised eager hands above the key-board.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, with your kind attention, I'll give you a little thing +called 'Nothing but Mother'—words and music by a party that doesn't +want his real name known because the folks back home might hear of it. +Let her go, Professor!"</p> + +<p>In a twangy, nasal voice, not unlike Ben's, enunciating his words with +the fastidious and strained precision of the music-hall balladist, he +began:</p> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"The courtroom, it was crowded,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All the witnesses was there;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Judge he sat a-frowning<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In his highly cushioned chair.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">They was trying a old lady<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For the stealing of a horse;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They had hauled her to the station,<br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>They</i> had dragged her there by force!"<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>The last line had been achieved with intense, passionate emphasis. +Ewing, listening intently, felt the pricking of a nameless suspicion. +The song seemed right enough, and yet some queer, ulterior emotion +stirred within him. The air continued in a stirring minor, adapted to +the dramatic action:</p> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"Then uprose a handsome lawyer,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But would not give his name;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He defended this old lady<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And well he done the same.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The verdict was "Not guilty!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Tears</i> stood in the jury's eyes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the unknown lawyer heard it,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then says he to their surprise:"<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>With secret consternation Ewing waited, trying to laugh with the others, +who had exploded at "<i>tears</i>," wrenched out in a high minor wail. The +air now took a graceful swinging waltz movement, and the puzzled youth +suffered an illumining flash:</p> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"She was my mother once<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In days of long ago;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll not forsake her now,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her lots has fell so low.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have other mothers now<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To take me by the hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I'll not desert this one<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Just because I'm rich and grand."<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Enlightened at last, Ewing joined in the applause, amid which Chalmers +resumed his seat. Instantly perceiving why they had laughed at his own +song, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> burned at recalling how chance alone had saved him from +betraying a simple-hearted faith in the virtues of that gem. Now it was +funny, even to him. Other songs of Ben's rang in his ears; they were +<i>all</i> funny—though he must never let Ben know that. He had unwittingly +betrayed Ben to a ribald crew, but he had learned a thing it was well to +know. He had learned of the world; he had aged in a leap.</p> + +<p>They sat late at table, drinking beer from stone mugs, smoking +long-stemmed pipes and trifling with song. They blended their voices in +melting harmony at the climax of "Nelly's" woe and in the acuter parts +of "Nothing but Mother."</p> + +<p>As they drifted out at midnight Chalmers made an appointment with Ewing +to inspect the vacant studio and make himself, if he liked, one of the +colony of not too serious workers housed by the Rookery.</p> + +<p>Half a dozen men strolled with him to the Stuyvesant, and in the shadow +of its sober doors, as a parting testimonial to his worth, they sang +once more in blended pathos:</p> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"She was my moth-e-r-r once<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In days so long a-g-o-o-o!"<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>He watched them up the street a block, pouring out their hearts in song +to a watchful and cynical policeman.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +<a name="xii" id="xii"></a>CHAPTER XII<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE NEW MEMBER</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">WHEN Ewing, a few days later, moved into the vacant studio on the top +floor of the Rookery, the men there made an affair of it, flocking from +their studios to receive him. They showed him the view from his windows, +a far stretch of dull-red roofs, with murky water butts stuck aloft like +giant cockades against the gray sky. They showed him where he would +sleep, in a little closet-like alcove screened from the big room by a +gay curtain. They exhibited the alcohol lamp left by Glynn, over which +water would be boiled for the morning coffee. And they superintended, +from their wider experience, the arrangement of his belongings.</p> + +<p>He felt aloof from the friendly turmoil, unable to believe that the +place would be his own. The thing was too vast for his experience. It +would surely be for another that Baldwin spread the Navajo blankets on +the floor and couch; for some one else that Chalmers, of the beard—him +they called the Brushwood Boy or eke "the human ambush"—removed piles +of old magazines from the cot in the alcove; for some one else that +Dallas tucked brushes into a ginger jar; and for some one else that +Griggs tested water taps and the radiator.</p> + +<p>When they had cheerfully discovered that no one could think of anything +further to do they trooped down Broadway to celebrate Ewing's advent in +a dinner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> at the Monastery. When this was over and the crowd had thinned +to a few late sitters they had him do a picture. The others watched him +as he worked, standing on a bare table drawn to the wall. Brother +Hilarius grew before their eyes, insecurely astride a bucking broncho, +narrowly observed by two figures in the background—a dismayed brother +of his order in gown of frieze and hempen girdle, and Red Phinney, +contorting himself in ribald glee.</p> + +<p>The watchers applauded as the picture grew. They had not supposed that +the quiet, almost timid, boy, who betrayed his unsophistication by +countless little mannerisms, could have attained the sureness of line +his strokes revealed.</p> + +<p>The heated air of the room rushed up to make a torrid zone of the region +about the worker's head, and from time to time one of the watchers +handed him a mug of creaming ale with which he washed the dust of the +charcoal from his throat. He lost himself in the work at last. The +voices, laughter, songs, strains of the piano, came but faintly to him, +and were as the echoes of street life that sounded in his ears each +night before he slept. It was after one o'clock when he stepped down +from the table to survey the finished drawing.</p> + +<p>He knew he had done well, but he was glad to be told so by others. It +was clearly their opinion that the club had in no way descended from its +high standards of mural decoration. Baldwin brought a bottle of fixative +and sprayed the drawing through a blowpipe. Then they drained a final +bumper to the artist and the work and went out into the mild September +night, making the empty street, sleeping in shadow, resound to their +noisy talk.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>The light of a car crept ghostlike toward them and they stood to board +it. As it moved on through Broadway Ewing thought of an empty creek bed +at the bottom of some ravine at home. This was the dry time, but with +earliest dawn would come the freshet, flooding the cañon, surging over +its rocky bed to some outlet as mysterious as its source. The image +brought him a sudden pang of homesickness. Despite the jovial +friendliness of the crowd he was still a detached spectator. There was +no intimacy for him, no real contact. He was glad to remember the bed +that awaited him and confessed this to Chalmers.</p> + +<p>"Bed!" echoed Chalmers in righteous amazement. "What's the use of going +to bed? You only fall asleep!"</p> + +<p>"He's right, old man," put in Baldwin warningly. "I've tried it."</p> + +<p>Dallas turned a reproachful gaze on Ewing. "God has given you a +beautiful life and you sleep it away! Come, come, man!"</p> + +<p>"We'll have a bite to eat, anyway," broke in Griggs. "Come on, here's +Clayton's."</p> + +<p>They were presently about a table far back in a restaurant where +lingered many sitters-up of nights. They ordered Welsh rabbits and ale. +Ewing refused the ale and drank water.</p> + +<p>Dallas put on an air of wishing to defend this choice of beverage. "Of +course, it's the stuff that made Noah famous," he submitted.</p> + +<p>"Yes—and it made all that trouble at Johnstown, too," broke in Chalmers +with deep hostility in his look at Ewing's glass. "I can't forget that. +Water has never been the same to me since."</p> + +<p>They fell to the food when it came. They smoked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> they drank more ale, +they sang in tones enough subdued to avert public disfavor, and they +flung jests about to spice the endless gossip of their craft.</p> + +<p>Ewing listened, yet with eager eyes for the people at other tables +about them. These men and women captivated him by their suggestions +of mystery—characters in the play he was forever beholding—curious-looking +men whose faces suggested lives of dramatic tension; +beautiful women, splendidly arrayed, with much of mystery and something +of daring in their animation. He scanned them all furtively as the talk +at his own table flowed on.</p> + +<p>It was chiefly of their work that they talked. Chalmers related matters +exposing the inefficiency of an art editor to whose mercies fate now and +then betrayed him. Chalmers bitterly thought that this person should be +driving an ice wagon or helping about in a shipyard, or something of the +sort—not telling artists how to draw their pictures.</p> + +<p>Baldwin sympathized. He had his own art editor. It came out that no man +present had ever even heard of a competent art editor. It stood to +reason that there could be none. A man of capacity to be an art editor +would have too much self-respect. He would starve in the gutter first. +But it took time and talk and replenished mugs to reduce this truth to +its beautiful, naked simplicity, and Ewing at last saw that day had +come. The lights inside were paling to an unwholesome yellow. He +mentioned the circumstance insinuatingly, for he was tired.</p> + +<p>Baldwin scowled at his watch, then dropped it into his fresh mug of ale, +and glanced triumphantly about the table.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>"A degenerate race," muttered Chalmers. "At the first sign of daylight +we scamper off to bed like scared rabbits. For me—thank God—there's +nothing like the glorious sunrise, the crisp air, the healthy glow. +There's magic in it—Nature's choicest gift. Yes, sir, the splendors of +dawn for me! D'you s'pose I'd miss <i>this</i>?" He glared about the room and +ecstatically sniffed the thick, smoky air. "What does that clod know of +beauty?" He indicated a waiter, dozing against the wall with practiced +equilibrium.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," exclaimed Baldwin, "if I haven't gone and forgotten to eat +breakfast! How shiftless!" He aroused the waiter with snapping fingers. +"I hope we're not keeping you up, Claude, but bacon and eggs, please, +and coffee."</p> + +<p>An hour later they went out to find the street already alive with early +workers. Baldwin appeared to consider that these, also, were night-long +revelers.</p> + +<p>"'Stonishing how they can keep it up, night after night," he remarked, +frowning in wonder at the early procession. "You'd think they'd <i>have</i> +to sleep some time."</p> + +<p>"It'll tell on their nerves sooner or later, you mark my words," said +Griggs sententiously.</p> + +<p>Chalmers stared intently into the window of a florist adjoining the +restaurant. He turned to them with purpose in his fair face and spoke +again of his art editor.</p> + +<p>"Only trouble with him—he's passed away, poor fellow, and doesn't know +it. He ought to be told—but not brutally. I see something here for +him."</p> + +<p>He came out of the florist's presently with a sizable emblem of +mortality—a floral pillow with "Rest" worked on it in immortelles.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>"Come on!"</p> + +<p>At the corner they crowded into hansoms. It was a long ride, and Ewing +was asleep when they reached Park Row, but they aroused him to help +escort Chalmers and his offering to the elevator of a mighty building. +While they awaited his return Baldwin bethought him of his own art +editor. He seemed to believe that something fitting might be done. After +deep reflection he crossed the narrow street to a district messenger +office, to emerge a moment later followed by eight grinning messenger +boys. These he led to the elevator of another building near by.</p> + +<p>Chalmers returned from his own mission, wiping his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Poor fellow, he knows he's dead now. But I broke down and sobbed like a +child when I gave it to him—I'm all heart. It's over now, all but the +life insurance. And yet he didn't thank me. On the contrary he spoke +language I should blush to repeat."</p> + +<p>The others put on looks of chastened gloom and were speaking in hushed +tones of the sad event when Baldwin returned. He dismissed his uniformed +attendants with largesse.</p> + +<p>"Thing that needed to be done for his own good," he explained. "Max +believes he's an art editor, but nobody else does—nobody else ever +believed it in this whole wide, beautiful world. So I lined those +trusting little boys up in front of his door and said, 'Boys, look in +there and you will see a real art editor.' They looked in at old Max and +then at me. 'You believe it, don't you, boys?' I asked them, and they +all said, 'Yes, sir!' So I made them bow to him and say in concert, 'We +<i>do</i> believe you are an art editor, no matter what other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> people say,' +and then we left. We had to. I'm ashamed to tell you—but old Max seemed +to forget that he was a gentleman. He'll thank me when he comes to his +senses, all the same. He can lay his head on his pillow to-night knowing +that there are others in the world besides himself who believe he's an +art editor. Oh, I love to do good!" he concluded with a benevolent +smirk.</p> + +<p>Once more they were in the hansoms and Ewing slept again, to the strains +of "I have other mothers now," sung by Baldwin, who sat in his lap.</p> + +<p>As they climbed the stairs of the Rookery Baldwin found the moment +suited for sage counsel to Chalmers.</p> + +<p>"'T won't do, my boy—'t won't do! Can't burn candles both ends. Your +face this minute looks like one of those cheap apple pies in a +restaurant window."</p> + +<p>Ewing mounted to his own floor and found himself in the curious +stillness of the big room. It had seemed to wait there for him, mutely, +but with desire. He stood a moment in the silence, his ears ringing with +after sounds of the night. He fell on the couch, too tired to go +formally to bed, and felt himself falling into sleep as into a +beneficent and welcoming abyss.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> +<a name="xiii" id="xiii"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br /> +<br /> +<small>SEARCHING THE WILDERNESS</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">HE awoke from a dream noisy with laughter and the ring of shod hoofs on +a stone roadway; a phantasma in which faces were gray and distorted +through smoke and people did wild things in sane ways. He lay long +enough to separate the fiction of this dream from the actual but not +more credible performances of the night before. Then he rose, yawning +away the last of his drowsiness, and looked out over the roofs. He saw +that it was late afternoon, for the shadows of the water butts ran well +to the east. The mute solitude of the scene gave his loneliness a new +pang. He felt more solitary in the multitude than he had ever felt in +his unpeopled hills. Yet the place still lured him, not less than in +days when he had hungered for it, a starved lover of life in the desert. +If only he could find some one to come near, some one to whom he could +be his unguarded self. Such a one must exist.</p> + +<p>His eyes swept the reticent roofs, and his mind searched beneath them: +what felicitous possibilities did they not conceal? People doubtless +fasting like himself, longing for the friendly cry, eating their hearts +out in loneliness—men and women he might know or never know. He lifted +each roof as he gazed; under any one of them might be the companion; +under all were charms of adventurous search.</p> + +<p>In this moment of homesick longing his mind caught<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> at Mrs. Laithe. She +had told him to come soon. Did that mean in one day, or in ten? She was +his one link with an old life that had filled if it did not satisfy. And +sometimes she had met him. Chiefly she had been a woman for the eyes, +but there had been fleeting times when they touched in ways that brought +him a deeper satisfaction—times when invisible antennæ from each seemed +to be in communicative contact. These moments brought back the palsy of +shyness that had stricken him at his first glimpses of her; yet they +brought, too, some potent, strange essence that sustained him. He +resolved to go to her now. She mystified, she dismayed him, but her +kindness was dependable.</p> + +<p>It was the memory of this that moved him to throw off his stale, +smoke-saturated garments, to bathe, to dress himself afresh, and to walk +briskly through the tonic sharpness of a September afternoon.</p> + +<p>As he rang the bell a vague, delightful home-coming warmth rushed over +him.</p> + +<p>"In a moment I shall see her," he said within himself. As the door swung +back he heard the din of many voices and caught a rush of heated air, +sweetish with the odor, as it seemed, of tired and fainting flowers. At +the entrance to the drawing room he faltered, for the place was thronged +with terrifying strange people who held teacups and talked explosively.</p> + +<p>Longing to flee, he saw Mrs. Laithe across the room, turning somewhat +wearily, he thought, away from three or four voluble women, as if to +snatch at a moment of rest from her perfunctory smile. Almost instantly +her eyes swung to his, and he became aware, as she started toward him, +of some sudden flurry leaping behind their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> black-fringed curtains, a +quick play of lights that stirred and confused him. She gave him her +hand with half-formal phrases of greeting under which he detected a +rising nervousness.</p> + +<p>"So good of you to come, and on my day! They're tiresome at best. You +are well? You shall have tea and know some people." She went to a table +between the two rooms, where a girl in white drew tea from a samovar +into many little cups. Ewing began to watch this girl, a slight but +rounded creature with yellowish hair curving down either side of her +tanned face. He caught a greenish light in her eyes, as she bent to her +task with a somewhat anxious concentration.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Laithe brought him the tea, which he helplessly took, and presented +him to a vivid-hued young matron, who made room for him beside her. His +part in the talk that followed was confined to mutterings of agreement, +tinged now and then with a discreet sympathy. He heard the latest golf +and <a name="yachting" id="yachting"></a><ins title="Original has yatching">yachting</ins> +news and sprightly chat of the lady's newest +motor car. He caught a blurred view of the Austrian Tyrol, and absorbed +technical data on the operation of smuggling silk stockings from Paris. +He gleaned that Airedales were difficult to raise; that Caruso would +return; that all coachmen were but hirelings of the sales stables, when +you got at the root of the trouble. He learned that Newport had been +deadly, Bar Harbor impossible, Tuxedo not half bad for a week end; and +that New York would be empty for another fortnight.</p> + +<p>Upon none of these difficult matters had he anything of moment to offer. +The assertion that New York was empty bereft him, indeed, of even his +slender power of assent. The lady would have considered him stupid but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +for the look with which he met her quick eyes from time to time. She +decided that he was merely bored—a thing not to be particularly +remarked. It was common enough in the men she met.</p> + +<p>In one of the roving looks he permitted himself under his companion's +discourse his glance rested on two people far back in the library. One +was Mrs. Laithe's father. He stood, cup in hand, talking down to a +smartly attired, whitehaired woman who sat forward in her chair and +stared at Ewing. Her gown was black, and one white-gloved hand rested on +Bartell's arm. Her eyes did not waver as Ewing met them. He saw that +Bartell seemed to identify him in the throng and speak a few words to +the lady. Ewing turned to his companion, discomfort under that steady +survey. A moment later he was drawn to look again and saw Bartell coming +toward him.</p> + +<p>"Ah, young man!" His greeting oozed cordiality, the soothing +friendliness of a man fitted to find only the pleasantness of life.</p> + +<p>"And come with me, if Mrs. Dudley will let you off—" the lady smiled a +pretty but unreserved assent—"an old friend, Mrs. Lowndes, wants to +know you. She's a dear soul, always jolly. Tell her about cowboys and +things, won't you—something pleasant."</p> + +<p>They stood before the woman in the chair, and Bartell uttered a few +words which Ewing did not hear, for at the moment he had glanced up to +see Mrs. Laithe watching him with eyes of such genuine dismay that +confusion overtook him. He wondered what wrong thing he could have done, +but recovered in time to bow and murmur a phrase of acknowledgment. His +new acquaintance indicated a seat beside her, but did not look at him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>"Thank you, Chris. Mr. Ewing will entertain me. Run off to someone as +young as yourself."</p> + +<p>Bartell smiled himself back into the more crowded room, and Ewing +waited, apprehending talk like that he had lately undergone. But he +found that this woman who had stared at him so curiously was not +voluble. For a long time she remained silent. Once he glanced up to +observe that her eyes were closed, and seized the moment to study her +face. He thought she was very old—sixty at least. Yet the face showed +strength in its frailness. The cheeks, looking brown under the plenteous +white hair, were lined but not withered, and the curve from brow to chin +revealed more than a suggestion of self-will. A dainty but imperious old +lady he thought her. He might have believed himself forgotten but for an +intimation of waiting thrown out by her manner, a suggestion of leaning +toward him, breathless, one of the gloved hands poising as if to alight +on his arm. He found this less tiring than the compulsion he had lately +been under to agree with a livelier woman about matters strange to him. +And yet he was relieved when she opened her eyes as if to speak. He +regarded her with puzzled but kind expectancy. At last she said, and he +understood that her voice was unnaturally tight and hard:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Bartell tells me that you are a painter, Mr. Ewing."</p> + +<p>"I'm trying to be—they are very kind here."</p> + +<p>"Your father was Gilbert Ewing—a painter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you <i>knew</i> him?" He thrilled at the thought, but was disappointed.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Bartell mentioned his name—and yours."</p> + +<p>"He was a painter, yes; he died out there in Colorado."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>She seemed to shudder ever so slightly and her eyes closed again.</p> + +<p>"And your—your mother?" The words were hardly more than a whisper.</p> + +<p>"My mother died when I was very small."</p> + +<p>Again she seemed to wince under a sting. But now she fell away from that +waiting tenseness with which she had held him. The hand that had hovered +over his arm fell limply into her lap, and she leaned back in her chair.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you aren't very well," he ventured. "The rooms are close."</p> + +<p>She opened her eyes, with no sign of having heard. Sitting forward in +her chair she gazed ahead with narrowed eyes.</p> + +<p>"I am an old woman and dull, Mr. Ewing, but I should like to have you +come and see me."</p> + +<p>"I'll be glad to come," he answered promptly enough, though he could not +keep surprise from his voice.</p> + +<p>"Come to-morrow, if you will, and pardon an old woman's whim in asking +you with so little ceremony."</p> + +<p>"I will come, of course." He wondered if she felt a city loneliness like +his own.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I shall be in after four." She gave him a card from a small +silver case at her belt. "The room <i>is</i> close. You may fetch me tea."</p> + +<p>He was certain her eyes were sharply on him as he went, and when he +returned, her full gaze swept him with a look in which he curiously read +incredulity, with something beside that might have been fear or +repulsion—he could not determine. She took the tea, but set it down +untasted. A very queer old lady he thought her. He stood by in +embarrassment, not knowing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> what to say. Glancing about for inspiration +he was relieved to see Bartell bearing down upon him from the side of +Mrs. Laithe. He came up jovially.</p> + +<p>"I've been ordered to separate you two, Kitty. Young men aren't +plentiful at this time, and Eleanor wants one."</p> + +<p>"Thank you for bringing him, Chris." She gave Ewing a little nod, which +he construed as his release, and he turned to meet Mrs. Laithe.</p> + +<p>She sought his eyes with that swift look of apprehension which had +before puzzled him, and threw another glance toward Mrs. Lowndes, who +now chatted smilingly with Bartell. She seemed to be reassured.</p> + +<p>"I do hope you've not been bored. No? I was afraid. Come and meet my +sister," and she momentarily swept away his memories of the queer old +lady by leading him to the girl in white who poured tea.</p> + +<p>"Virgie, this is Mr. Ewing."</p> + +<p>The girl looked up with that hint of shyness he had before observed in +her. The eyes instantly recalled his own mountain lake when the light +showed it to far, green depths. But they fell at once, for she inclined +her head toward him, seized a cup and demanded sternly, "Cream or +lemon—I mean I'm very glad to know you. Do you take sugar?"</p> + +<p>In his own embarrassment he would have told her, but Mrs. Laithe broke +in with her low laugh.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't want tea, child, he only wants——"</p> + +<p>The girl interrupted defensively, with a flutter of eyelids toward +Ewing: "I can't remember <i>what</i> they like when they come back the second +time. It's too much to expect."</p> + +<p>"Your martyrdom is over, dear. No one wants<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> more tea, and most of them +are escaping. Talk to Mr. Ewing while I speed them."</p> + +<p>The girl sank wearily into a chair, with a rueful glance at the table's +disarray of cups and plates.</p> + +<p>"I'll dream about tea to-night." Her hands met disconsolately in her +lap.</p> + +<p>"I suppose there was a lot of it," Ewing replied sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"Why do they do so many insane things here?" demanded the girl. "They're +always at something. Town is tiresome."</p> + +<p>"But don't you live here?"</p> + +<p>"Dear no! I went to live with mamma's sister up in New Hampshire when I +was small, after mamma died. There was no one here to raise me. And now +that I'm raised they want me back, but I shy at things so—dad says I'm +not city broke. I shall hold off another year before I get into this +sort of thing—" She waved an ably disparaging hand toward the backs of +several unsuspecting people who lingered. Then she looked up to meet his +laugh and laughed prettily with him. The two had found common ground by +some freemasonry of the shy.</p> + +<p>"Does it seem like a play to you, too?" he asked; "everyone playing a +part and making you wonder how it's coming out?"</p> + +<p>"Well"—she debated—"I used to have that, when I was at school and came +here for holiday times. I was always expecting great things to happen +then. But they never did. You'll be disappointed if you expect them. +Everybody rides down Broadway in the morning and back again at night, +and they make such a fuss about it that you think something worth while +is coming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> off, but it doesn't. <i>I</i> know." She achieved this with an air +of mellowed cynicism that almost won his respect.</p> + +<p>"But things <i>must</i> happen where there's so much life," he insisted.</p> + +<p>"You're very young, aren't you?" she retorted. "Quite a boy, I should +think. Sister said so. You'll see, though. It isn't one bit more a +happening life than ours up at Kensington. Yours must have been the +happening life, there in the West. Tell me about Clarence. Is he a real +cowboy yet? He says he's a real one, but I couldn't believe it. Those I +saw in the Wild West show looked as if they'd had to study it a long +time. Can Clarence lasso a wild cow yet?" She leaned toward him with +friendly curiosity. They were amazed half an hour later when they looked +up to find Mrs. Laithe standing by them, the only other occupant of the +room.</p> + +<p>"You must come oftener," urged Mrs. Laithe. Her sister gave him her hand +with a grip that made him wonder at its force.</p> + +<p>He pushed through the evening crowd of Broadway, pleasantly reviewing +his talk with the girl. At Forty-second Street it occurred to him that +this was the first time he had walked the street unconscious of its +throng. He had been self-occupied, like most of its members.</p> + +<p>But the girl, he reflected, would go away. The friend, the near one, to +take and give, man or woman, was still to be found.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> +<a name="xiv" id="xiv"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE TRICK OF COLOR</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">THE men of the Rookery toiled, in the season of toil, with that blithe +singleness of purpose they brought to their play. Ewing learned this the +following morning when, after an hour in his own place, correcting some +of those hasty first arrangements, he began an idling tour of the other +studios. These occupied the two upper floors of the building, those +beneath flaunting signs of trade on the ground-glass doors one passed in +the long climb from the street.</p> + +<p>From Baldwin's studio—Baldwin was sketching in from the model a +kneeling Filipino prisoner with head thrown back and hands bound behind +him—Ewing descended to Chalmers's place to find its owner finishing, +with many swift pen strokes, the filmy gown of a débutante who underwent +with downcast eyes the appraisal of an elderly beau. This absorbed and +serious Chalmers was so unlike the frivolous night bird who reviled his +art editor that Ewing forbore to distract him.</p> + +<p>Griggs, in the studio back of Chalmers, was soberly work-bent over the +wash-drawing of a sword fight, an illustration for what he confided to +Ewing was the latest "high boots and hardware novel."</p> + +<p>"One lovely thing," explained the artist, "they all take the same +pictures—the plighted troth in the château garden; the lone hero +spitting eight low-browed mercenaries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> of the scoundrelly duke at the +end of the blind passage; 'nother fight on the main stairway of the +palace, girl in view back of the hero, who's still acting the village +cut-up with his little rapier; and the last picture, reward of hero in +front parlor of the château, my Lord the Cardinal standing by to bless +the happy pair, and the wicked Duke Bazazas being dragged out by loyal +serving men to be finished off in the woodshed. The caption for that one +always is, 'At Last, My Darling!' I just glance along the proofs until I +light on those scenes. It saves a lot of reading, and I think of getting +a set of rubber stamps to do the pictures with."</p> + +<p>"You seem to be all black-and-white men here," remarked Ewing. "Aren't +any of you painters? I've thought I'd like to work in color—to learn +the trick of it."</p> + +<p>Griggs glanced up at him, then smiled largely.</p> + +<p>"The trick of color, eh? Sure! There's a boy upstairs next door to +you—old Pop Sydenham. I'll take you up now, but don't let him hear you +call it 'the trick of color.' Pop has been at that trick for over a +century now—I believe he's a hundred and nineteen years old to-morrow. +He's got a darned refined sense of color, too. I guess he's seen every +color in the world, except some of those he puts on his own canvases. +Some of those I don't believe he ever saw anywhere else. But Pop's worth +knowing if you're keen to paint. He's a whole Art Students' League in +himself. Come on, he'll be proud to have you notice him."</p> + +<p>Wiping his hands neatly on his jacket—plainly a long-established custom +with him—Griggs led the way to a room across the hall from Ewing's. He +opened the door in answer to a call and pushed Ewing in before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> him. +Sydenham leaned back on his stool to peer at them around the corner of +his easel.</p> + +<p>He was an old man, as Griggs had said. White hair fell in sparse locks +over his ears, and his short, roughly pointed beard was scant enough to +reveal sunken cheeks. But the face was tanned to a wholesome brown, and +the eyes that glanced over his gold-rimmed spectacles were full of fresh +good-humor. He nodded to Griggs and clambered down from his stool to +greet Ewing.</p> + +<p>"He's a line man now," announced Griggs after the introduction, "but +some busybody has gone and told him that there's such a thing as real +color. Of course I don't pretend to know myself, but I told him you did. +He's your neighbor on this floor. Run in often and make yourselves at +home with each other," he concluded cordially. "I must hurry back and +finish a fight."</p> + +<p>"May I look?" asked Ewing, his eyes running about the room to the many +canvases.</p> + +<p>"My summer's work is there—Look? yes; but I can't promise what you'll +see. You bring your own eyes. I can't make eyes, too. If I only could—" +He spoke with a slow, soft gentleness, his blue eyes half shut and +dreamily distant. As Ewing turned to study a landscape leaning against +the wall on a table near by, the painter climbed to his stool and twined +his thin legs confusingly among its supports. Then facing his canvas and +working a brush into the color on his palette he continued:</p> + +<p>"Line is a fact. Color is only a sensation. Anyone can prove line, but +to know color you must have imagination. If you lack that and do have a +gift for humorous abuse you can be an art critic and make quite a bit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> +of money, I'm told." He had begun to paint as he talked. He spoke with +the same slow gentleness, even when a hint of seasoned bitterness +betrayed itself.</p> + +<p>One close look at the sketches about him had made Ewing rejoice that his +own paintings were safe with Ben Crider. He studied the canvases before +him with pleasure and dismay: wooded hills, grassy meadows, a park slope +with a single birch; mist rising over a marsh; a country road narrowing +into a blaze of sumach. They showed plainly enough, he thought, that +color must be conveyed rather by implication than by blunt directness, +and there, he felt, had been his own great blunder. He had been brutally +direct.</p> + +<p>Some of the pictures before him left him wanting a sharper definition of +line, a more explicit modeling of surface, a treatment less timid, and +the color itself, though it never failed to interest him, often puzzled +or even irritated. He sought for words to disclose what he felt, his +admiration for some of the sketches, his doubt or his rank disbelief as +to others. But the old man suddenly swept the half-formed sentences from +his mind.</p> + +<p>A crash of falling furniture had resounded from the room of Dallas, +forward on their own floor. From the studios below came other crashes, +the noise of falling bodies, and a ringing, metallic clangor. Sydenham +had paused at the first crash, then skipped nimbly from his stool, +shouting gleefully, "There goes Griggs's suit of armor!" Then, to +Ewing's amazement, he twitched the end of a cord that led to a high +mahogany sideboard, causing a cigar box, a copper kettle, and a heavy +volume of prints to fall with resoundings that must have carried to the +farthest studio. The old man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> faced him with the ecstatically deafened +look of a child amid exploding firecrackers. Then, as he discerned +Ewing's startled look, he explained:</p> + +<p>"It's only a way the boys have every day at one o'clock. That Baldwin +boy started it by upsetting a musket and a brace of cavalry sabers. Then +Griggs followed with his armor. Then they all got to joining in. The +Chalmers boy pulls over his easel, and I understand there's been a +complaint from the people below; but it leaves us feeling rather +friendly, you know, and we're sure it's time to eat." He looked at Ewing +as if seeking to justify his complicity in so childish a performance. +And Ewing, reading the look, helped him to reload his sideboard for the +next day's disturbance. The copper kettle, book and cigar box—the +latter containing half a dozen lumps of coal—were replaced on a thin +board to which the string was attached.</p> + +<p>Sydenham had meantime taken food from a curtained cabinet and was +munching before his easel. He waved the freedom of his larder to Ewing. +"There's bread and half a chicken, and pickles. There used to be ham, +but I forget if it's there yet. Anyway, it wasn't the most expensive +ham. I can't lose daylight by running out. The light changes while I +eat. I'm no Joshua. What did Griggs say of you—crazy boy, that Griggs. +Doing black and white, eh? Show me."</p> + +<p>Ewing had helped himself to the bread and meat, and the two, eating +casually, crossed the hall to his own room. His drawings were at hand +and Sydenham looked at them as he munched, pausing critically now and +then, a bit of bread midway to his mouth.</p> + +<p>"Not bad, not bad! If you can do that well you ought to do better. But +too many of you boys quit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> when you've learned to do something you can +sell. It's respectable, of course, but shoemakers do as much, and you've +no right to call yourselves artists for it. I'm afraid there isn't +anything made in the world that some one won't buy. And people <i>know</i> if +their boots fit them, or if their bread is good, but they buy pictures +in the dark. There wouldn't be so many men calling themselves painters +if the public wasn't a better judge of sawed lumber or iron castings +than it is of pictures. Where did you study?"</p> + +<p>"My father taught me drawing. He warned me to learn that first."</p> + +<p>"Father, eh? Well—" His eyes rose from the drawings, ranged along the +top of the couch, to the portrait of Ewing's mother, hung between the +two windows, and the speech died on his lips. He stepped back, bit into +a reserve slice of bread and waved an inquiring chicken bone toward the +picture.</p> + +<p>"My mother," explained Ewing. "My father painted it."</p> + +<p>Sydenham's jaw fell, and looking again at the portrait he muttered some +low, swift phrase of bewilderment. Ewing waited for him to speak, but +the old man only stared.</p> + +<p>"It has good color, don't you think?" he ventured at last, but even the +mention of color could not move Sydenham to speech. He absently consumed +the remainder of his food and flicked crumbs from his frayed jacket.</p> + +<p>"You look like her," he said at last, with so much the air of speaking +to himself that Ewing made no answer. He moved toward the door with +bowed head. At the threshold he looked back at Ewing a brief moment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +then went out, closing the door softly behind him.</p> + +<p>Ewing decided that his neighbor was a curious old man. Recalling other +curious people he had met in this strange new world, he was reminded of +the lady who had urged him to call on her. He was still ready to believe +that anyone might wish to talk to him, or to hear him talk. But in spite +of this, the old lady had been queer. From the table he picked up the +card she had given him, studying the name and wondering what they might +talk about.</p> + +<p>He was still feeling this mild wonder when he rang the lady's bell at +five o'clock.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> +<a name="xv" id="xv"></a>CHAPTER XV<br /> +<br /> +<small>FLESH OF HER FLESH</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">TWO persons had waited for Ewing. Mrs. Lowndes was one of them, sitting +forward in her chair and braced on its arms, though her head dropped now +and then in forgetfulness. The other was a big, shambling old man, a +dark man gone gray, his face needing the kindly, yellowish-brown eyes to +save it from sternness. His thickets of eyebrows were joined in a +half-humorous scowl of perplexity.</p> + +<p>"I had to send for you, Fred. You and Herbert Sydenham are the only two +left who were close to me then, and Herbert Sydenham—well—" she +laughed a laugh of exquisitely humorous pain—"Herbert would have +forgotten me any time these twenty years for a striking color scheme, a +streak of unpaintable moonshine. It was you, Fred, or no one, and it +hurt me so! All last night I was on the rocks being ground to bits. I +knew you would say the wise thing."</p> + +<p>The big man had risen to walk the floor, his thick shoulders heaving as +if to throw off invisible burdens, his head shaking doggedly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Kitty, yes—" His voice was big but low, the voice of his whole +being bent to soothe. He came to her side and reached down to take one +of the frail, blue-veined hands between his own two, huge and hairy. +They closed upon hers with a kind of awkward effectiveness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>"Of course you had to come to me, but I'm afraid all I can do is to +brace you."</p> + +<p>"I wanted you to be with me. I couldn't have borne it alone, Fred—his +being here—Kitty's child."</p> + +<p>"And you say he doesn't know?"</p> + +<p>"I'm certain of it, and Eleanor Laithe doesn't know; but those are +little things when I know."</p> + +<p>"We'll see, Kitty—we'll see. Perhaps I can help. But I suspect it's one +of those matters where you must be your own guide. You'll act as you +feel; not as I think—not even as you think."</p> + +<p>"Ellen is going to the door," she whispered, almost fiercely, bracing +herself in the chair.</p> + +<p>As the maid held back the curtain at the doorway, Ewing advanced +uncertainly, an embarrassed smile on his lips, the look of one who would +be agreeable if he knew how. He saw Mrs. Lowndes stiffly fixed in her +chair, her white-crowned head thrown back, and he would have taken her +hand but she diverted him from this.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ewing, my old friend, Dr. Birley."</p> + +<p>Her voice was no longer halting and shallow, as it had been the moment +before when her barriers were down. Ewing swiftly confirmed his +impression of the previous day: this was a lady of immeasurable pride, a +one-time beauty who perhaps treasured the authority her charms had once +conferred upon her, wielding it with little old-fashioned graces. She +seemed to him at the moment to be an almost excessively mannered person, +interesting, but unapproachable.</p> + +<p>He stopped on his way to her chair and shook hands with the big man, who +had come forward. This person was quite as formidable as the curious old +lady, but he was eminently kind of look.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>"Sit here, Mr. Ewing." He indicated a chair.</p> + +<p>"I asked you to come and see me—" The old lady had begun in low, even +tones, but paused, and Ewing was again struck by this seeming of +agitation which had made him remark her the day before.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Lowndes was interested to hear of your life in the West," said the +big man easily, "and she was good enough to ask me to meet you also. We +were both interested in knowing of you from the Bartells."</p> + +<p>"There is so much we do not understand here in New York," put in Mrs. +Lowndes, rather vaguely, Ewing thought. He looked from one to the other. +The lady puzzled him, but the big man drew him from his embarrassment, +helping him to an ease which he could hardly have achieved with his +hostess alone.</p> + +<p>Without knowing quite how he began he was presently talking. +Unconsciously he directed his speech to the man, who kept kind eyes on +him and led him by questions when he paused. He was aware that the woman +listened and that her eyes searched his face, but he divined, without +meeting them, that they were more curious than kind, and several times, +as she moved in her chair, he seemed to feel sharp little points of +hostility radiating toward him.</p> + +<p>But the big man drew him more and more from the consciousness of her +presence, so that he all but forgot her. It seemed entirely natural to +him that he should be telling this friendly inquirer of his early life, +the first memories of his father and mother, and of the queer, shifting +home they had known. As he told of the death of his mother—both +listeners had seemed strangely alert for that—he was startled by a +sound from the lady—a catching of breath and a gasp of pain. He turned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> +quickly, but observed only a stiffly courteous gesture bidding him +continue.</p> + +<p>He stopped in confusion, feeling that a strange quiet had come upon the +room. The questions from the big man had ceased, and the woman drooped +in her chair until he could no longer distinguish her outline through +the deepening dusk. Nor was there any sound when his own voice ceased. +Neither figure stirred. He was oppressed by the awkwardness of it.</p> + +<p>"I should have pulled up," he said, with an uneasy laugh. "I forgot I +wasn't on a lone road."</p> + +<p>There was still no sign from the woman, shrunk far into her chair, but +the doctor rose at his speech with a half-muttered, "We're obliged to +you." Ewing rose at the same time, with an impulse to break some strain +that he felt himself sharing. The doctor reached out in the dusk and +turned on an electric light that hung above the table, looking quickly +at Mrs. Lowndes as he did so, for there had come from her a murmur of +protest at the light. Ewing also looked at her from where he stood on +the hearth rug. The lighting of the room had intensified some electrical +current that pulsed from each to each. The woman returned Ewing's gaze +with the absorption of one moved beyond all arts of convention. Her eyes +glistened, ominous of tears, and her small, lean chin trembled as her +lips parted. Ewing turned from her distress, appealing by look to the +big man, who watched them both, but his gaze was at once drawn back to +the woman. She rose from her chair with weak effort and faced him with +something like wild impulse rather than intention, a look, a waiting +poise, that shook him with fear of the unknown.</p> + +<p>Slowly she brought her hands to a wringing clasp<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> at her breast. Her +eyes were frankly wet now as she leaned and peered at him, holding him +immovable. Twice her lips parted with dry little gasps, her hands +working as if to ring the words from her choked throat.</p> + +<p>"My boy!" It was so low that without the look of her lips as they shaped +the words he could not have been sure.</p> + +<p>"My boy—oh, my boy!" This time they were sharper though no louder, and +Ewing's nerves tingled an alarm that ran to the roots of his hair. She +came a half step toward him, and he felt that he was drawing her, +divined that in another moment she would be throwing herself upon him in +surrender to some emotional torrent that raged within her. He was +powerless under this sudden, strange assault. Dumbly he watched her, +closer now by another step, the clasped hands, fighting blindly toward +him, with little retreats to her breast, her dry lips again shaping the +words, "My boy—my boy!"</p> + +<p>And then, even as his own arms were half extended with an instinctive +saving movement—for the woman seemed about to totter—the stillness was +broken by quick steps along the hall, the rattle of curtain rings along +a rod, and the voice of the maid:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Teevan, ma'am!"</p> + +<p>There had been an instinctive wrenching asunder of the three at the +first sound of steps. Yet traces of the stress under which they had +labored were still evident to Randall Teevan as he entered. Mrs. Lowndes +had turned to search among the magazines on the table—not before the +little man had swept her with a comprehending eye flash.</p> + +<p>Ewing, pleasantly delivered from a situation that had grown irksome, a +situation rising from what he considered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> the too-ready sympathy of an +emotional old woman, allowed his relief full play in the heartiness of +his response to Teevan's greeting. The doctor had squared his shoulders +to another pacing of the room.</p> + +<p>Teevan, missing no item of the drama he had interrupted, chose for +himself the rôle of blind unconsciousness. So well did he enact this +that Mrs. Lowndes was convinced, and the belief aided her to recover a +proper equanimity. The doctor surveyed the new actor with a skeptic +keenness not so readily to be overcome.</p> + +<p>One glance at Ewing's perturbed but mystified face assured Teevan that +the climax of exposure had not been reached. He bustled amiably about +the room, kissing the hand of Mrs. Lowndes, shaking the hand of the +doctor, straightening a picture on the wall, and, at last, lighting a +cigarette as he faced the room from his favorite post on the hearth rug.</p> + +<p>"I ran in for a moment to see how my lady prospered," with a graceful +wave of the expiring match toward Mrs. Lowndes, "and all is well. I find +her holding court to youth and age, to wit and wisdom, all of which she +combines graciously in her own person. She is looking weary, perhaps, +but rejoiced. Gentlemen, you have served her well. Doubtless our young +friend here, Mr.—Ah, yes, Mr. Ewing—has talked enchantingly. I've had +an art evening with him myself." He bestowed a glance of benevolent +approval on Ewing, who smiled in return.</p> + +<p>"By the way, my lady, I've sent you a brace of birds that lived their +little span of woods life between last spring and yesterday. Ah, but +they came to a fluent richness of body, brown and plump and tender as +first love, and tanged with autumn spices—so blessed be the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> piece that +brought them low. Doctor, you'd dissect them for their nerve centers or +the intricacies of their bone structure, but I find them admirable in +all aspects. They rejoice my scientific soul even as they lure my carnal +man. Isn't it Duceps, the falconer, friend of old Izaak, who speaks of +birds that both feed and refresh man—'feed him with their choice +bodies, and refresh him with their heavenly voices'? There was a normal +person, now—not one-sided."</p> + +<p>The atmosphere cleared of its cloud wrack as his speech flowed, marked +by pointings of the small, crisp mustache and gracious little pauses of +appeal to each of the listeners in turn.</p> + +<p>From edible songsters he progressed to the cooking of these, and thence +to speech on the art of cooking at large. There were pessimists, it +seemed, to bemoan the day when a <i>maître d'hôtel</i> would die rather than +outlive the dishonor of his master's table, as when Vatel stabbed +himself because the fish for one of Condé's dinners failed to arrive on +time—proving, as Savarin observed, that the fanaticism of honor could +exist in the kitchen as well as in the camp. But in the opinion of the +speaker these were pinchbeck heroics. Vatel would have been the truer +Frenchman, certainly the better <i>chef</i>, if, instead of wreaking a messy +violence on himself in his master's kitchen, he had contrived an +<i>entrée</i> to replace the missing fish. And we should remember, too, that +the French, good cooks as they are, have but elaborated an art for the +germinal principals of which they are indebted to Italian genius. Italy +first saw the revival of cookery as she first saw the revival of +learning. The land of Savarin lay in darkness until light was brought by +those incomparable artists in the train<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> of Catharine de Medicis. One +might recall how Montaigne was captivated in the land of Horace by the +weighty manner of the <i>chef</i> of Cardinal Caraffa in discoursing upon the +occultisms of his art. The Italians even then held the thing hardly +second to theology.</p> + +<p>The little man here permitted a pause in which he discarded his +cigarette and readjusted the carnation in his lapel, with a sniff at its +spiciness. Then he turned graciously to Ewing.</p> + +<p>"But I must be off—time races so in this little nook! If you're +stepping on, Mr.—Ah, yes—Ewing, to be sure—if you're leaving, I shall +be glad to join you as far as the avenue. My dutiful love, lady, and to +you, doctor, that virtue which superstition ascribes to your pellets. +The word 'health' could never have been coined by the healthy, could it? +I dislike to use the word baldly."</p> + +<p>Ewing rose, glad of the exit thus provided. It was kind of people to +concern themselves about his affairs, but he wished they could be less +peculiar. He bowed to Mrs. Lowndes and shook hands with the doctor. He, +at least, was understandable.</p> + +<p>When they had gone the old lady faced her friend with a calmness that +surprised him.</p> + +<p>"Fred, what sorry, what terrible things can make us young again! I feel +now as I felt that other night—just at this hour so many years +ago—when I knew she'd gone—knew she'd gone."</p> + +<p>"He's Kitty's boy." The big man fronted her as if for a feat of +persuasion.</p> + +<p>"Don't, Fred! I've just weathered that point. I was weak, but +Randall—Randall saved me. He's dreadful, Fred, unnatural, +impossible—oh, terribly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> impossible!" She faced him dauntlessly, her +cheeks glowing with faint spots of color.</p> + +<p>"I liked him, Kitty. He seems——"</p> + +<p>"You're a physician, accustomed to monstrosities. He's something we +don't speak of, my friend. And see—you <i>must</i> see—what he would suffer +if he knew."</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> +<a name="xvi" id="xvi"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br /> +<br /> +<small>TEEVAN AS SPECIAL PROVIDENCE</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">EWING was delighted by an invitation from the little man to dine. They +had reached the avenue after walking in silence through a side street. +Such moments were rare with Teevan. Not often did he fail of speech, +even in his periods of calculation. But this was a moment requiring nice +adjustments. The suggestion about dinner came as they paused at the +corner.</p> + +<p>"If you'd like to have me I'd be mighty glad," responded Ewing.</p> + +<p>They turned toward Ninth Street, and Ewing told of his hour at Mrs. +Lowndes', scarce conscious of Teevan's questioning, for the little man +probed with an air of discreet condolence that would have won a far more +reticent talker. Ewing was gratified by this attention from a man who +knew the world of cities, and whose mind must usually be occupied with +affairs of importance. He felt himself drawn to Teevan by bonds of +sympathy that tightened momentarily.</p> + +<p>"My dear mother-in-law is a sentimental thing," the little man confessed +with a delicate intimation of apology. "She makes any sad tale her own. +The theater affects her, the woes of stage creatures, quite as you tell +me your own very human little story did. My arrival must have saved you +from one of her rather absurd manifestations. She's a dear old soul, +with quantities of temperament, but she recovers with amazing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> facility, +I'm bound to say. If you met her to-morrow she'd likely freeze you with +a nod."</p> + +<p>Ewing was not sorry to hear this, though he thought it hardly polite to +say so.</p> + +<p>When they reached the house in Ninth Street Teevan ushered in his guest +with a charming hospitality.</p> + +<p>"Come to the library. The man will bring you an <i>aperitif</i> while I +escape from this accursed frock coat. Not a word about your own dress! I +took you as you were—but a jacket for me, if you'll pardon it." A +servant entered in answer to his ring.</p> + +<p>"Sherry and bitters, Farrish, and Mr. Ewing will dine with us. Is my son +in?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Alden is dining out, sir."</p> + +<p>"All the better, my boy. We shall be the chummier for Alden's absence. +Make the house yours while I change. There are the evening papers; or +perhaps you'll be interested by those cabinet bits—jades and scarabs +and junk of that sort; a few fairish pieces of Greek glass—that Tanagra +isn't bad, nor those Limoges enamels. The netsukes and sword guards are +rather good Japanese bits, and there are one or two exquisite etchings +on ivory—<i>un instant, n'est-ce pas?</i>"</p> + +<p>Ewing lay back in his chair and sipped the sherry when it came. His +enjoyment of the room's ensemble was too nearly satisfying to require +examination of it by detail. It was a room of discreet and mellowed +luxury, with an air of jaunty ripeness that distinguished its composer. +The chairs solicited, the walls soothed, the broken light illumined +perfectly without dazzling. He was thrilling agreeably to his host's +evident interest in him when the latter returned, beaming with a smile +of rare good-fellowship.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>They were presently at table in a dining room whose plain old mahogany +and thin silver produced, like the library, an impression of finished +luxury without flaunt. The dinner itself possessed an atmosphere of +sophistication, a temperament, even. It sated the exigent appetite of +Ewing—his luncheon with Sydenham had been a mere adventure in +meagerness—and sated without cloying, but it was more than food to him. +As he ate, and drank of a burgundy whose merit he was ill qualified to +appraise, he was conscious of a real fascination growing within him for +the man who favored him with so distinguished a notice; who talked, +seemingly, with the same nice care to please him that he would have +exercised for a tableful of more difficult guests.</p> + +<p>Nor did Teevan lack the parts of a listener. Ewing found himself talking +much and enjoyably. With so tactful a listener, so good a friend, it was +no longer necessary to remember that he was new in this land and +unknowing of its smaller ways. It occurred to him, indeed, as he +reviewed this memorable evening, that he had talked more than his host. +But he was spared the youthful blush at this by remembering that he had +been questioned persistently—"toled," as Ben would have said, with +baits of inquiry. Incredible as it seemed, Teevan wished him to talk and +had neatly made him do so. He felt that the little man must know him +through and through. He had been, of course, a book in large print and +short words, but he was flattered to believe that Teevan had found him +worth opening.</p> + +<p>And now he was certain he had discovered the longed-for friend; one soul +had come from the oblivious throng to touch his own, to call him out and +speak him fair. He was companioned by one as likable as he was learned,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> +by one who meant, it was intimated, to seek every opportunity to +befriend him.</p> + +<p>And the need of such a friend became more and more apparent to Ewing as +they sat in the library after dinner over coffee and liqueurs. It was +brought upon him that he had never known his own rashness in braving so +difficult a world with so modest an equipment. The tragedy of failure +was a commonplace in the little man's experience. So many young dreamers +like his guest were rejected after bitter trials. It was an +inconsequential world, whose denizens chased butterflies and too often +permitted sober worth to perish by the wayside.</p> + +<p>At times during the evening Ewing had feared a return of that +distressing malady to which his host was subject, but this he was +happily spared.</p> + +<p>When he took a reluctant leave it was with two emotions: a fervent +liking for the wise man who had so generously befriended him, and doubt +of himself, the first he had known. It came like an icy blast out of +summer warmth and shine.</p> + +<p>Teevan listened for the door to close on his guest. When he heard this +he sank into his chair and chuckled gaspingly. Presently he drank a +glass of brandy, smiled in remembering pleasure, lighted a cigarette, +and took his post on the hearth rug, his eyes dancing elfishly, his lips +moving.</p> + +<p>His son found him so an hour later, for the little man was tireless even +when, lacking an audience, he merely dramatized his own reflections. +Seeing him to be familiarly engaged, Alden Teevan would have withdrawn +with a careless, half-contemptuous nod, but his father detained him with +a gesture, and a sudden setting of his face into purposeful hardness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>"Sit down." He looked into the hall, then closed the door and faced his +son. The latter regarded him with coolly impertinent interest.</p> + +<p>"You'd make a ripping conspirator in a melodrama, Randy. What you going +to do now—steal the will?"</p> + +<p>Teevan laughed grimly. He crossed back to the hearth rug and took a +fresh cigarette, which he lighted with studious deliberation. His words +followed swiftly upon the first exhalation of smoke, and his eyes +fastened venomously on his son's.</p> + +<p>"I'll give you a morsel to jest with—conspirator, indeed!—yes, and a +will. See if that facile wit of yours is up to it, my bonny stripling." +He played with his moment, drawing on the cigarette with leisurely +relish, and gazing into the smoke with eyes of an absorbed visionary.</p> + +<p>"Well?" The young man yawned ostentatiously.</p> + +<p>"You missed dining with your brother this evening. He was good enough to +break bread at my table."</p> + +<p>The young man took a cigarette from the lacquered bowl at his side and +lighted it with the same deliberation his father had shown.</p> + +<p>"Really? I didn't know you had another son."</p> + +<p>"Thank God I haven't—but your mother had, and that precious sniveling +grandmother of yours has another grandson. You might recall that when +you chatter of melodrama—and wills. I believe her estate is not one +you'd care to divide."</p> + +<p>"What rot are you gibbering with those monkey airs of yours?"</p> + +<p>"Delicate as ever in your raillery! Perhaps you think I'm drunk. Perhaps +I am. But I dropped in on your grandmother this afternoon in time to +prevent her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> clasping that nameless whelp to her breast. A lovely bit I +spoiled, my merry-andrew!—tears and fondlings to-night, a codicil +to-morrow. I'm none too sure there'd have been a codicil, though. +Likelier a new will—'give, devise, and bequeath the sum of one dollar +to my grandson Alden Teevan, who has already wheedled me out of more +than was good for him, and the residue of my estate, both real and +personal, to my beloved grandson, Gilbert Denham Ewing——'"</p> + +<p>"Ewing! That chap Nell Laithe brought back with her—that rustic +lout——"</p> + +<p>"Have I won your attention, lad? Another item I chance to recall—permit +me, since you've mentioned the lady's name—have you caught the look of +her eye as it rests upon the creature—how it follows him, runs to him, +hangs upon him with sweet tenacity? Have you felt the glow in her voice +as she speaks to him? A woman of the world, young, tender, romantic, +stormed by this Galahad of the hills, who first wins her solicitude by +his helplessness, and then, before the lady quite knows it, coerces her +whole being by sheer masculine dominance. Ah, you haven't read +that—only enough of it to puzzle you, perhaps enrage you. You haven't +your father's eyes. I read it all in three glances: one at him and two +at her. Decidedly, you've not your father's eyes."</p> + +<p>"Nor his love of many words. So that's the son of my mother, of the +woman who failed to adore you after a brief but heroic effort?"</p> + +<p>"Likewise, I dare say, the lover of a woman who will henceforth fail to +appraise you at anything like your extraordinary worth. Such blind +things they are, eh, my boy? She regards the two of you superficially, +<i>bien<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> entendu</i>, and hence to your prejudice. There's a likeness between +you, the same cast of face, even a likeness of voice, and your noses are +identical—the nose of that woman—but the differences are all in his +favor. You have grace of a drawing-room sort, a certain boudoir polish +of manner, but his face is fresher, kinder, quicker of sympathy, more +compelling, and there's that out-of-doors look in his eye, the look of +readiness and power. You know what that sort of strength means with the +pretty animals."</p> + +<p>"You speak bitterly—but then, you've competed with that sort."</p> + +<p>"My unhappy infant! You'd at least have found a barren sort of dignity +in actual competition. As it is——"</p> + +<p>"You got her by a trick, I've heard, from the man who took her away from +you when she'd found you out."</p> + +<p>"Tell that to your grandmother—it may help you out of some money."</p> + +<p>"Stop it, governor! I'll quit if you will. Come!" He spoke with a drop +of the voice, and lifted a hand in appeal.</p> + +<p>"When you like—I've wasted no words."</p> + +<p>"It's true, all you've said? Grandmother knows?"</p> + +<p>"Thirty seconds later and I'd have had to bless the pair."</p> + +<p>"And now?"</p> + +<p>"It's safe for the present. She forgot. She'll remember to-morrow. I'd +trust him back there then. She'd see only an obscene excrescence."</p> + +<p>"It's a pleasant situation!"</p> + +<p>"It's hellish! Can you imagine <i>my</i> feelings? You've touched on them +with your graceful, filial banter."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>"What will you do?"</p> + +<p>"'What will you do?'" He mimicked the other with a snarl. "Well, I begin +by having him to dine. I study him, I win him. I have him now. He will +dine with me other times. I'm not so sure he won't come to reverence me. +Oh, it's an ideal situation! Damn it! How they fall! <i>We</i> couldn't +contrive them half so cunningly. The fool hath said in his heart 'There +is no God'—a fool, indeed! There is a God, and He has a devil in Him, +or He couldn't have given me this to play out. I have him, I tell you, +her son and his son, think of it—her lover's son that they both +loved—served up to me!"</p> + +<p>"What can you do with him?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Do</i> with him?" The elder man eyed his son for a long minute, then +dropped into a chair, and for an interval the young man pursued his +rather uncomfortable reflections in silence. At last he broke this with +another query. As there was no response, and his father's face was +turned away, he rose and sauntered in front of him. The eyes met his +musingly, and he saw that the mouth was fixed in a rather hideous +smile.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +<a name="xvii" id="xvii"></a>CHAPTER XVII<br /> +<br /> +<small>AN ELUSIVE VENUS</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">THE days that followed were marked for Ewing with a puzzling +discouragement; puzzling, because there had been no failure. A failure +would have left him reliant, however battered, but nothing good had been +disproved. He was fighting some black doubt of himself, insidiously +nursed, he knew not how.</p> + +<p>His friend, Randall Teevan, almost an intimate since the night they +dined together, daily predicted great works of him. Where the careless +picture makers of the Rookery were content with assurances that he could +turn out marketable "stuff," Teevan showed him far and lofty eminences +that he might scale, had he a spirit for the feat.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly there were obstacles that would daunt a less spirited +novice, or one with less than the supreme powers of his young friend, +but he, the intrepid, the enduring one, could surmount them. The danger +in this time of 'prenticeship, Teevan suggested, was sluggish content +with a cheap facility. The tyro learns to do a thing that sells, and +remains commercially solvent but, spiritually, an example of arrested +development—artistically dead.</p> + +<p>He left Ewing at these times with a sense of his present futility, but +also with a genial pity for the men who were doing things to sell—and +selling them; all unconscious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> of the remote, the vacant summits, of +true art. A little while before he would have rejoiced that his work +could appear beside the work of these men. That would have been a +triumph glorious enough. But he could no longer desire so mean a +success. He must strive for the higher things, if for no other reason, +because this fastidious critic expected him to accomplish them. He could +not affront that captious taste with things done for a dollar. Teevan, +it seemed, had found life wearing on his dearest illusions. Contact with +the world had left him little to believe in. Yet he confessed to believe +in Ewing; confessed it with a shamed, humorous <i>naívetée</i>, and with +pleasant half doubts, as a man of tried unbelief laying a bed to fall +back on at his next undeceiving.</p> + +<p>Ewing was fired to high resolve by this witty, this tender betrayal of +confidence in his powers. He could not bear to think that his friend +should one day find him, too, a bit of specious insincerity. He +consecrated himself to guard this last illusion. It was a pleasure, a +duty, and an ambition whose rewards would magnify them both.</p> + +<p>The hill boy no longer yearned solitary in the crowd for a day with Ben +Crider, or perhaps an evening with him of little easy silences. Teevan +filled his needs. In some sort the little man became his idol; a +constant presence before which every act of his days must be judged. +Teevan was a smiling but inexorable arbiter of his destiny: a judge +humane but incorruptible, a man experienced in the obliquities of human +nature, but never tolerant of these.</p> + +<p>Teevan showed him pictures, the work of masters, piloting him through +galleries with instructive comment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> Ewing instinctively felt the +accuracy of his taste, and divined the soundness of his technical +knowledge. Often he overlooked a blemish of bad drawing till Teevan +pointed it out. Often Teevan defined to his eye some masterly bit of +lining in a picture otherwise hopeless. And of color, that splendid +mystery, thing of trick and passion, the little man discoursed with rare +sanity.</p> + +<p>After these provings of his expertness, Ewing was humble when Teevan +chose to point out the more striking deficiencies of his own work. If +Teevan made him feel that he must unlearn the vicious little he knew, he +performed the duty with a tact that left the youth as large with +gratitude as with discouragement. It was by Teevan's counsel that he +went to the school. The men of the Rookery tried to dissuade him from +that.</p> + +<p>"They can't give you anything you haven't got," warned Baldwin. "And if +you don't act stubborn they may spoil what you have. You've learned your +A B C's, and they'll only tell you at the school to learn them another +way. They'll make you feel like a clumsy ass. Stay away."</p> + +<p>Well-meant advice, but superficial, as Teevan observed when he heard of +it.</p> + +<p>"Your friend confirms what I suspected," he went on, with a pleasant +glint in his eyes. "Those chaps would have you become a decent hack on +the pitiful facility you've already acquired. Pitiful, mark me, as +compared with your capacity. But I've learned to expect little in this +world of weak purpose. I dare say you won't endure it long at the +school. I grant you a fortnight there; then you'll tell me you give up."</p> + +<p>He began his lessons at the League next day, fired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> with intent to +please his friend. He would fail, yes—fail seventy times seven, but he +would stand up.</p> + +<p>He went, however, a little weighed down by the memory of his various +advisers. From the entrance he was directed above by an official-looking +person who yawned. Then he found himself in one of many cramped, +stall-like compartments, facing a plaster woman who crouched on one +knee. His position was between two youths who were annoyed by his +nearness. When he edged from the glowering of one the other nudged his +drawing board with an indignant elbow. There was no retreat, for the +students were packed closely about him. The one behind him made +disparaging remarks about the dimensions of his back, which seemed +unkind, considering that he did not hesitate to use the back from time +to time as an easel.</p> + +<p>The air was hot and thick with charcoal dust. The crowded disorder +confused him. He tried to think only of the cast. He began at the head, +as was his custom, and felt a moment's exhilaration in studying the +delicate shadows beneath the filleted curls.</p> + +<p>He was aroused by sounds of derision from behind, and ominous prophecies +of what "Old Velvet" would do to him when he caught sight of that +pompadour. He observed then that the other men were not working at the +head first, but mapping out the entire figure at once with long, raking, +angular lines that blocked the shadows in square masses. He half rose +and looked about. They were all working alike, with their drawing boards +far out, and with blunt charcoal. He had spent half an hour sharpening +his, and had hugged his drawing board.</p> + +<p>He sat down again, impelled by protests from behind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> and drew the entire +figure, but he could not bring himself to do it in those rude angles. He +drew it with a single line—down the curving flank, about the gracious +knees, skirting the feet, and up once more to round the farther shoulder +that drooped above the nestling breast. Although he did not know it, +this was a feat; the swing of the body was almost perfect, yet he had +not skirmished a moment.</p> + +<p>The youth behind him was now peering through spectacles above his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"You're a queer duck!" he said; "but he'll make you do it his way. What +do you mean by drawing like that?"</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Ewing, confused. "Let's see yours."</p> + +<p>The other exhibited. There was no outline, there were no gracious +curves, only a suggestion of angular shadows, scratched across with +brutal straightness. Yet, when Ewing squinted his eyes a bit the thing +stood out.</p> + +<p>"Wait till I get <i>my</i> shadows in," he said.</p> + +<p>"Cart before the horse!" rejoined the critic. "I see your finish with +the old man."</p> + +<p>Ewing started to lay in his shadows as the other had done, but it seemed +as if that delicate body appealed for gentler treatment. He rubbed out +the vandal lines and began swinging around the figure in the curving +strokes habitual with him, strokes that nursed each lovely rondure like +caresses. Then, until the closing hour, he polished, picking out the +precious little reflected lights that saved her treasures from shadow.</p> + +<p>"Red ruin for you, my boy!" exclaimed the spectacled one behind him. +"Ravage and slaughter! Old Velvet will scalp you."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>Ewing stood up, released by his neighbors, who now rose in a clatter of +toppled stools.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Finicky! You've <i>fussed</i> it to death. Velvet will slay you for those +reflected lights alone—and your nice curly lines—oh, Lord!"</p> + +<p>"But they're there, those lights," protested Ewing. "And it's the way +I've always drawn. I suppose there are different methods."</p> + +<p>"There's only one way with Velvet, and that's Velvet's way." Then with a +damnatory waving-away of the offensive drawing he sauntered off to put +his stuff in his locker.</p> + +<p>Ewing dined alone that night. He was in no mood for Teevan.</p> + +<p>Back in his place next day, still incredulous of defeat so swift, he +waited for the master. He watched him going the rounds of the other +students, the light playing on the purple velvet of the garment that +gave him his title. His beard was a rich growth, his mustaches curled +upward at the ends, his large, heavy eyelids drooped in a perpetual +<i>ennui</i>. His usual criticism was a weary "Rub it out!"</p> + +<p>When at last he stood beside Ewing's work he gave an effect of +collapsing, as if his whole being cried out: "This is too much!" He took +the drawing from the board and stuck it to the wall with two thumb +tacks. Then, picking up a bit of charcoal, he wrote across it, "A +perfect example of how not to do it."</p> + +<p>He did not return to Ewing, but, after examining a few other drawings, +he turned to leave the room. As he passed, Ewing reached across two +neighbors—who protested—and caught the velvet jacket.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>"Perhaps you can give me an idea," he said. The other looked at him as +if he had not seen him before.</p> + +<p>"Use intelligence! Good God—use intelligence!" he almost wailed, and +made his escape.</p> + +<p>Ewing mechanically placed a fresh sheet before him and began again, but +he rubbed out as fast as he drew. The next morning he found the paper +foul from many erasures, and started afresh. He could see now that his +first drawing, posted in irredeemable ignominy, was not all that it +should be. It lacked the freedom of work he had done in his solitude. He +tried to conjure back that old free feeling, but the days passed and it +drew farther away. Some of the students changed places and began on +other casts. The better men went every other week into the life class. +But Ewing stayed desperately by his crouching woman. He studied her +until he loved and loathed her. The master came and went. Sometimes he +ignored Ewing. When he did notice him it was always with a fresh blow on +the sunk heart of the boy. Once he sat in his place and ran some of his +own brusque, effective lines along the figure, the lines that every +other youth in the room punctiliously imitated. They mingled with +Ewing's strokes as a driving rain mingles with a bed of flowers.</p> + +<p>"If you'd only give up your damned little way," he complained.</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd explain a bit," pleaded the boy.</p> + +<p>"Old Velvet" turned to the spectacled young man. "Give him your study. +There, do it like that."</p> + +<p>Then came the beginning of the end. He lost himself in a crawling +blindness of imitation. The old power that had made him draw without +knowing how he did it gathered its splendid garments and withdrew as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +mysteriously as it had once come to possess him. He drew, but he would +no longer have recognized what he did as the work of his own hand. He +thought of Griggs, who had said, "Style?—I'd know a scrap of your stuff +if I found it in an ash barrel in Timbuctoo!"</p> + +<p>The thought of those friendly men knowing his degradation was another +stone on the grave of his self-esteem. It was this that made him wait +when the others had gone one night, to take down that first crucified +drawing from the wall where it had remained, torn and hanging by one +tack.</p> + +<p>"Will you give it to me?" said a voice, and, as he did not care one way +or the other, the spectacled young man put it in his portfolio. +Afterwards Ewing thought of asking him why he wanted it, but he did not +come back again. He had been advanced to the life class.</p> + +<p>The master did not speak to Ewing again. He made, at intervals as he +passed, the pantomime of rubbing out. And Ewing obeyed, beginning each +time the task that grew day by day more hatefully useless. In the +beginning he had felt that if he could get that plaster woman off by +himself he could draw her. The long habit of solitude had left him +confounded by the crowd. There had been something almost shameful to him +about drawing publicly, and he had the impulse to curl an arm about his +sketch to hide it a little as he worked. He felt sick with the hot, dry +air and the breathing of the stallful of men. When the door was opened +the odor of turpentine came from the room where they were painting. It +had for him a familiar, happy smell.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could go in there," he said once to a fat youth beside him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>"That's what the dubs always say," was the reply. "It's so much easier +to paint."</p> + +<p>He spent a day going around, looking at the better students' work, +asking them how they had learned to draw as "Old Velvet" wanted them to. +They had a great many things to say that sounded technical, but he heard +nothing that opened a way to him.</p> + +<p>He hated the school; he hated the street that led to it, with a quiet +ground swell of hatred. But, deepest of all, he hated his own despair. +He felt that his shattered courage would never heal. He was like a +dishonored soldier whose sword has been publicly broken. He remembered +the fine things he had said to Teevan about his ambition, and the blush +that suffused him ached. At the thought of Mrs. Laithe bringing him from +his wild beast's hole, as if he had been worth her splendid faith, his +heart withered within him. At intervals he started as if he suddenly +awoke, saying to himself, "And to think it could have ended like this!"</p> + +<p>At the end of a fortnight he sat for three days without doing anything, +a stick of charcoal in his hand. He did not come again, and his fat +neighbor used up his charcoal paper, after putting fine mustaches on all +his crouching Venuses.</p> + +<p>He had shunned his acquaintances during this time of travail. But twice +had he seen Teevan since his first day at the League. He had tried to be +cheerful at those meetings, still hoping the lines would come right, but +he felt each time that Teevan saw straight to his wretched heart of +doubt; and he would not risk another meeting until he could report an +overwhelming victory—or defeat, if it must be so.</p> + +<p>That he did not for a day forget his good friend, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> was ample +testimony; though this was of a nature that Teevan must remain oblivious +to. On the night of the day that saw his first buffeting he walked the +streets until late, rejoicing mournfully that there were still so many +people who did not know his shame. Half unwittingly he wandered into +Ninth Street, and stood a long time opposite Teevan's house, finding a +solace in his friend's possible nearness. Then, as the days of defeat +followed with so deadly a sequence, this walk and vigil became his +nightly habit. Sometimes the house was darkened. Then he felt free to +gaze at it. Sometimes there were lights, and his survey was brief and +furtive. Until the very last there was always a bit of hope to spice the +melancholy of this adventure: to-morrow the thing might be done as they +all did it, the master be moved from blame to praise, and himself be +free to enter this street bravely, noisily, careless of recognition, to +tell how the big way had been opened. He had pictured the pleasure that +would light Teevan's face as he heard this tale of conquest.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> +<a name="xviii" id="xviii"></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br /> +<br /> +<small>MRS. LAITHE IS IN</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">ON the ultimate night of defeat Ewing walked as usual into Ninth Street +for his vigil before Teevan's house. He had come to a wall that must be +scaled. He could no longer believe in any chance way round it or +gracious opening through it. Teevan would have to be told, and he was +sorry for Teevan. The little man had believed so.</p> + +<p>He scanned the starred strip of sky above him as if for words to renew +the faith of his friend. His eye ran along the house fronts opposite, +but they were blunt, uninspiring masses with shut doors and curtained +windows, houses turned away from him. He wished for another friend, less +exacting than Teevan, who would take defeat lightly. Then one of the +houses stood out familiarly, the Bartell house, with its generous width +and its hospitable white door. He had not cared to go there in his time +of suspense, but now he was overwhelmed with a sudden longing to see +Mrs. Laithe, to feel her friendliness and confide to her, perhaps, a +hint of his plight. At least he could look at her a little while, even +if he told her nothing.</p> + +<p>He crossed the street quickly, walked toward the avenue until he reached +the marble steps, and rang the bell. It occurred to him dismally while +he waited that she might not be in; still worse, that there might be +people about who would keep him from her. It had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> so most of the +few times he had called. There was always friendliness in the look she +gave him across those shoreless seas of talk, but too often there had +been little beside this look.</p> + +<p>The man admitted him and was not sure if Mrs. Laithe was in; he would +see. Ewing strolled back to the soothing snugness of the library and +dropped on the couch. Even to be there alone was something: the room was +alive with her, and the restful quietness of it made him conscious all +at once of the long strain he had been under. Leaning his head back, he +shut his eyes in a sort of desperate surrender, letting the tragedy of +his failure swirl about him. But something from the woman he awaited +seemed to have flowed in upon him, healing his hurt with gracious little +reminders of her. He breathed a long sigh of relief, and for a moment +almost lost himself in unconscious rest. It was good to stop thinking.</p> + +<p>It was thus she saw him as she came softly in, with scarce a silken +rustle. Her face, as she gazed, lost its look of welcome and ready +speech, for she saw all his anguish uncovered there before her. It was +in his young face, gaunt and jaded and bleached to the city pallor; in +the closed eyes, the folded lips; and in the body wearily relaxed. So +little life he showed, it seemed to her he might be sleeping, and again, +as at the other time, she was shaken by a rush of tenderness for +him—tenderness and fear, alike terrible.</p> + +<p>She could not speak. She hovered a half step toward him, with a hand +instinctively up to shelter and cherish, her eyes wide with pity and a +great gladness. Poised so, she waited, breathless.</p> + +<p>Though she had made no sound, he thrilled suddenly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> to the knowledge of +her presence, and his eyes opened to hers. They stared dully an instant, +then shone with a quick light that held her exposed and defenseless, +while he came to himself—for the first time in her presence—as a man. +Helpless to stay it, she watched this consciousness unfolding within +him, traced it lucidly from its birth to the very leaping of it from his +lips in a smothered cry of want unutterable.</p> + +<p>So he held her with his look. Though every nerve warned her to flight, +she was powerless even when he started toward her, raising himself +slowly from the couch with his hands; her own hand even groped a little +toward him, blindly fighting its way into both his own. It turned and +nestled there, unreasoningly, warming itself, clasping and unclasping. +He towered above her—she had never felt herself so small, so frail as +now. His two hands fiercely smothered her own, and his eyes were on her +with a look she had never seen there, a look she could not face. It was +then that her tenderness was lost in fear of him, and she forced herself +to laugh. She laughed in the desperate knowledge that his rising arm +threatened her with some crushing, blinding enfoldment where no striving +would avail her—laughed with a little easy, formal grace.</p> + +<p>He fell back dazed, scanning her in uncomprehending dismay as they stood +apart. Then he seemed to recover himself and smiled foolishly as she +moved to a chair.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad you came," she began with nervous quickness. He dropped +back on the couch, his eyes still on her—the man's eyes.</p> + +<p>She endured the look, but she could not suppress the color she felt +rising in her face. It seemed to her that her strength must go if the +moment lasted a little longer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> She knew now that in the weeks of his +absence she had longed for this look—for the fearful joy of it—and the +realization left her overpowered.</p> + +<p>At last, to her relief, he muttered some conventional phrase of his own +pleasure in seeing her. But the look of the man still held her, an +implacable look. She felt that the shy, embarrassed boy in him was gone +forever. She had aged him all in a moment. There was something +splendidly ruthless in his gaze, and in place of the confusion she was +wont to wreak on him he showed a strange, dogged coolness.</p> + +<p>"You've changed," he continued. "You're not well." The wondrous deep +alarm of his tone warmed her through and through. She murmured a +careless disavowal, and her low laugh, like the little comprehending +chuckle of a pleased child, banished from her face for a moment its +almost haggard set. But the face was flatly white again under the dark +of her hair, and the white gown defined her frailness and drooping, as +of some pale, long-stemmed flower fainting of languor in the still heat +of late summer.</p> + +<p>"You are whiter than ever," he insisted, "whiter and finer. You are like +a white rose that is beginning to let its petals fall. You—you are +beyond anything now." She laughed helplessly, as people laugh at +something insupportable.</p> + +<p>"You're going to tell me that people don't talk that way here," he went +on, with his old fling of the head, like that of a horse about to gallop +off, "but you understand me." He sighed, remembering his trouble for the +first time. "But you understand me," he repeated, with a wistful +attenuation of the words.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I understand—everything," she said, seeing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> again the amazing +sadness in him. Her look seized all the dejection of his attitude, the +listless lean of his head, once upheld so gayly on the strong neck. She +had to exert her will not to go nearer to him. She turned away and +closed her eyes for a moment to shut him out, then opened them quickly +and began to berate him charmingly for having neglected her. "I've +thought of you so much oftener than I've seen you," she concluded.</p> + +<p>He floundered in the old shyness. It had come suddenly on him when he +thought of himself.</p> + +<p>"I've been—at work."</p> + +<p>"Your face shows it," she said, with a swift, unsteady look. "You have +changed, too. You actually look ill."</p> + +<p>He reddened slowly under her scrutiny, stammering protestations, but her +eyes were open to him. She shrugged herself together and assumed a +brisk, motherly air.</p> + +<p>"Is it as bad as <i>that</i>—truly? And you told me nothing of it! Come—I +want to know." There was a ring of authority in her voice as she leaned +toward him, her great eyes full of pity and succor. "Is the world +different from what you thought? Let me know—where does it hurt? That's +what they say to children."</p> + +<p>Challenged thus directly, he felt shame at the thought of confession +equally direct. He would come to it only by winding ways, asserting at +first that there was no trouble; then that the trouble was but a little +one; and insisting at last that, though the trouble was great, it might +have been greater.</p> + +<p>Her eyes beat upon him insistently while she drove him to these +admissions. Then she was eager with attention while he compelled himself +to details. He told of his two weeks' humiliation at the school, not +sparing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> himself, confessing his lack of power, and the pain this +discovery had cost him. When he had finished, with a self-belittling +shrug, she sat silent, bending forward, her hands loosely clasped, her +eyes fixed away from him.</p> + +<p>Now that it was over he felt a sudden lightening of his mood, a swift +consciousness of reliance on the woman, a foreknowledge that her words +would profit him. At last she brought her eyes upon him and cut to the +heart of his woe with a single stroke.</p> + +<p>"The thing is nothing in itself." He drew a long breath of relief. "It's +in the way you take it. If it weakens you, it's bad. If it strengthens +you, it's good. Call the thing 'failure' if you like—but what has it +done to you?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course"—he broke off to laugh under her waiting look—"of +course I'm still in the race. I see now that I haven't really doubted +myself at all." He looked at her with sudden sharpness. "I'd be ashamed +to doubt myself before you." He sprang to his feet in the excitement of +this discovery and stood alertly before her.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't mean anything, does it?" he went on quickly. "You believe in +me?"</p> + +<p>She laughed defensively. "I believe in you now. You look so much less +like a whipped schoolboy."</p> + +<p>"I won't forget again. That school isn't for me. I can do things those +poor charcoal dusters won't do for years yet. I know that. Baldwin said +they'd spoil me if I wasn't stubborn, and I <i>was</i> stubborn—I am. You +believe I'm stubborn, don't you?"</p> + +<p>She smiled assurance. "You have it—can you use it?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>"You'll see!" He sat down, continuing almost apologetically, "I worried +more about the effect on others than on myself. It was that threw me +down, a fear that other people might think I was some pretentious fool +who had come here to get over big things and stumbled at the first +little one. I was deathly afraid of hurting other people."</p> + +<p>His eyes had been steadily upon hers with an under-current of +consciousness for what he would have called the "queerness" of her look, +a baffling look that hinted of many things—of sympathy, consternation, +rejoicing, even of embarrassment, and yet it had not distinctly been any +one of these, so quick had been the play of light in her eyes to the +moment they fell before his.</p> + +<p>She released her breath with a sound like a sigh, as if she had been +holding it, and there was another look in her eyes when she at last +raised them to his, one that he could not read, save that it was wholly +serious and, he felt, peculiarly a woman's look.</p> + +<p>"I am sure," she began, "that no one—no one you consider in this way, +could think less of you for a failure. You ought to know that. I want +you to know it." She rose from her chair and stepped to the table with a +little shrug, turning over the leaves of a magazine, her back toward +him. At last she turned her head only, looking at him over one shoulder +and speaking with a laughing, reckless impatience.</p> + +<p>"Oh, fail—fail—fail as often as you like—fail a hundred times and +then—fail." He felt his cheeks burning under her vehemence. She turned +about, facing him squarely.</p> + +<p>"Have I said enough? Do you know what I think of failures now?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>He rose and stood before her. "You don't know what you've done for me. +You don't know—" Again came that crude impulse to take her in his arms. +It left him feeling like a criminal. As if she had discerned this she +resumed her seat, speaking quickly.</p> + +<p>"Go back to that studio and do things. Do them your own way. It's a +better way for you than any they can teach you, and the next time——"</p> + +<p>"The next time I have a hell——"</p> + +<p>"—a hell of doubt—don't wait—come to me." She rose from her chair.</p> + +<p>"You don't know all this has meant to me," he said feelingly as she gave +him her hand.</p> + +<p>"Good night!" And though the gray eyes were hidden from his, there was +the look in them of one who knows more than she is thought to know.</p> + +<p>As Ewing went out the man was admitting the younger Teevan, who asked +for Mrs. Laithe. Ewing wished it had been the father. He had much of +good to tell the little man now.</p> + +<p>Neither Mrs. Laithe nor Teevan spoke of Ewing after their greeting, +though each was so busy in thought of him that their talk was scant and +aimless for the first five minutes. Alden Teevan was brought back to her +at length by noticing the drawn, tired look of her face, for the sparkle +that Ewing had left there was gone.</p> + +<p>"Nell, you look done up. I'm no alarmist, but you really need to be +frightened. What is it you're doing to take you down so—the same old +round? Is it a visiting guild now, or the Comforters of the Worthy Poor, +or just amateur nursing of sin, sickness, and death?"</p> + +<p>She smiled wanly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>"The same old round, Alden. I can't keep away from it when I am here. I +know it so well. No one could keep away who knew it well."</p> + +<p>"Futile, futile, futile! Are you equal to a revolution?"</p> + +<p>"More's the pity, no. And I've no time for one. I've a whole family of +consumptives on my hands at this moment, father, mother, two girls and a +boy."</p> + +<p>"And you wear yourself out over a few minor effects like that, instead +of going at the cause. You may save one or two of those people—none of +them of any value, individually; while the same energy put to the root +of the evil might save thousands—and they <i>are</i> of value in the mass. +Think me calloused if you like, but that's mere common sense economy of +effort. You and I—our class—make them live as they do, and we grow +maudlin over it and take them a little soup and many tracts. But we +won't remit our tithes. We keep them down to breed more misery for the +exercise of our little philanthropic fads. I'm radical, you see."</p> + +<p>She turned her head away with a hand wave that seemed to dismiss an +argument familiar and outworn.</p> + +<p>"I know—but I must do what I can."</p> + +<p>He faced her with a sudden insistent energy.</p> + +<p>"Come away, Nell—come farther off. You're too close to the ugly things +now—you lose the perspective. Come away—and come with me, won't you, +Nell? Come away and live. I must say it—I must ask it—come!"</p> + +<p>He read the inexorable in the lift of her head.</p> + +<p>"I understand, Alden—and I thank you—but no." She glanced across at +him and continued more lightly, "I wasn't meant to go far off—to go +above timber line, as Mr. Ewing would say."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>He felt bitterness rising in him at her mention of the name, but he +laughed it away.</p> + +<p>"You'll always do the hardest thing, Nell. I know that. But I—well, one +of the old heathen—Heraclitus, wasn't it?—remarked that the ass, after +all, would have his thistles rather than much fine gold."</p> + +<p>She laughed. "Dad would say, the more ass he, if he wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"I know—we'd rather have our own particular thistles, each of us. But +to live a day or two before we die, Nell! Come with me—stop trying to +mount the whirlwind. You'll only be thrown."</p> + +<p>Again she shook her head, and gently shaped "No!" with her lips. It was +too unemotionally decisive to warrant of any further urging, and he +became silent, with something of pain in his face that her eye caught.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Alden—I've never liked you better—but I'd rather you +didn't ask."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't have come before, would you, Nell—three months ago?" And +she answered "No" again, very quickly.</p> + +<p>"I must play my little game out in my own way," she continued. "I must +stay beside some one—beside people—who still have heart for trying."</p> + +<p>"Someone, Nell?"</p> + +<p>She caught her lip.</p> + +<p>"Everyone who has fresh hope and stubbornness in defeat."</p> + +<p>"If you'd let me, Nell—" There was the note of real pleading in his +tone.</p> + +<p>"No, Alden."</p> + +<p>"Friends, though?" he queried, seeming at last convinced.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>She thought there was a trace of bitterness in his voice, but she +answered, "Friends, surely, Alden."</p> + +<p>"We've skirted this thing often, Nell, but you never seemed certain +before."</p> + +<p>"I didn't—I think I never was <i>quite</i> so certain before, Alden—but now +I'm driven all one way."</p> + +<p>"I believe that." He rose and spoke in a livelier manner. "But if you +won't be wise for me, Nell, be wise for some one else. For God's sake +feel a little worry about your health. I say you look unpromising at +this moment."</p> + +<p>"I've always been well," she insisted brightly.</p> + +<p>"And, Nell, I've wanted to be so much more than a friend to you that my +feelings are a bit blurred just now—but I believe I'll always do what a +friend should."</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +<a name="xix" id="xix"></a>CHAPTER XIX<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE UNBLAZED WAY</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">EWING was loath to sleep that night, for in sleep he must leave the +thought of her who, having been only a picture to him, had come suddenly +to life. The magic would have seemed no greater if his own mother had +issued livingly from the canvas. How it had happened he knew not, but +this woman was all at once the living spring of his life. The thought of +her was a golden mist enveloping him. He did not once call it love, but +he thought of the gracious women he had loved in books, and knew she was +all of them in one.</p> + +<p>And once he had been almost careless in her presence! How he marveled at +that now, when he knew that henceforth every approach to her would be an +event. He shuddered at the memory of what he had been saved from—that +swift brute impulse to hold her close against his breast. Must he feel +that always—fight it always, to be blasted if he lost? At least in his +own secret world he was free to treasure each memory of her dearness. +And he could make her glad. He could work as man had not worked before. +He could make her a little glad.</p> + +<p>He feverishly began a drawing for the <i>Knickerbocker</i> the next morning. +Craig, the art editor, had said that he could use six drawings as good +as the two he was shown, and they had decided on scenes that would give<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +variety to the series. But that was before a Teevan had come into his +life, and now he had lost a month in the dream of satisfying that patron +critic.</p> + +<p>It was good to prove that he could still draw in his own way; he had +suffered so long in that rage of impotence; and he kept to the work +until dusk, making no stop for food, even when the noise of falling +bodies came to mark the luncheon hour.</p> + +<p>When Teevan sauntered in at six the two went to dine at a restaurant. +Ewing had no longer dreaded the meeting. He was ready to show Teevan +that there had been no true failure. But Teevan merely listened to the +bare outline of fact as they threaded a way through the evening crowd. +He made no comment, and Ewing thought this might be due to the +difficulty of conversing in a noisy street.</p> + +<p>But after ordering dinner with a nice deliberation, Teevan spoke +determinedly of other matters. Ewing ventured a humorous reference to +his despair when he left the school, meaning to compel the inference +that he no longer despaired. Teevan languidly mentioned a violinist he +had heard the evening before.</p> + +<p>"—Two Bach numbers, the suite in F minor rather exquisitely done. Bach +wrote tremendously well for the fiddle. Technical skill in the +performer, you ask? Yes, entirely adequate; indeed, he gave rather a +warm reading, really not lacking a certain elevation of style, even a +nobility of utterance. That was quite all of interest, though. The +Dvorak <i>humoresque</i>—a thing transcribed from a piano piece and made +sentimental—has one of those effective passages in double notes, +certain to win an encore from the mob; and the twenty-fourth caprice of +Paganini was merely a smart exhibition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> of harmonic playing—mere squibs +and firecrackers and rockets, the veriest fireworks. Ah, it's small +wonder the world has so few artists when it demands so little." And +Teevan sighed significantly.</p> + +<p>Ewing was chilled by this avoidance of himself, though he could not yet +believe it intentional.</p> + +<p>"I haven't given up," he declared, by way of reminding Teevan. "You +shall see that I'm stubborn."</p> + +<p>Teevan affected to study a group of diners at a neighboring table as he +replied:</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I gather that you left the school when you found it +difficult."</p> + +<p>"But you see——"</p> + +<p>"This soup is worth while, really. Soup is surprisingly difficult. Yet +the world believes perfect soups to be plentiful." He sighed again. "It +merely shows the vitality of error."</p> + +<p>Ewing felt his woman-given courage leaving him at this attack, or rather +at this lack of attack. He had been prepared to have his friend exhibit +doubt, disbelief, chagrin—anything that would still show an +undiminished esteem. But the intimate note had gone from Teevan's +speech. He talked at large as Ewing had heard him talk to roomfuls of +people.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes, the vitality of error. Give the world a lie about soup or +souls, and you'll not soon worry that lie away. It's clutched with a +bulldog jaw. Say good soup is common—God-fearing Christians echo the +lie. Say Berkeley denies the existence of matter, and men with Berkeley +at hand repeat you. Say Locke denies all knowledge except through the +medium of the senses, and students of Locke pass on the absurdity. Bacon +was by no means the first thinker to proclaim the deficiencies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> of the +Aristotelian philosophy—a system already in disrepute when he wrote the +'Instauration.' Yet in our crude yearning for concreteness, for specific +idols, we laud him as the father of the inductive philosophy—as if +induction weren't an inevitable process in any mind grown beyond +primitive concepts. Gad! I had a dog once that used induction a dozen +times a day, and he'd never so much as heard of Bacon."</p> + +<p>Thus he wandered afield during the dinner, with airs of a bored but +conscientious host, and Ewing fell lower of heart at each of his +periods. He hoped for his chance when the coffee came, but Teevan gave +him no opening. The brandy sufficed for his text. We were not +brandy-drinkers, unhappily enough—"the wholesomest of all spirits, the +distilled essence of cognac grapes, the magic cup of Circe, 'her Orient +liquor in a crystal glass'—and we know as little how to drink a liqueur +brandy as we know how to buy it. We gulp it from these straight glasses, +when it should be taken in sips from a glass small at the top, a glass +first warmed in the palm of the hand. Only so may we capture the +bouquet, that elusive fragrance of the May-vine blossom, that wraith of +spring-perfumes."</p> + +<p>Ewing was still unjustified when the waiter helped them on with their +coats, and then he was dismayed to observe that Teevan apparently meant +to leave him. The little man held out his hand with "So glad to have had +your company—another time—I shall see you again, I hope."</p> + +<p>"Please come back with me. I'd like to talk to you—to ask your advice." +He felt himself an outcast.</p> + +<p>Teevan's response, a surprised but coldly polite assent, did not lighten +his dejection as they walked back to the studio in silence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>But once there the little man no longer avoided talk of his young +friend's fiasco. He let it be seen that another illusion, one fondly +cherished, he need not say, had been shattered. He gave the impression +that he had talked of other things to forget this—an inadequate device, +he let it be inferred.</p> + +<p>Ewing confessed his own despondency of the night before, but told how a +woman had given him new courage.</p> + +<p>"Not the least injury they do us," remarked Teevan of women, somewhat +snappishly, "is to wheedle us into taking our failures lightly." That +were especially baneful to the artist, it seemed; by his very +temperament was he exposed to their blandishing sophistries. The artist +cult should be a priesthood, aloof, austere, celibate—deaf to the woman +cries of "Never mind!" and "Courage!" and "Another day!" All very well +that, but they shut their pretty eyes to real failures, or, at most, +survey them with a tender air of belittlement that leaves the defeated +one blind to their significance. Speaking largely, the society of women +should be shunned by earnest men intent on achievement.</p> + +<p>Ewing began to feel that possibly he had taken heart too readily. He was +willing to believe this if it would restore him to the little man's +esteem. He pointed timidly to the drawing he had begun that morning, +eager for the word of praise he believed it to merit.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>that</i>!" Teevan drawled the words, with lifted brows; then went on +to speak of Jean François Millet, unprosperous villager of Barbizon. He +tried—unsuccessfully—to recall an instance when that painter had +debased his art. Not once had he made a cheap picture for a magazine. He +had never put his Muse to the streets. Millet was not pigeon-livered.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>Ewing leaned forward in his chair, his head between his hands. He saw +that the mere sale of drawings would be a savorless success, if it +bereft him of this plain-speaking but just friend. More, it would leave +him small in the eyes of a woman who was now even more than Teevan. He +got up doggedly, seized the drawing and began to break the tough bristol +board, getting it into four pieces at length and flinging these into the +grate. He was unable to resist a secret fond look at the lines he had +made with such loving care. Teevan's eyes glistened now, and he held out +a hand to Ewing.</p> + +<p>"Ah—you give me hope. Bravo!"</p> + +<p>"Then you do believe in me; you think I have it in me?"</p> + +<p>"Power? Yes; I've seen that. I judge men rather accurately. But I saw +that you'd be tempted to rest. The more power, the greater the +temptation. It's not so hard to fast in a desert—the less gifted man is +less tempted. But to fast with plenty at hand for the reaching, and fair +women to counsel content—to refuse apples and flagons, waiting for the +ultimate jewel—that takes a <i>man</i>. It demands one—there's a certain +street saying—who can 'stand the gaff.'"</p> + +<p>"And you really think I can stand it? I feel more than ever that I want +to succeed."</p> + +<p>Teevan beamed on him almost affectionately. "I almost suspect——"</p> + +<p>"You shall see that I can," Ewing broke in, but what he thought was, +"<i>She</i> will see it."</p> + +<p>"It's a matter of endurance," resumed Teevan genially. "Genius is no +endowment of supreme gifts. Every man of us has something latent that +would set<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> him apart. Genius is only the capacity for expressing +that—that phase of yourself which differentiates you from all other +selves. Of course only a few succeed. Most of us succumb to the general +pressure to be alike. Yet—I almost believe in you."</p> + +<p>Ewing regarded him with glad eyes, touched by this stanch yet discerning +adherence.</p> + +<p>Returning home that night Teevan, in his library, took down a Bible and +searched for a passage he only half recalled. He found it at last, one +wherein the God of Israel thunders, not without humor, against the foes +of His chosen tribe.</p> + +<p>"I will send a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies; +and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as +fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth." He +chuckled delightedly as he read it, and wiped tears of mirth from his +eyes.</p> + +<p>So it befell that Ewing forsook the beaten road of minor achievement +that winter, and labored toward the far, high peaks. In his own phrase, +the trail was rough and blind. Preceding climbers had not been +thoughtful to "blaze" it. But he grudged no effort while he had the +little man's applause. And this was not lacking, though it was discreet +applause, promoting no slothful content.</p> + +<p>It was Ewing who suggested that he paint under the criticism of +Sydenham. The little man looked at him in doubt, seeming to suspect a +jesting insincerity, then burst into hearty, hand-clapping laughter, +crying, "Splendid! An inspiration, indeed! On my word, I hadn't thought +of anything half so brilliant."</p> + +<p>And Ewing began to paint; to paint like Sydenham,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> if he might—cloud +studies, bits of street perspective, stretches of river, a realistic +view of the roofs from his window, with their water butts, chimney pots, +and clothes lines. Baldwin looked in once, and carried a word below to +the men who sold things: the word "Awful!" He also ventured a friendly +remonstrance to Ewing. "If you're going to paint, for God's sake go to +some man who knows how!"</p> + +<p>Ewing referred to Teevan's conviction that Sydenham was the ideal master +for him, and to the attested fact that Teevan knew painting and +painters.</p> + +<p>"Then I don't understand Teevan," was Baldwin's puzzled response.</p> + +<p>"But I'm coming on—Teevan says so."</p> + +<p>Baldwin ventured another look at the canvas in hand and fled below.</p> + +<p>Teevan was watchful and permitted few chances for meddling of this sort. +He contrived to be with Ewing most of the time when Sydenham was not. +And Ewing never tired of Sydenham. If they walked the streets together +the old man would direct his eye to some unnoticed felicity of color on +the walls that shut them in, to bits of enchanting perspective, to +subtle plays of light and shade in unpromising spots. Or if they sat +alone at night the painter told of color in the world beyond the sea; +how from the top of Mont Blanc the stars are seen at midday, points of +vivid light in a dark blue-violet field; of the purple nights of the +desert, the stars but an arrowshot above; of the cold, pale silvers of +dawn in the desert, and the heated gold and scarlet of evening; of the +impossible blue of the bay of Naples. His face glowed to such +youthfulness at these times that Ewing would forget his futile years +until the sigh came.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>"But I've always seen too much. Only the fountain of Juventius could +have given me time enough. I'm like the lad in the school-reader tale +who reached into the jar of nuts and tried to withdraw his hand +full—and lost them all."</p> + +<p>Between Ewing and Teevan there was even a new bond. Ewing discovered +that money inevitably left one's pocket in New York, even if it vanished +under auspices less violent and less obscure than Ben had so gloomily +feared. The steady dribble was quite as effective. When he awoke to this +great fiscal truth he saw that some condescension of effort would be +required. He must sell enough drawings to sustain him modestly. He +broached this regrettable necessity to Teevan, wishing the little man to +understand that, in making a few things for money, he was guilty of no +treachery to the Teevan ideal. But Teevan, much to his embarrassment, +had extended the full hand of bestowal.</p> + +<p>He was hurt when Ewing demurred; then annoyed that so petty an obstacle +should retard a progress so splendid. He never dared to suspect a +decadence in the resolution of his young friend.</p> + +<p>Ewing was cut by his distress, stung by his doubt, and persuaded by his +logic. He accepted Teevan's money, though not without instinctive +misgiving. There were moments when he traitorously wondered if it might +not be better for him to lack a friend with ideals so rigid. And more +than once he suffered the disquieting suspicion of some unreality in and +through it all—his intimacy with Teevan, and his desertion of a trail +whose beginnings, at least, he knew. There was sometimes a faint ring of +artificiality in the whole situation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> Yet Teevan's heartiness and his +certainty—the felicitous certainty of a star in its course—always +dispelled this vague unquiet, and at last it brought Ewing a new +pleasure to remember that an actual, material obligation—one increasing +at measured intervals—now existed between them.</p> + +<p>He had never spoken openly to Mrs. Laithe of his intimacy with Teevan. +The little man had conveyed his wish of this by indirect speech. He +would have liked to tell her of the solace and substantial benefits of +their comradeship, to dwell upon the shining merits of this whole-souled +but modest benefactor—for Teevan caused his charge to infer that a +shame of doing good openly inspired his hints—but he had, perforce, to +let the praise die unspoken.</p> + +<p>Nor did he speak often of Mrs. Laithe to Teevan, for the little man was +not only bitter as to woman's influence on the life artistic, but +inclined to hold the sex lightly, it seemed, in a much wider aspect. And +he spoke, Ewing was sure, out of a ripe experience. He had no difficulty +in detecting, under the little man's self-depreciating talk, that Teevan +had ever been a power among women, and was not even yet invincibly +averse to gallant adventure; not yet a man to be resisted. He was far +from bluntly confessing this, but sometimes, when the brandy was low in +the decanter, he would tacitly admit a romantic past; romantic, perhaps, +to the point of turbulence. And once, when there was no brandy left, he +spoke of specific affairs, particularly of one the breaking off of which +was giving him the devil's own worry.</p> + +<p>"Gad! She's bent on sacrificing everything for me!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>Ewing innocently murmured words about marriage as an honorable estate.</p> + +<p>"Marriage!" said Teevan, and Ewing blushed, noting his tone and the lift +of his brows.</p> + +<p>"Poor, silly, romantic fools!" sighed Teevan. "One would find it +difficult to say what they see in me, I fancy."</p> + +<p>Ewing murmured polite protestations. But less than ever did he feel +moved to speak of Mrs. Laithe to the little man. It did not seem +fitting. "Don Juan" had been among the verse with which the lake cabin +was supplied.</p> + +<p>Not even when Mrs. Laithe was taken off to Florida by her father did he +speak her name, though he was filled with her good-by to him. There had +seemed to be so much between them, and yet so little of it that could +come to words. But he carried for long the last look of her eyes, and he +set to his work with a new resolve. There was incentive enough. Teevan +never let him forget that he required signs and miracles, like the +doubting ones of old. And she—she knew he would perform them.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +<a name="xx" id="xx"></a>CHAPTER XX<br /> +<br /> +<small>A LADY BLUSHES</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">AS the winter wore on Ewing fell into doubt and dread. Vague enough they +were, but they rested on a sickening effect of emptiness, a time blank +of achievement. He still regarded Teevan as quite all of the seven +pillars of the house of wisdom. Yet instinct was rebelling. There were +tired afternoons when he hungered to eat of the fruit of his own way.</p> + +<p>This feeling could not but show in his occasional letters to Mrs. +Laithe. She read through all his protestations of cheerfulness to the +real dejection beneath them, and was both troubled and mystified, raging +at his secretiveness.</p> + +<p>When she returned to New York on a day in April and found a note from +Mrs. Lowndes asking her to dine that evening, she accepted with a plan +in mind. Before she saw Ewing she would try to learn something about him +from Sydenham, for Sydenham would also dine with Mrs. Lowndes, and she +knew that Ewing had been painting with the old man.</p> + +<p>She found Birley the other guest, and that, too, was customary. Birley +and Sydenham preserved for their hostess a certain aroma of her youth. +Both had wooed her in the long ago; Sydenham in a day when Long Branch +was. On its sands in the light of a July moon she had prettily hoped +they might always be friends. Birley had heard her intone the same +becoming sentiment at Saratoga later in the season. And both rejected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> +ones had been present at St. Paul's on a day in the following June when +Kitty Folsom and Jack Lowndes had consented together in holy wedlock.</p> + +<p>The girl's hope, perfunctory enough at the time, one may fear, had seen +long years of fruition. She liked to have them at her table now. Only, +when the three were alone, they remembered too vividly and became, in +the silences, too fantastically unlike their aged selves to the misty +eyes of one another. The one-time belle found a little of that +forgetting and remembering to be salutary, so little as ensued when a +fourth guest was present. And Eleanor Laithe had often been that fourth, +a saving reminder of the present, to recall them when they had loitered +far enough back into the old marrying years.</p> + +<p>But she came this night with a reason beyond her wish to please. So +eager was she to ask Sydenham about Ewing that she gave scant attention +to the searching looks and queries of Birley when she entered the +drawing room. The big man rallied her on her pallor and frailness, but +with a poor spirit that hardly concealed his real misgiving. She +silenced him with impatient denials of illness, but his eyes lingered +anxiously on her face.</p> + +<p>She sat at table with but half an ear for their old-time gossip, the +bantering gallantries of the aged swains, and the outworn coquetries of +the one-time beauty. And when they fell silent—oftener now than was +their wont, for each was thinking of that other Kitty Lowndes, who had +taken matters into her own hands—she forgot to make talk, silent +herself for thinking on the son of that Kitty. The dinner lacked the +sparkle she had been expected to give it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>As they were about to rise, after coffee, she playfully petitioned for a +chat with Sydenham.</p> + +<p>"Herbert wants to smoke, and I want to sit here with him. We need a +little talk together," she explained. And the other two left them, the +old lady leaning on the arm of Birley.</p> + +<p>Sydenham lighted a cigar, pushed his chair back, and faced the woman who +looked eagerly at him across the disordered table, her arms along its +edge, her head tilted to a questionable angle. She flew to her point.</p> + +<p>"What about Gilbert Ewing—what trouble is he having?"</p> + +<p>Sydenham stared vacantly. He seemed to find it necessary to translate +the question into some language of his own.</p> + +<p>"Trouble? Oh, all sorts—chrome and indigo, yellow ocher, burnt umber, +rose madder, Chinese white—composition, light and shade, vanishing +points. You'd have to be one of us to understand."</p> + +<p>"Other trouble," she insisted sharply—"personal—not about his +painting."</p> + +<p>Sydenham stared again, clutching his beard in a dazed search for +inspiration. He did not consider people apart from painting. It was +impossible that anyone should wish to discuss Ewing except in relation +to colors and canvas.</p> + +<p>"Well, he has trouble with everything—composition, tone-values, +everything."</p> + +<p>"But something <i>not</i> painting."</p> + +<p>He looked up at the ceiling helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Well, I fancy Randy Teevan worries him."</p> + +<p>"Randall Teevan!" She was amazed and alarmed at once.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>"Sometimes I get the idea that Randy badgers him, though they're thick +as thieves. The boy wouldn't breathe if Randy said it was bad for the +lungs."</p> + +<p>"How long have they been friends?"</p> + +<p>By quick, nervous, point-blank queries she drew from him all that he +knew of this intimacy. She puzzled over it.</p> + +<p>"Can he know?" She had not meant him to hear this, but he caught the +words, and betrayed something like human interest.</p> + +<p>"Trust Randy for that! I found it out myself. He had Kitty's +portrait—Kitty to the life—stunning brush work. Randy has begged the +picture of him for a while. I fancy he didn't want it hanging there for +others to see. And he found the fellow here one afternoon. Kitty told +me. She was nearly taken off her feet by his story but Randy happened in +and cooled things down. It's queer, Randy's setting himself to win over +the chap. It's a puzzle-mix. I wonder about it sometimes when the light +goes."</p> + +<p>She had listened in consternation, a rage for battle rising in her. She +was sure Teevan must have some end in view hurtful to Ewing. Yet this +was cunningly hidden. She was still puzzling over this when Sydenham +recalled her. He had forgotten Ewing, and studied the red light that +fell across the table through a shade of silk.</p> + +<p>"What fools we are to think of painting shadows! If heaven's the place +it's said to be they'll have real shadows put in up tubes, and +then—well, <i>think</i> of it!"</p> + +<p>She laughed at him, her brief laugh, with a sigh to follow.</p> + +<p>"We must go to the others. But, Herbert, you'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> watch him as well as +you can, won't you? I feel responsible for him in a way."</p> + +<p>He hesitated, but the light came. "Oh, you mean Ewing? Of course I'll +watch him. I dare say he'll paint some day, after a fashion." He fumbled +for the knob and awkwardly opened the door for her.</p> + +<p>When the men went Mrs. Laithe asked if she might not linger a moment.</p> + +<p>"Dear Aunt Kitty!" she said, going to the other's chair. "<i>Old</i> Kitty!" +she repeated meaningly. The elder woman glanced quickly at her in faint +alarm, half questioning, half defiant.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Aunt Kitty! I know—I <i>know</i>! and I must talk of him. I suspected +something almost from the first, and then I made sure. But I thought +that perhaps no one else would find it out. And he was worth it—he is +worth it. I couldn't have left him there, even if I'd been sure that +everyone would know. He was a man—he had the right to live."</p> + +<p>"My child, my child! Oh, you didn't know what you were doing! It was a +monstrous thing, an impossible thing!"</p> + +<p>"He's Kitty's son. You must feel for him."</p> + +<p>"Feel? What haven't I felt since that day he came here?" There had been +a break in her voice, but she went quietly on. "I can't make you know, +dear. You've torn me—it will hurt to the end. Can you understand that +in a terrible, an unspeakable way, my Kitty is still alive, is near me, +and yet is not to be known? But you can't understand it. You've never +had a child."</p> + +<p>"Ah! but I've been one. I know what he would feel."</p> + +<p>"Please, dear!" She put up a hand in protest. "As if I don't feel his +hurt and Kitty's as well as mine. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> shall be ground between the two +every day of my life. Do you think my old arms didn't cry out to be +around the mother in him? But think if I had yielded! Picture his own +suffering—his own shame. Can you see us meeting, our eyes falling? Even +for his own sake, he must never know."</p> + +<p>"Isn't there a way, Aunt Kitty? Some way? He's worth finding a way for." +She leaned over to stroke the other's hand.</p> + +<p>"No way, my girl. Be the world a moment, be cool. He's a nameless thing. +You might know him, but nothing more. Could he make a life? Could a +woman—come, face it without prejudice—could you see your own sister +marry him?" Mrs. Laithe looked blank.</p> + +<p>"You see how impossible it is. You, yourself, could <i>you</i> stand before +the world with him? Could you face the shame?"</p> + +<p>The younger woman dropped the hand she held and turned away. The elder +regarded her shrewdly.</p> + +<p>"There—you see how impossible——"</p> + +<p>But the other faced her suddenly, clear-eyed and defiant, her head back.</p> + +<p>"Eleanor!" It was a cry of consternation that was yet softened by +tenderness, an amazed but comprehending tenderness, for the face of the +younger woman was incarnadined, flagrantly, splendidly.</p> + +<p>A moment they held each other. But there was no mistaking the thing, +for, though the blush had quickly faded, an after glow lingered.</p> + +<p>The older woman rose quickly to throw her arms about the other.</p> + +<p>"My mad, mad child!" She stood off to search her face incredulously.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>"He's alone, Aunt Kitty, and he's so defenseless. He believes in +everyone more than in himself. He'll be cured of that some time, but +just now I'm his only defender. Others are against him or stand neutral +with talk of the 'world.' I can't blame you, dear, I think you must be +right for yourself. But when he does awaken"—she narrowed her eyes on +the other a moment in calculation—"then I shan't be ashamed to have him +know it was always safe to believe in me—whether he was boy or man or +no one at all—or less than no one. I'd never bother about names, +dear—I'd never bother about names."</p> + +<p>She smiled and drew the other close with little reassuring caresses. +"You see names aren't much—the directory is full of them, and dreary +enough reading they'd make. No, I'd not care for that. I'd only ask that +he believe in himself as much as I believe in him, and care as little +for names. And I warn you I mean to help him to that if I can."</p> + +<p>The eyes of the other sparkled now. There was in her glance the excited +admiration of a timid child who watches a reckless playmate dare some +dark passage of evil repute for goblins.</p> + +<p>"You mad—dear mad girl!" she said.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +<a name="xxi" id="xxi"></a>CHAPTER XXI<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE DRAMA IN NINTH STREET</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">EWING knew that his lady had come back. She had sent him a note the +first day: "I am dining to-night with an old friend. But come to-morrow +night."</p> + +<p>The next day, while he was saying, "To-night I shall see her—actually +see her...." there had come another note in her careless, scrawled +writing: "I find, after all, that I shall be engaged to-night. Can you +not come to-morrow night instead? I am eager for a talk with you."</p> + +<p>"Could" he come! He laughed as he put the thing tenderly away. Could he +come, indeed! Could he stay away?</p> + +<p>But early in the evening of that same forbidden day he walked to Ninth +Street, entering that thoroughfare furtively. He might not see her for +another day, but at least he could look fondly at the door by which she +had entered, and gaze on the stanch house that enfolded her, even on the +steps that must have felt her light, quick tread, perhaps within the +hour.</p> + +<p>These things would help him to believe in her actuality—she had so come +to seem but a dream lady to him.</p> + +<p>Thrice he passed the house on the opposite side of the street. A dim +light glowed through the curtained windows. Beyond them, he thought, she +would be talking; laughing, perhaps; perhaps even thinking of him at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> +that very moment as she gazed absently at some speaker who thought to +have her attention. If only she, too, could be counting the hours! But +that was too unlikely. He warned himself not to imagine that. He +recalled some of Teevan's speeches about women—"Shallow, pretty fools, +for man's amusing—the Oriental alone, my boy, has a sane theory of +women; creatures to be kept as choice cabinet bits—under lock and key." +Poor Teevan, not to have known the one woman who could have illumined +his darkness! Poor Teevan, indeed! He idly wondered if his affair—that +troublesome affair of which the little man had spoken so feelingly—had +been "broken off."</p> + +<p>He slowly walked once more past the Bartell house, beholding a splendid +vision of himself as he would leap up those steps the next evening. Then +he continued on past Teevan's house, regarding that, also, with great +kindness. He stopped a little beyond this, meaning to return. As he did +so the door opened and a woman came out. He thought there was something +furtive in her glance up and down the street as she paused to gather up +her skirts. Then something familiar in the feminine grace of that +movement chained him. Surely, but one person had ever done the thing in +just that way. There could be no other. He stood staring while she came +down the steps and into the light of a street lamp. It was Mrs. Laithe, +walking briskly now, toward her own home. He could not mistake that +free-swinging, level, deliberate stride, with the head so finely up.</p> + +<p>He almost cried out to her in his gladness. He felt as a lost child who +wildly claims its own again in some crowded street. He walked back +quickly, watching her until her own door swallowed her up.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>He felt a lively rejoicing. The unpromising evening had done well by him +after all. Thinking but to look tenderly at a house front he had +veritably seen his lady—watched her with secret, unrestrained fondness. +He had an impulse to follow now and demand her at the door. But he +remembered in time; she would be engaged and he would see her soon. That +long look was adventure enough for one night.</p> + +<p>But he could ring Teevan's bell. That would be a fine thing to do, for +Teevan had seen her. Teevan would speak of her, little knowing how his +words were hungered for. He was admitted and found the little man on the +hearth rug in the library, talking to himself with great animation. He +showed surprise, but his welcome was warmer than usual, Ewing thought. +He seated his guest and proffered him brandy, pouring a glass for +himself from a decanter almost empty. As he drank he beamed shrewdly on +Ewing—kindly but shrewdly. "He must have seen her—he must have seen +her ..." the little man was saying. Then a vagrant, elfish vanity smote +him. He smiled inscrutably on Ewing—Ewing, who had been waiting to say +lightly, "I happened to see Mrs. Laithe leaving...." But he did not say +this, for the little man's smile came to life in speech.</p> + +<p>"Gad! my boy—I'm deuced glad you came. You can make me forget a most +distressing half hour I've just gone through."</p> + +<p>The light in Ewing's eyes changed perceptibly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, these women!" grumbled Teevan pleasantly, with the fine, humorous +resignation of a persecuted gallant.</p> + +<p>"Women—women?" muttered Ewing, slightly aghast. Teevan's heart beat +blithely within his breast.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>"Silly, romantic fools! What <i>do</i> they see in a man of my years?" He +flourished a gesture of magnificent deprecation. "I think I once +mentioned a very irksome affair—" How he blessed, now, that bit of +boasting, vague and aimless at the time! "The lady, I blush to say it, +becomes exigent. But I'm rightly served. Heaven knows I've seen enough +of that sort of thing to know how it ends. But come"—he rose to a +livelier manner—"I shouldn't bore you with a matter I'm half ashamed +of, man of the world as I am. You'll sound the ennui of it, all in your +own good time, when you've lost a few of those precious illusions." He +broke off to ring, and directed the man to replenish the decanter.</p> + +<p>Ewing gazed stupidly at him, failing of speech. The little man drank +again when the brandy came, and Ewing wondered if he could be drunk. He +feared not. The men he had known in the hills were noisy in drink—they +chiefly yelled. And Teevan was quiet. If his eyes stared vacantly at +intervals, if he clipped syllables from his words, and seemed to attack +his speech with extreme caution, those might be only the results of his +emotion. But what monstrous stuff was this he uttered! What unbelievable +stuff! In a fever of apprehension he wondered what Teevan would say +next.</p> + +<p>But the little man dismissed woman, dismissed her with an exquisite +shrug, to speak of his young friend's work, and of painting at large.</p> + +<p>"A suggestion of the true manner in that late thing of yours, my boy, +really, a hint of Dupré, and he was a colorist of the first rank. And +there are fewer colorists, genuine masters of tone, than you'd think. +Turner was one, to be sure, but Millet had a restricted sense of color. +Corot was great only within a narrow range.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> Rousseau was only a bit +broader, robuster. There's a wretchedly defective color sense in many of +the old masters, and in heaven knows how many of the young ones. France +must take the blame for that, I'm sure you'd agree with me. The academic +sentiment there runs to form and against color. They insist that +colorists do little work. It's not an unplausible sophism. One has only +to begin counting to see that—counting the host of little niggling, +mechanical stipplers it's responsible for. It's true, color has its +pitfalls and its gins. There's a temptation to shirk form. Many an +aspiring colorist has become at last a mushy mannerist, as vicious in +his influence as the chaps who never get beyond smart drawing and clever +grouping." The little man was "squeezing" his eyes now as if he judged a +row of paintings. He talked on and drank frequently.</p> + +<p>But Ewing left as soon as he could do so. Teevan pressed his hand with +rare cordiality at parting, as if Ewing were one person in the world +still worthy of belief. He wandered blindly home, awkwardly trying to +mold this new chaos into an understandable scheme of things. He fell +instinctively back on his studies of the drama.</p> + +<p>Many nights he had sat before the painted curtain to feast a questing +mind on the life it lifted to reveal. He had found its revelations more +intimate, more specific, than those of the life outside, and he had +seemed to learn many things. Lacking this study he would not have +divined that actual men and women might be leading lives of domestic +adventure, of romantic vicissitude, of sinister intrigue, lives crowded +with love and hate and fear and a thousand lawless complexities.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>He had studied the street crowds in the light thus thrown on their inner +motives. It had been a fine thing to detect the plotting scoundrel under +the placid, dissembling mask of some fellow who bought an evening paper +and boarded a street car with elaborate airs of innocence; to probe the +secret of the unhappy wife whose white face stared blankly from a +passing brougham; to identify the handsome but never culpable hero, +unconscious of third-act toils tightening about him; to know the +persecuted heroine, or the manly but comic chap who loved her with +exquisite restraint, divining that she could never be his.</p> + +<p>But, though he had stripped the masks from these mummers in the street +crowds, and read their secrets of guilt or innocence, he had not +supposed that the people he actually knew could be leading lives +complicated in that way. And if Teevan had talked, then Teevan must have +been drunk. He would see her to-morrow night, and she would speak +casually of her call at Teevan's upon some trifling errand.</p> + +<p>Yet, when night came again and he stood in her presence, the first +devouring look at her shocked him momentarily out of all thought of +Teevan's maunderings. She was drooping and wasted and flatly pale. He +scarcely knew her face, with the eyes burning at him from black rings. +He took her hand, nursing it gently, standing helpless and hurt before +her.</p> + +<p>"You are so changed," he said fearfully, "so changed! Oh, you are so +changed!"</p> + +<p>But she laughed with her familiar gayety, tossing her head in denial. He +still scanned her face. Some resemblance there, some sinister memory of +her look on another face, was stirring him. He could almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> remember +what it meant. At last her eyes fell before his and she drew her hand +quickly away.</p> + +<p>"Really, I won't have any talk of myself. I hear too much of that. I'm a +bit run down, that's all. We found Florida enervating. Even dad was +affected by it and forgot his philosophy. So, an end to that. I must +hear of you, of your work."</p> + +<p>She sat down, drawing a white scarf about her shoulders, and leaning +toward him in the old inviting way.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what you have done—everything there is to tell about it."</p> + +<p>All at once he remembered.</p> + +<p>"Last night," he began uneasily—"I wanted to see you last night—"</p> + +<p>"You couldn't have seen me last night." She smiled in a way that brought +out all the weak, wasted look of her face. "I was busy—I was trying to +adjust something that has troubled me more than I can tell you."</p> + +<p>He stared at her, incredulous, believing he could not have heard.</p> + +<p>"... an affair that has worried me," she repeated, noticing his blank +look.</p> + +<p>Stupefied as he was, he felt a great pity rush over him, an instant +longing to be her knight and give battle for her—to be her squire, if +she herself must be knight. Yet, if Teevan had spoken truly must it not +be a thing in which he was powerless to help her ever so little? A +sudden sickness of rage came over him at thought of Teevan. He had +almost made a jest of her.</p> + +<p>He could not talk of himself after that. She could get nothing from him +of his own worries, though she could see that he had these in abundance. +At last she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> tired of striving against him and let him go, out of sheer +longing for the touch of his hand at parting. He had regarded her with a +moody, almost savage tenderness that made her weak.</p> + +<p>As he walked home he felt new to the streets again. They were strange +streets in a strange world. But one thing he was sure of; one thing +stood clearly out of the puzzle: he must not intrude, must not bother +her; must not see her often. In a drama so alien to him he could not act +without direction. He knew his own longing too well to trust himself. He +sat a long time with his arms clasped across his breast. The anguish in +it seemed physical; it was as if a beast were devouring his heart.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> +<a name="xxii" id="xxii"></a>CHAPTER XXII<br /> +<br /> +<small>A REVOLT</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">HE turned furiously to his work, but, as the summer came on, he realized +that he was working with a desperation entirely heartless. He was not +only sure, now, that he had taken a wrong road, but that nameless +distress of his lady had left his desire benumbed. A fountain had gone +dry in him.</p> + +<p>At the beginning of the warm days he went into the country on sketching +trips with Sydenham. To vales and little rivers north of the city, to +flat, green stretches on Long Island, to the Jersey hills, they had gone +with sketch traps wherever trolley or steam car could find Nature +quickly for them.</p> + +<p>Ewing had looked forward to this. He had felt hampered in the studio, +where he must pass whole days in futile messing with colors, in rash +trials of this or that trick of tint, like an idling schoolboy playing +with slate and pencil. Once in the open, he had felt, there would +quickly show forth those gifts which Teevan was certain he possessed.</p> + +<p>But day by day these excursions with the old painter had brought him to +believe that he had lost his way. That trick of color was not to be +learned, it was clear, by rough-and-ready advances. Teevan, who was ever +watchful of him, who betrayed, indeed, a strange little jealousy of any +other influence than his own, scanned his first studies eagerly, and +turned an inscrutable face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> on his young friend. He did not praise +loosely; he did not condemn outright. And he talked not too specifically +of the canvases before him. He showed little consciousness of a change +in the demeanor of his disciple, though Ewing's eye rested on him with a +long, unaccountable regard. Perhaps the boy was turning a little sullen. +This amused him. Meanwhile, the youth stood aghast before the dreadful +thing he saw in his heart. Hatred of a benefactor! All the good in him +struggled against it; all his gratitude pleaded with him to be fair to +the friend he had revered so long. Teevan talked more of Corot or +Constable, Diaz or Millet than he talked of Ewing; and the young man +came at last to the amazing conclusion not only that he was on a wrong +road, but that Teevan knew it—that the little man must long have known +it. This put him again in that rage of impotence that had seized him in +those last days at the League. But he bore it longer now. He felt there +was something final about this.</p> + +<p>There were long days in the open to think on it, weigh it, and wring the +meaning from it. Sydenham placidly criticised his work; but Sydenham +could not feel his tragedy of defeat. A man who, at seventy, suffered +his own despairs with the poignant ecstasy of youth, could not take a +boy's failings seriously. Ewing now saw, moreover—for he was beginning +to use another pair of eyes than Teevan's—that Sydenham himself was a +hopeless mannerist, a color-mad voluptuary, painting always +subjectively, refusing all but the merest hints from his subject.</p> + +<p>His last day of confessed futility, his last hour of inner rebellion, +came early in June. He carried his sketch trap out that day, but did not +unpack it. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> lay, instead, pondering, resolving, raging, while +Sydenham, a little distance off, delicately corrected the errors of +Nature in a vista of meadow. Ewing chewed the juicy ends of long-stemmed +grasses and made phrases of disparagement for this sketch of Sydenham's, +picturing himself with the courage to utter them. He told himself +frankly what he thought of the old man's work—his "brush doddering," he +nerved himself to call it.</p> + +<p>Immensely refreshed by this exercise in brutality, he rolled over on his +grassy bed to follow the shade of the oak under which he lay, and +dramatized a meeting with Teevan, in which the little man strangely +listened more than he spoke. He uttered his mind again concerning the +work of Sydenham, the master Teevan had prescribed, asserting that +unsuspecting toiler to be hopelessly "locoed" in the matter of color. He +saw Teevan's fine brows go elegantly up at this term, and he explained +it to him with a humble sort of boldness.</p> + +<p>From this he warmed to sheer audacity, disclosing further to his +imagined hearer that the time had come for him to go his own way—still +grateful for advice, still yearning for that friendly intimacy, but +determined to be done with dreams. He saw Teevan applauding this mild +declaration of revolt, with his fine, dark little smile, and a courteous +inclination of the head, and he thereupon amplified it. He must go back +to himself and stay there stubbornly, wheresoever that self led him. +Millet might have a restricted sense of color, Corot might have had his +faults, and Rousseau have been less than Teevan could have wished him; +but these were dead men. And Ewing was alive, determined to do those +things that permitted him to feel the little power he might have. He was +through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> with efforts that brought him nothing but a sense of the folly +of all effort. And it was to this conviction, he made it plain, that his +amazed but still respectful listener had led him. He worked himself into +a glow of defiant self-assertion, feeling his own respect, and Teevan's +as well, mounting with his heat.</p> + +<p>When the light faded he strolled over to look at Sydenham's sketch, bent +on testing his self-inspired temerity.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if you've gotten that sky?" he began judicially, as the old +man invited his comment. Sydenham looked up in some surprise, but +Ewing's eyes were still on the sketch.</p> + +<p>"Too gray above, isn't it? I thought the gray was only down near the +horizon. By the way, I wish I'd roughed in that cow for you. A cow isn't +the easiest thing in the world to draw. They look easy, but they're not. +That bit of stone wall isn't bad, and your clover effect is first rate." +He paused. He had meant only to practice speaking his own mind against +the next interview with Teevan. He did not want to hurt Sydenham. The +latter was roping his stool and easel together. He had been a little +amazed at his pupil's outburst, but he looked up with a smile entirely +placid.</p> + +<p>"That's the way they all say it. You've caught the trick of art +criticism, my boy, if you've caught nothing else."</p> + +<p>Ewing saw that he was laughed at. There was a cool little flash to his +retort.</p> + +<p>"I can make that into a real cow for you, if you like, after we get +home."</p> + +<p>But the old man only chuckled at him, making him regret that he had ever +so little curbed his criticism.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> He had an impulse to fight, a craving +to arouse resistance. But he saw that Sydenham was no target for him, +save in a sort of subcaliber practice. He hoped this novel combativeness +would not wither under the first glance of Teevan's sharp little eyes.</p> + +<p>It was dusk when they reached the city, and Ewing went to the Monastery +to dine. He had long shunned the place, for the men there talked of +things they had done or were doing, and they had made him, without +meaning to, feel "out of it," as he told himself. For he, if he talked, +could tell only of wonders he meant to do, and, lacking an audience +composed of Teevans, he was shrewd enough to see that these would sound +too wonderful and the future too distantly vague.</p> + +<p>He had always been glad, however, of his drawing on the east wall. They +could not believe him wholly lacking after that, nor refuse him +fellowship if he sought it. He avoided the crowd when he entered the +room—the men he knew best were at a long table on the rear veranda just +outside the open windows—and chose a small table opposite his drawing. +He had thought of it often during the afternoon while he harangued +Teevan in imagination. It had occurred to him that this was the only +thing he had really done since coming to New York, and he had been +seized with a longing to look at it again, to prove to his own eyes that +the thing which was really his own—not Corot's nor Millet's nor even +Sydenham's—was not an inconsiderable thing, not a thing he need despair +of building on.</p> + +<p>As he ate, his eyes eagerly retraced the lines. After the soup he had to +look down to his plate to know if his fork brought him fish or flesh. +The sketch delighted him. He was surprised that he had been able to do +it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> He began to doubt his present mastery of the technique it +displayed, fearing he had wandered too long in the Teevan-prescribed +maze, dawdled too long in the little man's palace of illusions. One +thing he knew: he would not dare mount a table and try another such +drawing before them all. He had done this one as unthinkingly as he +would have saddled a horse or sighted a rifle, indifferent to observers. +It rushed upon him sickeningly that all his association with Teevan had +tended to destroy his belief in himself. The coffee found him +afraid—ragingly afraid.</p> + +<p>The voices from the group outside came to him murmurously, and at +intervals he would listen to the careless, bantering talk. One voice +related that its wielder had smoked opium in Cairo. He heard cries of +mock horror, and the drawl of Chalmers—"Cairo—that's where the +'streets' come from." Griggs was presently extolling some ancient and +wonderful sherry. "Great stuff! You take a sip and you don't swallow +it—it just floats off through your being like a golden mist. He only +has about a dozen bottles—out of a lot that was put down for Napoleon +or somebody in 1830." Baldwin's voice floated in: "All right, old man, +but they had to put it down a long way to reach Napoleon in 1830."</p> + +<p>There was a laugh at this, and it came to the lone listener as the +care-free echo of a world he had tried for and lost. Lost thus far—but +there was farther to go, other days to live, other wise men to counsel +with. He could have believed it heartily, if it were not for that +thought of Mrs. Laithe, the thought that was always like a beast +devouring his heart. Meantime, if he could only have a breathing spell, +some days of quiet. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> wished his own hills were not so far away. He +was sure that a little time back in the cabin studio would give him his +old bearings.</p> + +<p>His thought ran to Mrs. Laithe's brother, who had come to town the week +before, bronzed and bearded and violent with enthusiasm for his Western +life. He decided that a talk with Bartell would be tonic to his mood; +the bare mention of familiar names and places would hearten him—of the +Wimmenuche and Bar-7, Old Baldy and Dry Fork. And perhaps he had seen +Ben lately; the two might even have driven down to Pagosa together.</p> + +<p>And it would be an excuse for seeing her. For two months he had sought +her only thus, with something he could hold in his mind as an excuse, +for he was abashed by that nameless thing that troubled her, and +troubled, as well, the little man who had meant so much to him—for +Teevan, when the brandy was low, continued to speak of women.</p> + +<p>He walked quickly round to the house in Ninth Street, where he asked for +Bartell. But only Mrs. Laithe was at home. This embarrassed him, great +as was his solicitude for her. She had sought his confidence more than +once of late, but he could not tell her of doubts only half defined, of +fears vague to absurdity, of anxieties that might well be baseless. He +thought that now he could have talked, finding her alone, but for once +she seemed rather curiously preoccupied. They sat together in the +library with only a half light, the two windows opened for random +breezes. Suddenly, as her face was toward him, dim though the light was, +he caught the look that had troubled him so hauntingly in the spring. He +knew that look now; it was the look he had seen on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> his father's face in +the last year of his life—the look of a spirit divesting itself of the +flesh.</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> ill," he said, trying to speak lightly under his sudden +alarm. "Let me have a better look at you." He turned the light to a full +blaze. Her wonted paleness was warmed to a sinister flush about the eyes +and the upper face, and, though her eyes flashed bravely at him in +denial, the bones were sharp above her hollowed cheeks, and her once +rounded chin had become lean. She shivered as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"I'm a little exhausted by the heat; nothing more. Lower the light, +please. I don't care to be studied just now."</p> + +<p>"But I know you're not well. You ought to go off some place. Get out to +pasture at once. You've been 'over-packed,' kept too long on the trail."</p> + +<p>"You, too? They all say it. It's so easy to say."</p> + +<p>"And easy to do."</p> + +<p>"It's hard to do, and yet I'm afraid I must. I've felt that I ought to +be here with my charges—you have been one of them." She brightened with +a sudden inspiration. "You need rest yourself. Your face shows it. +You've been depressed a long time, you are worried now. Let us both +rest. My aunt up at Kensington has wanted me there—the aunt my sister +is with. She'd be glad to have you as well. It's a big house and she +likes young people. There! Will you go with me?"</p> + +<p>She rose, waiting, electrified, for his answer. Instantly he felt that +he wished this above all things. There he could find himself, fortify +his soul for any number of Teevans—perhaps fortify her own.</p> + +<p>"I'll go," he answered heartily. "It will be good for us both."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>She fell into her chair with a long "Ah!" then she gave the purring +little laugh, like that of a child made happy. "We shall go for two +blessed weeks and forget this place with its wretched tangles."</p> + +<p>"I'm your man!" he said, rising and taking her hand with his old boyish +enthusiasm. "Can we start early?"</p> + +<p>She kept her hand in his while she laughed again. "The train goes from +the Grand Central at one. I'll wire Aunt Joyce."</p> + +<p>Outside Ewing met Bartell, but he did not talk of the San Juan.</p> + +<p>"You must see to your sister," he said. "She looks the way my father +did. You ought to get her out of here. She's going off for two weeks, +but that won't set her right. Go look at her!"</p> + +<p>Bartell found his sister where Ewing had left her.</p> + +<p>"Well, Nell, how is it now? What did Birley say?"</p> + +<p>She stirred impatiently in her chair. "He wouldn't commit himself. He +told me to rest away from here for two weeks and then come back to see a +specialist he'd send me to, a man who knows—such things."</p> + +<p>"I just met Ewing—he spoke of how badly you look. I'm worried, Nell. +You're not going to be left here."</p> + +<p>"I must tell you something, dear—oh, a ghastly joke, if ever there was +one: You know that one death trap of a tenement I've had so much trouble +with——"</p> + +<p>"Where all those consumptives were? Yes."</p> + +<p>"They've died there like sheep. I had it inspected—I wanted to have the +owner compelled to build it over or something, but we always found that +the law had been cunningly met with—not the spirit of it, but the +letter. The airshafts and drains were bad enough to kill, but not bad +enough to hurt the owner. Yesterday I determined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> to find out who the +owner was, to make a personal appeal. I was willing to buy the place +myself."</p> + +<p>She stopped in a fit of coughing, a dry, hard, tearing cough that left +her exhausted.</p> + +<p>"Well, Sis?"</p> + +<p>"I went to the agents—this will make you cry or laugh; I did both—and +I found they were my agents—the house was my house."</p> + +<p>"Poor Sis!"</p> + +<p>"One of those Dick left—<i>mine</i>, you understand. I've been spending the +blood of those people, eating, wearing, amusing myself with it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and going down there to get caught in the same trap. I don't see +anything funny about that."</p> + +<p>"Alden Teevan would. I must tell him of it—my own dungeon closing in on +me."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! You're morbid, girl. Tenements have got to be dirty. Trinity +Church itself has a fine bunch of the worst kind."</p> + +<p>"I'm not a church, dear. This tenement is coming down. I gave orders +to-day."</p> + +<p>"Well, you stay away from it. You're in bad shape, my girl."</p> + +<p>"Two weeks at Kensington will put me right."</p> + +<p>"Two weeks nothing! See here, if you act up, I'll rope you and hustle +you out to the ranch and close herd you there for about six months."</p> + +<p>She smiled weakly at him.</p> + +<p>"I shall be all right, dear—but you can help me upstairs now."</p> + +<p>"Too tired for a roof garden?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid so."</p> + +<p>"Or a broiled lobster?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>"Not to-night, dear."</p> + +<p>He helped her up the stairs, alternately scolding her for her weakness +and protesting that broiled lobsters were all that kept him from +forgetting the existence of Manhattan.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> +<a name="xxiii" id="xxiii"></a>CHAPTER XXIII<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE LITTLE LAND</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">EWING found Kensington like a village dropped from the clouds of +stageland, its wide, grass-bordered streets arched with giant elms and +flanked by square old houses, drowsing behind their flower gardens and +green lawns. The house to which he went was equally a stage house. Only +in that land of pretense had he seen its like: a big, square, gray +house, its drab slate roof and red chimneys all but hidden by the elms +that towered above it like mammoth feather dusters, its wide piazzas +screened from the street by a hoary hedge of lilac. The house seemed to +drowse in a comfortable lethargy, confident of the rectitude of builders +long dead who had roughhewn its beams and joined them with wooden pins +before a day of nails. In Ewing's own room, far up between the hunched +shoulders of the house, the windows gave closely on one of the elms, so +that he could hear its whispers night and morning from his canopied bed +of four posts. The other rooms were broad and low of ceiling, and there +were long, high-backed sofas, slim-legged chairs, and tables of mahogany +or rosewood, desks, cabinets, and highboys of an outlandish grace, that +charmed with hints of a mellowed past—of past overlaying past in +sleeping strata.</p> + +<p>The woman whose house this was seemed to Ewing to be its true spirit. +She, too, drowsed anciently, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> thing of old lace and lavender, yet of a +certain gentle and antique sprightliness, of cheeks preserving a hint of +time-worn pink, mellowed like the scrap of her flowered wedding dress +shut between the leaves of an "Annual" half a century old.</p> + +<p>And Ewing found in the house, too, the girl who had once talked half an +hour with him by an exigent tea table. She had been a thing of shy +restraint then, showing with an almost old-fashioned simplicity against +her background of townish sophistication. Now he found her demurely +modern in this huddle of mellowed relics. She it was who interpreted for +him the antique mysteries of house and town. She paraded before him the +treasures of her aunt, from the pewter plates and silver-gilt candelabra +to camphor-scented brocades long hidden in cedar chests in the ghostly +attic. But she performed her office with irreverence; as when, in the +attic's gloom, she held the festal gown of some departed +great-grandmother before her own robust figure to show how tiny were +grandmothers in those days, for the yoke but a little more than half +spanned her breadth as she smirked above it in scorn of its narrowness.</p> + +<p>In that subdued light the girl's skin was flawless, her eyes were shaded +to murkiness, and a mote-ridden shaft of sunlight struck her hair to a +radiant yellow. But out of doors these matters could be seen to another +effect. The hair was only a yellowish brown, the eyes lost their shadows +and became the lucid green of sea waves, and the face was spotted with +tiny freckles, like a bird's egg. He liked her best out of doors, +breathing as she did of wood and field and sky. Skirts she seemed to +wear under protest, as a wood nymph might humor, a little awkwardly, the +prejudice of an indoor tribe with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> which she chose to tarry. When she +raced over the lawn with her dog, it was not hard to see that clothing +was an ungraceful impediment, even the short-skirted gowns she wore by +day. In the longer affairs of evening, though she strove to subdue her +spirits to them, she still had an air of the open, as if she but played +at being a lady and might forget at any moment. Ewing was shyer of her +when evening brought this change of habit. At such times he found it +easier to talk to Mrs. Laithe, who sat—or, oftener, lay—with her eyes +turned from the light, speaking but little.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to be away from town," she said to him, as he sat a moment +beside her one day, "and I'm glad you're away. I need to be quiet, and +you shall do as you like. Virginia will go about with you and make you +gay. Virginia always makes us gay."</p> + +<p>Unconsciously her hand had fallen on his sleeve, curling and fastening +there, and when he rose he was disturbed to see that he had shaken off +so tender a thing.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you were holding me," he said, in apology, and lifted the +fallen hand.</p> + +<p>"Such foolish hands! Your sister's are tiny, too, but they look as if +they could turn a doorknob." He leisurely turned it this way and that to +see its lines, and compared the fingernails with his own to show how +absurd they were. And all the time it seemed to the woman that her hand +had a little heart in it that was beating to suffocation.</p> + +<p>"There, Virginia is beckoning to you from the path—perhaps you can +finish my hand another time." She laughed. "I hope you're not seriously +annoyed about it."</p> + +<p>"It's foolish," he insisted, and replaced it with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> elaborate care. Then +he ran to join his ruddy cicerone. He found the girl a good comrade, who +helped him to forget those things he wished to forget. Somehow in the +quiet air, that nameless secret thing that had been eating his heart +drew off a little. Almost he could believe it had all been some hideous +mistake.</p> + +<p>He tried at first to join Virginia in her sports. Tennis looked +foolishly easy, but after sending four of the balls beyond recovery he +suspected that the game might demand something more than willingness and +strength, and relinquished his racquet to watch the girl. He felt the +glow of the sport in following her swift movements, and he envied the +young men who could play with her.</p> + +<p>Golf looked not only easy but useless; and it was with only half a heart +that he essayed it. He splintered a driver at his first attempt, and he +did not venture a second. Still, he liked golf better than tennis, he +decided, for he could carry the bag of things she played with and hunt +lost balls, and wander over the course alone with her. He was never able +to believe that a stroke more or less in holing the ball could be a +matter of real moment, but the girl was worth watching while she +believed it. He had never seen a real girl near before, and he was +surprised to find it so fine a sight.</p> + +<p>In the canoe he was more successful, contriving to accomplish by sheer +strength of arm what the girl did more adroitly. They would paddle far +up the little river, to float down in the late afternoon. The river, +too, was a stage river, running between low, willow-fringed banks, or +winding among hay fields that sloped back to the upland, or lush green +meadows where cows were posed effectively. The girl became part of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> +picture when they turned to float homeward, facing him from the bow, her +hair glinting yellow and her skin crystal clear against the crimson +cushion she leaned upon.</p> + +<p>They rode together, too—he could join her there—over the upland and +far into the little hills, between tangled hedge rows, past little farms +with orchards of ripening fruit. They passed many deserted places, +mournful in their stagnation, overgrown with wild things, the houses +forlornly dismantled, perhaps with the roof sunken, the chimney toppled, +and the weather-beaten walls in ruinous decay. He was touched by these +places. The houses must have been built with high hope, and once have +been alive with full-hearted effort. Their walls had enclosed dreams and +joyous dramas. Then discouragement had fallen and the search for another +place of beginning. He wondered what had become of all the people who +had built these homes. He hoped they had begun in another place with +undimmed resolve and had found peace. Yet there were sinister hints that +their ghosts haunted these spots of their first failures, beseeching of +the ruins something of the first freshness of impulse.</p> + +<p>He tried to tell Virginia Bartell that he, too, was like a deserted +farm, falling into ruin. But this only made her laugh. She could not +believe in failure, it seemed. And he laughed with her, after a little. +It was not possible, after all, to suppose that he could go on being a +ruin forever. These frustrated home makers must have succeeded at last, +and so would he. In some manner the girl herself became an assurance of +this. Her mere buoyancy uplifted him.</p> + +<p>These times alone with the girl were not always to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> had for the +asking. There abounded other youths who prized her companionship; able, +dauntless youths and skilled with accomplishments.</p> + +<p>There was one of these, a tall young man, spectacled, of a high shiny +forehead, a student of a youth, who haunted the gray house like a +malignant wraith of erudition, and condescended to the girl almost as +flagrantly as he did to Ewing. His talk, whether of machinery or morals, +socialism or chemistry, was meant to instruct. Wherefore the girl slunk +from him, not always so skilfully as might have been wished—with far +less subtlety, indeed, than her aunt wished.</p> + +<p>"I'm almost certain you offended him this afternoon," she remarked on a +day when they had fled flagrantly to the river, "though why you should +wish to avoid him is beyond me. You know that he's from one of the very +oldest families in West Roxbury." The girl's tone was penitent as she +answered: "But I'd promised to go in the canoe with Mr. Ewing." There +was no penitence, however, in the look she flashed at Ewing over her +aunt's shoulder, daring him to prove if he were a man. He nerved himself +in the glance.</p> + +<p>"But you see, Mrs. Ranley, I'm from one of the very oldest families in +Hinsdale County, Colorado." The girl applauded him with her eyes, and +the incident was closed with a word of mild gratification from the old +lady. She was pleased to observe that he felt a family pride, even +though any county in Colorado was, of course, beyond consideration.</p> + +<p>Their favorite walk home from the golf links led them through a +churchyard, and here they often rested in the cool of the afternoon; not +in the new part where monument and mound were obtrusively recent, but +up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> the hill from these, where death was so ancient as to be touched +with the grace of the antique. Here, in a pleasant gloom of oak shade, +cypress and elm, they loitered among the drab stones that headed mounds +worn down and overgrown with sweetbrier, wild rose, and matted grass; +and here Mrs. Laithe sometimes joined them for the homeward stroll, +walking too much, Ewing thought, like one who had risen from the +forgotten multitude under foot. Yet, when he spoke of her health she +always responded with her gay assurances, and seemed, indeed, to be more +concerned about his welfare than her own. He had not been able to talk +to her freely. There was so much about Teevan that he felt she would not +understand. Besides, he could not speak to her about Teevan.</p> + +<p>At the end of the first week he had written to Teevan to say that he +must talk with him. The little man had replied from his favorite sea +place, naming a day when he would be back in town.</p> + +<p>The prospect depressed Ewing anew. It had been easy to lie on his back +in a field, nettled by disgust with himself, and frame speeches of +self-mastery. But reflection had brought him doubt. The speeches would +have to be made, and yet, in a way, he was Teevan's property; Teevan had +invested money in him. This added to his depression. And this was why +the girl reported him to her sister as a youth joyful in odd moments of +forgetting, but sunk in some black despair when he remembered; a young +man she could not at all understand. And Mrs. Laithe, puzzling over his +trouble, divining that Teevan would somehow be at the bottom of it, +determined on a move to aid him, a move that would take her once more to +Teevan himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> She had sought him the night after her talk with +Sydenham, but the interview had come to nothing. Teevan had been so +plausibly solicitous about Ewing's success that she had found herself +unready to tax him with a knowledge of Ewing's identity, or with motives +inimical to him. His excessive amiability, his air of unsuspecting +sincerity, had disarmed her. But this time, she determined, there would +be no more fencing. She would attack straightforwardly.</p> + +<p>The day they left the girl lightly bade Ewing farewell with talk of +meetings in town. He had not told her of a resolve formed the day before +when they had ridden to a hill above the village from which they could +see veritable mountains in the distance—his own delectable mountains +they had seemed, calling to him. Instantly he had determined to go back +to his own. Not in defeat, but for fresh courage. He would stay there +working as he could, until Teevan was paid. Then the Rookery would know +him again, and the men of the Monastery—know him going his own way.</p> + +<p>He was meditating gloomily on his retreat as the train bore him back to +town with Mrs. Laithe. And she, alive to the distress that showed in his +face, forgot everything but him, the one she had helplessly and +irrevocably taken for her own, half her entreating child, half her +master, terrible and beloved. She watched his face from half-closed +eyes, finding it unutterably sad, and, without her being able to +withhold it, her mind constantly repeated the image of an embrace, to +soothe and sustain him. Incessantly this unsubstantial enfoldment took +place in her inner sense, like some wild drama among ocean-bed things, +far below an unrippled surface. Over and over the phantom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> woman beat +down his enemies, encircled him from harm, consoled him against her +heart, cherished him like the dear walls of a home. And she could not +halt this phantom play. Once she divided her arms and raised them a +little, as one in a dream faintly acts his vision. Ewing thought she was +drawing her chiffon boa about her, and he replaced it on her shoulders.</p> + +<p>Floating about this obsession in her mind was the dismayed thought of +Teevan. She was fixed on going to him for the truth, and this disturbed +her like a coming battle. She was not used to the feeling of antagonism, +she, with her gentle woman's life, but she felt an unknown energy +welling up in her—the fierceness of the defender. She would have the +truth from Teevan.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +<a name="xxiv" id="xxiv"></a>CHAPTER XXIV<br /> +<br /> +<small>EWING INTERRUPTS</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">ELEANOR Laithe started from a half sleep. She had begun to dream while +still conscious of the library walls, the couch on which she lay, the +curtains swelling in and out of the opened windows with a heated breeze +of late afternoon, the rattle of a wagon through the street, and the +shrilling of boys at a game.</p> + +<p>She turned her face from the wall, fixed the pillows more easily under +her head, and stared into the room, her eyes narrowing in calculation as +she went lucidly back for the hundredth time since she had flung herself +there, to check off the details of that half hour with the man who +healed—or did not heal.</p> + +<p>She had shrewdly rejected the specialist Birley had named for another +who would not know her. She wanted no mistaken kindness, no polite +reluctance or glossing, and she feared to find this in one who might +regard her as something more than a casual human body in evil case. She +had felt bound to have plain words. She would know what she faced as one +knows heat or cold.</p> + +<p>And she had gained the full of her wish. The man had taken her as +casually as she offered herself. His questions were few, his examination +mechanically impersonal, his diagnosis cool and informing. She had felt +herself a culprit, listening to sentence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>"You think I have a year to live?"</p> + +<p>"Longer, perhaps, if you take it this way, without worry. Worry eats the +tissue even faster than those little vegetable parasites. I take it you +eliminate worry?" He drew on his gloves.</p> + +<p>She smiled now, with pride in her cunning. Her simulation of unconcerned +curiosity had been perfect, as if it were another's wasting body she +brought him. She had hidden all that fond love of life, her life of +action, sensation; of hope ever enlarging, of fruitions certain, +innumerable, and dear. No sign had the practiced eyes read of the inner +rage that maddened her at thought of so much life unlived—life of mirth +and tears, height and depth, grief, ecstasy and common levels. She was +avid of them all, dared them all, wished only to play the game, vaunting +a fine zest for the sport with all its hazards.</p> + +<p>She had found in her hour alone there that she did not fear death—only +detested it. She feared it as little as a child fears sleep; hated it as +a child, torn untimely from play, hates to go to bed.</p> + +<p>"Longer, perhaps, if you take it this way—eliminate worry." But she +knew she could not take it "this way;" could not give up as this judge +believed she had done. She must rebel to the last. As long as she played +she must play in the true spirit. She might be vanquished, but she would +not debase the sport. She smiled at a reminiscence of her brother's +college life, catching at a phrase. "It seems I'm not a 'quitter,'" she +thought.</p> + +<p>Then she halted this race of thought in sudden amusement. She felt her +evening fever rising, the sinister warmth and false glow that burned +like a red flame<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> below the outer corners of her eyes. It had come +earlier than usual, hurried, doubtless, by the very passion of her +rebelling. The man had been right. But she would have no waiting, +half-hearted conflict, for all that.</p> + +<p>She sat up quickly. A certain battle was set for this day, one that +would test her gameness. She rose to look at a clock, and knew that +Teevan probably awaited Ewing. But she could be first there, and she +felt equal to the clash. The very fever would sustain her. And she would +be wary once more that day, cunning to learn what she had to oppose. +Then she would be valiant. If the fever only gave her strength, small +matter the fuel that fed it.</p> + +<p>She smoothed her hair, flung a scarf over her shoulders, and stepped out +into the early twilight. She felt a slight giddiness as she walked the +short distance to Teevan's door, but she had shrugged this away by the +time she rang the bell. There was a wait, and she rang again. Then, when +she began to fear that she assailed an empty house, she heard rapid +steps; the door swung back, and Teevan himself stood before her, Teevan +jaunty in summer negligee of flannels and silken shirt, who deftly +covered with his froth of gallantry whatever surprise he felt at sight +of her.</p> + +<p>"My dear lady! So neighborly of you, and what luck I was in! I'm off +Neville's yacht for the evening only on a bit of business. Come up to my +den. It's stifling down here."</p> + +<p>She followed him up the stairs, feeling a reckless strength for combat. +He took her to a room at the front of the house where there was a desk, +a few lounging chairs, and an air of mannish comfort.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>"I'll not keep you long, Randall," she said, hesitating at first to sit, +illogically fearing that weakness might seize her if she relaxed her +body. After a moment, however, she took the chair he pushed forward.</p> + +<p>"As long as you like, Eleanor. The breeze comes cooler through those +south windows while you're here. Let me offer you a brandy and soda. No? +You'll let me take this alone, then? Thanks! I'm feeling a bit done up +by the heat." He seated himself at the desk, sipped from his glass and +looked a question at her. She debated her beginning.</p> + +<p>"It's about Gilbert Ewing."</p> + +<p>His dark little eyes narrowed upon her with agreeable interest.</p> + +<p>"Ah, to be sure—Ewing."</p> + +<p>"You know he's been staying a fortnight with us at Kensington."</p> + +<p>He nodded a gracious assent, still waiting, still veiled with an effect +that aroused all her caution.</p> + +<p>"He came back to town yesterday."</p> + +<p>"He must have enjoyed the place immensely. I'm nowhere so strongly +reminded of rural England, saving the architecture, of course. Ewing +painted, doubtless?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, he did nothing. He played with my sister, chiefly. Virginia +took him about. They were inseparable. He had heart for nothing but +her—no work, nothing else." She had deliberately lengthened the speech, +wishing him not to see that she watched for an opening. Teevan seemed to +feel a leading. He searched her face as he asked:</p> + +<p>"They liked each other immensely, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I couldn't tell you——"</p> + +<p>He felt the weariness of her tone, almost a faintness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> The color burned +darkly high on her cheeks, her eyes showed an exotic and painful +splendor. He suddenly saw that she must have sustained some blow; that +her luster was a fevered glitter sad and terrible, and that she was +nerving herself to some ordeal. He sank back in his seat, all acuteness. +Had she betrayed herself in the beginning, struck open the secret for +him by her first words? A jealous woman, then—a flouted woman come to +turn on the man? It was no conclusion to leap at; rather a piquant +suspicion to verify.</p> + +<p>He set his glass down and picked up a slender-bladed dagger from the +desk before him, absently bending the steel. He knew they were both +veiled for the moment. His eyes challenged her to open speech of Ewing +as he held the dagger up to her and said lazily, "A beauty, +that—undoubted Toledo work. Picked it up in a shop at Newport +yesterday. They knew how to temper steel in those days. See its edge—" +He tore a bit of paper from a pad and slashed it into strips, his eyes +rising to hers at each cut, interrogatory, through the complacence of a +man exhibiting a fine property.</p> + +<p>"Randall, you've been friendly with him, and yet you know who he is; +you've known it a long time. And you—you <i>can't</i> like him."</p> + +<p>He still toyed with his plaything, prickling its needle-like point into +the pad of paper under his hand. Then he turned on her with a sudden, +insinuating droop of the eyelids.</p> + +<p>"Very well—and you've been friendly with him, say until two weeks ago. +And you're no longer so. I name no reason. But you detest him now. Am I +wrong? Can I still read a woman?" He leaned toward her, peering nearer +with each query. He meant them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> to be like thrusts of the dagger which +he now threw on the desk. Her eyes fell in unfeigned confusion under his +look, her mind running many ways to come on the meaning beneath this +preposterous guess. She looked up to him, seeking a hint, but his eyes +were inscrutable, his mouth set in a sagacious smile, intimating, +accusing. She looked down again, suddenly feeling it wise to let him +think as he did—whatever absurd thing it might be. She sighed deeply, +relaxed in her chair and met his eyes again. Teevan beheld a woman +defenseless to his insight; one too proud to confess in words, but too +weak, too vindictive, perhaps, to attempt denial.</p> + +<p>"I see, my girl—don't trouble to speak." He replenished his glass from +the decanter. He was delighted with his penetration; pleased, also, to +believe that here was an ally, if one should be needed. He glanced at +her again. She sat silent and drooping.</p> + +<p>"You did well to come to me, Eleanor. I fancy you'll be interested to +know what our young friend is about to encounter."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I shall, I shall! Tell me, please." He smiled at her eagerness, so +poorly subdued, recording in a mental footnote the viperish fury of a +woman in her plight. Still, he thought she carried it off rather well. +There had been need for his keenness to read her secret.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you, my girl, and I'm jolly glad to find some one who can +enjoy it with me. What am I going to do with him?" He rose and paced the +room for so long a time that she felt she could not bear it. She was +about to speak when he abruptly halted and faced her with a petrifying +burst of malignance. "What am I going to do with him?—wring him, wreck +him, choke him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> fling the fool back on his dung heap to rot!" She +stared at him, panting; then, summoning all her ingenuity she smiled +slowly above the sickening fear that had rushed over her. Teevan glowed. +That smile of hers—he could detect something relentless in it—was a +tribute to his prowess no less than a confirmation of his power to read +her.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand," she half whispered, still with that restrained +fierceness that gave him joy.</p> + +<p>"Of course you don't. Am I to be read as a primer? I'm subtler, I trust, +than an earthquake, a cyclone, a deluge. You don't understand, but you +shall." He paced the floor again with a foppish air of pride. "Ah, it +has worked so beautifully. Really, I've regretted there was no one I +could let in to enjoy a work of art with me. But you, I see, will have +the taste to applaud it, Nell, now that your eyes are opened. Oh, the +thing has gone ideally! Only applause was lacking."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand, Randall." She could hardly manage the words. She +was afraid her heart would beat them into some wild cry of impatience.</p> + +<p>"You shall—you shall." He gazed meditatively at her. "Yes, and you'll +have to know it all to understand perfectly, even my—my humiliation." +He unlocked the door of a closet and brought out something she did not +recognize until he had placed it across the arms of a chair and stepped +back. It was the portrait of Ewing's mother. His face was contorted now +in a most unpleasant sneer.</p> + +<p>"There's the <i>motif</i>." He resumed his seat at the desk, facing the +picture. The sneer had gone, and whatever dignity of soul was in him +sounded in the next words.</p> + +<p>"You can't know what that meant to me when I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> saw it, when I knew who +had done it, when I thought of the creature who carried it about +parading his own shame and hers—and <i>mine</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I think I can understand that, Randall."</p> + +<p>"You can't, I say. No woman could. You can't begin to know the +humiliation, how it tore me, knowing this fellow walked the earth at +all, a nameless spawn, holding my shame over me—over <i>me</i>! threatening +every instant to cover me again with it. As if I'd not survived enough! +Good God! was I to go through it again, and know that this puling whelp +was the instrument—a thing to torture me, hold me up to ridicule, to +make men smile and titter and mock me in club corners? Wasn't <i>her</i> +insult enough? Must she breed obscene things to echo it?" He groaned and +turned away with a gesture of warding off. In the mist of her besetment +the woman found herself thinking that the fine little hands in this +gesture should have been lace-beruffled at the wrist. He was the figure +of stabbed vanity, the bleeding coxcomb. He flung an arm toward the +picture with bitter vehemence.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my lady! my fine, loose lady, with your high talk and your low way! +I hope you've watched me with those painted eyes of yours. Did you think +I'd never strike back?"</p> + +<p>"But now, Randall—<i>how</i>?" He replenished his glass and turned slowly +away from the picture.</p> + +<p>"How, indeed? That's where you meet me at last. Not every one could have +carried it through, but it was simple for me. Difficult in a way, yes. +It's been hard to stomach the fool, with his conceit and his whining. +Oh, he fancies himself tremendously, for all his ways of a holy +innocent, his damned airs of a sugar-candy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> Galahad. But I've won him, I +tell you, by that very innocence of his. I'm the one soul in the world +he truly reveres. His sun rises and sets in me. And now he's where I +want him. I've worn out his hope, kept him from doing the thing he +wanted to do, kept him on the edge of despair out of respect and fear +and love of me. The beggar <i>has</i> a certain devilish sort of genius, but +he doesn't know where it lies, and I've taken precious good care he +shouldn't find out. Oh, but I've had a rich time of it—disgusting and +rich. Nearly a year it is now that he's led me this dance, but I've +hooked him beautifully, and to-night I'll pull him in." She had been +watching the play of spite on his face, and it was with difficulty that +she moistened her lips to say:</p> + +<p>"But what will you do to-night—what can you say?"</p> + +<p>"Everything I've laid a train for saying, this year past. Tell him how I +despise him for his empty pretensions, his constant, wretched failures. +Show him to himself as a conceited dawdler and a cheat who has lived on +my bounty—oh, I saw to that—a cheat who has defrauded me of time and +money and faith in man. Never fear but I'll know the things to say. I've +told them to <i>her</i> often enough." He thrust viciously at the portrait. +"And you'll hear it all, my Lady Disdain, with your face to the wall to +hide its belated blushes."</p> + +<p>Again she tried to speak but her lips were dry. At last she achieved a +few rather husky words.</p> + +<p>"Randall, if you please, might I have a glass of something—water, I'd +like."</p> + +<p>"To be sure, my child. You're certain you won't join me in a brandy and +soda? No? I'll get you something below."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>She clutched at the moment to quiet, if she could, that tumult of heart +and brain. Her mind dwelt chiefly on Ewing's dejection as she had left +him the day before. Teevan came back, bearing a carafe and a bottle of +soda water. She drank a glass of the water greedily, and murmured her +thanks as he gave her more. It refreshed her and she seemed to feel a +renewal of strength. Her fever was heating her brain to wild activity. +She felt a crazy desire to cool her head, to lean it against snow or +cold metal. She thought fleetingly of cold things she had touched, of +marble, icicles, a brass rail with frost on it. She was goading her mind +for a way to reach Teevan. She drank the second glass of water, and +again he refilled it, protesting against so poor a tipple as he took +more brandy for himself.</p> + +<p>She watched him narrowly as he prepared his drink. The decanter was so +low that she thought he must be feeling what he had taken, and she +wondered if it might not have softened him, released some generosity in +his poor soul.</p> + +<p>"You must have suffered, Randall, in all this. But won't it hurt you +still more, doing what you mean to do—when you make <i>him</i> suffer?"</p> + +<p>"His suffering!" He waved a deprecating hand. "What can he suffer +compared to me? Disgust I've suffered, yes, and mortification. He could +feel nothing approaching that if I flayed him here. Why, Nell, I pulled +a rose from its bush this morning in Neville's garden, and crushed a +worm crawling on its stem. A poor, tiny green thing, yet it had lived, +and had its successes and failures after a fashion. But you can't +imagine its actual suffering in death to equal my own mere disgust at +crushing it."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>The brandy had not softened him, she thought. Could it have made him +cautious?</p> + +<p>"Have you never suspected, Randall, that there may be a sleeping fighter +in him?" There was a glitter in her tormented eyes, a sudden fierce wish +to behold battle between this puny insulter and Ewing aroused to his +might.</p> + +<p>"Bah! a fighter!" He snapped contemptuous fingers. "There's the look in +his eye sometimes, but I've disarmed him. He <i>can't</i> fight me, his +benefactor, his best friend. Never fear; he'll wilt, wither, shrivel up. +Oh, trust me for that. And suppose the impossible, suppose the worm +turns in some fit of wormish desperation. I've the <i>coup</i>, have I not? +You know what his mother is to him, a damned romantic memory of pure +womanhood and all that rot. Suppose him capable of so much as an +eye-flash of defiance. Why, then, my child, he'll know who—he'll know +<i>what</i>—his mother was; and he'll know my right to describe her. He'll +know what <i>he</i> is. And the words won't puzzle him: he'll need no +lexicon—crisp, Anglo-Saxon words. Do you think that will leave any +fight in him—her shame and his? By Gad! Nell, it's too good to keep +from him. He shall have it anyway, though I'd meant to keep it back for +my own sake. But that shall be the clincher. Before her face there I'll +tell him what she was."</p> + +<p>"Not that, Randall, surely not that!" Her veil of calmness had flown on +the wind of his hate. She knew she must reveal herself. Her words had +been so near a cry that he turned on her in amazement.</p> + +<p>"Listen, Randall, don't—don't do that. Let him off. I promise to take +him away. It's all true; you've handled him well, and you can break him +now—but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> don't. Please, please let him go. I'll take him away, I tell +you. I promise he shall never bother you again."</p> + +<p>He looked at her, incredulous.</p> + +<p>"You're asking me to consider <i>him</i>—really?"</p> + +<p>"No, no—to consider me. Please, please listen—please consider me."</p> + +<p>"But you—I thought you——"</p> + +<p>"Randall"—she had regained a little of her first coolness—"I'm done +for. I found that out to-day. I've a year to live, at most. A scant +year, if it's to be like this. Try to grasp it. I've wanted so much, had +so little of life. But, I must go, they tell me. Can you understand what +that means, as well as I understood what this meant to you—a sentence +of death, a few little months to snatch at happiness?"</p> + +<p>He stared at her uncertainly, but half comprehending. She saw that the +drink was affecting him at last. His eyes were dulled, his face had lost +its centered look.</p> + +<p>"Going to die, Eleanor? Die in a year? What rot! Don't talk rot. Nobody +dies in a year." He spoke carefully, with a deliberate attack on each +word, as if he mistrusted his tongue.</p> + +<p>"But it's true, Randall, I swear it's true. Can you understand?"</p> + +<p>"Understand?" he repeated, and through her tense absorption she was +astonished to see on his face an incredible look of pity. "Understand? +Why, of course! And it's too bad, my girl. Poor Eleanor! Die in a +year—why wouldn't I understand? But never mind"—he seemed to search +clumsily for words of cheer. "Death isn't anything but an incident in +the scheme of life—a precious contemptible one, I've no doubt. We live, +and that's a little thing—but death's littler.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> I dare say we live as +long as we need to. Who was the old chap—Plotinus, wasn't +it?—conceived the body to be a penitential mechanism for the soul? All +the better if we expiate early. Gad! I must have had a quantity of +things to atone for—though I'm really younger than you may think, Nell. +Poor girl—poor girl!" He brightened as he drained his glass to her. +"Here's to you, wherever you are. Come, be cheerful anyway. What was it +struck in my mind yesterday?—a sentence from one of Arbuthnot's letters +to Swift—just the meat for you—'A reasonable hope of going—a +reasonable hope of going to a good place and an absolute certainty of +leaving a bad one.' That's the sentiment—keep it in mind, my dear."</p> + +<p>She was nerving herself to new appeals, half fearing she could not hold +his attention. She seized on that unprecedented look of compassion.</p> + +<p>"But, Randall, you'll let him off—let him off for me—for my sake." In +her eagerness she rose and fluttered to the desk, standing before him. +He whirled his chair about, and the look of commiseration had gone.</p> + +<p>"No, no, no! You can't understand, Nell. I couldn't let him off if I +wanted to. It's fate, its retribution—the sins of the father—it's +scriptural, I tell you—" His eyes were gleaming again with steely +implacability.</p> + +<p>"But for me, Randall, for my sake, for me alone—not thinking of him?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, lady, set me a harder task, but one of dignity—as difficult, as +dangerous as you like, so it has some dignity. But not that. Here"—he +gracefully extended the handle of the dagger to her—"slay me +<a name="and" id="and"></a><ins title="Added apostrophe for and">an'</ins> +you will—the blade is keen—a toy, but deadly—I'll die smiling +if you wish. But don't ask for that cub's happiness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> Don't rob me of my +pay, Nell, my pay for all I've endured from him, his boastings and +snivelings, and his detestable handshakes. Don't talk rot, I say, even +if you must die."</p> + +<p>Again she set herself to plead, desperation feeding the fire in her head +until she knew not her words. She was conscious only of a torrent of +speech, coaxing, imploring, wheedling, even threatening. But all she +evoked was the steady, smiling negative, his head shaken unwittingly to +the rhythm of her phrases.</p> + +<p>She stopped at last, panting, striving to keep back the passionate words +of entreaty that still formed, crushing them down in a maddened +consciousness of their impotence. She stared wildly, feeling only a +still stubborn determination. Ewing would soon come—yet it seemed that +she had no resource save appeal. She felt this and raged against it, +striding away from Teevan across the room. For the first time in her +gentle life she was feeling the sensation she thought a man must feel in +fighting. She had an impulse to strike blindly, to wound, to beat down +with her hands. Without volition she measured her antagonist and +wondered deliriously if she could throw him to the floor. He seemed so +small to her, and hateful—hateful and small enough to kill. She closed +her eyes to shut him out, but opened them again quickly, for everything +rocked in the darkness. She incessantly pictured this creature, naked in +his poverty of manhood, smiling up at Ewing, the friendly one, who stood +bowed down, blighted and broken of heart. Sometimes Ewing had his arm +over his face, and she felt that he would never take it away—move on +thus forever, like a figure in an anguished dream.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>Constantly beside her thoughts, like a little refrain, went the +remembrance that she had brought him there, torn him from his youth and +splendid dreams to give him to this—she the betrayer! The fever waxed, +the tortured blood trampled in her head like hurrying hoofs.</p> + +<p>But she could not strike Teevan, extinguish him with blows, and she set +herself again to play the beggar. And she could not beg across the room. +Bit by bit she crept to the entreated one, her great eyes full of flame +and fear, and laid pitiful hands on his shoulder. Still the shaken head +met her, the icy smile, the dulled eyes.</p> + +<p>"No good talking, Nell! No good! You mortify me, my word you do. Demand +something great, something to task a man; ask me——"</p> + +<p>Again he picked up the dagger with a return to that extravagant air of +the sighing gallant.</p> + +<p>"—here, I point it to my heart, see! A mere thrust—your beautiful hand +is still equal to it. I'd be proud of the blow. I'd give you my life +gladly—but not my self-respect. You're too stunning a woman, Nell, to +waste yourself on that cub—a woman to die for indeed. You were never +finer than at this moment." In the excess of his emotion he threw an arm +about her waist. She started back but he held her.</p> + +<p>"Never finer, Nell, on my soul—too fine for that damned——"</p> + +<p>She put out her hands in an instinctive, shuddering movement of +repulsion. Still he clung to her, muttering his insupportable phrases. +He clung and she could not release herself without doing what she had +thought was impossible—exert her unused hands in striking, thrusting, +beating off. She hesitated: she did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> like to touch him. He looked +very small and low in his chair. How low he seemed from her dizzy +height! And yet he held so well. His voice came faintly, too, as if from +afar, floating up faint and hateful. So he would hold Ewing and slay him +with his voice. He was playing with the dagger again and proffering his +heart with maudlin eyes. Prisoning her still with his right arm, he took +her hand in his left and clumsily set it on the dagger's hilt.</p> + +<p>"It would be a sweet death, Nell. Press home!" He drew her closer, so +that she staggered on his shoulder. "Gad! your eyes are fine. What a +woman you are! Too great, Nell, for that beaten whelp, even before he +took to your sister——"</p> + +<p>She gave a desperate little cry and struck out to free herself. It was +hardly more than a gesture to have him away, but she was conscious, with +a lightning shock, that the blade moved under her hand. She heard +Teevan's shrill scream of fright and pain——</p> + +<p>"You're killing me—you're killing me!"</p> + +<p>But she saw only Ewing with covered face, and pushed the harder, lost to +all but her blind sense of opposition. Then she heard a new note in +Teevan's cry.</p> + +<p>"Ewing! Ewing!"</p> + +<p>She turned quickly, while Teevan retreated round a corner of the desk, +snarling his rage—turned to see Ewing.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> +<a name="xxv" id="xxv"></a>CHAPTER XXV<br /> +<br /> +<small>MRS. LAITHE IS ENLIGHTENED</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">HE stood just inside the door, hat in hand, regarding the scene with a +look that was troubled yet cool. She felt her way cautiously back to a +chair, afraid of fainting, and grasped it for support. Finding that her +hand still clutched the dagger, she dropped it with a shudder of +disgust.</p> + +<p>Ewing shrewdly noted where the dagger fell, then his eyes flashed to +Teevan. There was a stain of blood on the silken shirt, and the little +man was staring down at this, incredulous.</p> + +<p>"By God! she meant it!" he muttered. Then his eyes rose to meet Ewing's, +and a look of sudden malignance blazed into them.</p> + +<p>"So you've come!" The cry, like the look, was full of hate. "You've come +in time, you whelp! Now you'll hear something you might have heard that +first night when I had to fuddle you with tales of a seizure. Now you'll +know——"</p> + +<p>But the woman started toward him with a suddenness that broke his +speech.</p> + +<p>"If you tell him he'll kill you—" The words came with a quick, +whispering intensity, and there was a rapt, almost rejoicing look on her +face, as of one eager for the deed.</p> + +<p>Teevan looked scornfully to Ewing again, but was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> chilled by a certain +sharp, cold light in his eyes, the look of one alert and ready. His +words gave meaning to this look.</p> + +<p>"If you tell me, I'll kill you," said Ewing. The sentence was evenly +uttered, and the tone was low, almost deferential, but the intention was +not to be mistaken.</p> + +<p>Teevan laughed, flourishing a gesture of scorn for the threat.</p> + +<p>"I'm no coward"—but he broke off, waiting, watching, with fear in his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"I'll take this," said Ewing. He lifted the portrait tenderly from the +chair and thrust it under his arm with a protecting movement. Teevan +stared at this with an air of fine disdain, but did not speak.</p> + +<p>The woman had been waiting for his words with parted lips. Now she +breathed a long, trembling sigh of relief and turned to Ewing.</p> + +<p>"You see, he has nothing to say. Let us go."</p> + +<p>He opened the door for her and closed it after them without looking +again at Teevan.</p> + +<p>"There's a reason why I can't do it for you now," he said, as they went +down the stairs. She wondered what he could mean, but was too little +alive to ask. When they reached the street she became at once interested +in a belated laborer going home with a loosely tied bundle over his +shoulder, odds and ends of small boards, refuse from some building. He +whistled in a tired way as he trudged on, not looking at them. She felt +pleased at the thought that his wife was going to have wood with which +to cook the poor fellow's supper. The dark was fast gathering, but +children still romped in the street. An elderly stout man passed, his +hat off,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> wielding a palm-leaf fan. She was surprised at this, for the +outer air had fallen on her with icy clutch, making her draw the scarf +more closely about her.</p> + +<p>Ewing would have left her at her door, but she urged him to go in. She +took him to sit in the unlighted library, and there, when he could no +longer see her face, he was astounded to hear her talk of her girlhood, +her schooldays, of the few people they knew in common, of Piersoll's new +book, of her brother's ranch life; of a score of little gossipy matters +that would occur to the untroubled mind in a twilight chat. But when he +rose to go after a little time, she was in an instant wild panic of +protest, seizing one of his hands with a convulsive grip. He covered her +poor hand with his own and regarded her with pity. She lifted her face +to him with a sudden wild entreaty for shelter. "Oh, stay with +me—stay—stay—and comfort me. I am so ill, and I—I would comfort +you." He soothed her as best he could, protesting that he would stay, +and in a few moments she was talking cheerfully of Kensington and of +Virginia. She tried to amuse him with tales of Virginia's childhood—how +she had been such a droll and merry little creature. She still retained +his hand, gripping it with an intensity through which he could feel the +quivering of her whole body.</p> + +<p>Only once did she refer to Teevan. "Please don't see him again," she +urged. "Promise me, promise never to let him tell you—anything. Please, +please promise that!"</p> + +<p>Believing she pleaded for herself, he felt that old longing to lift her +in his arms and show her there without words how little she had to fear. +But he controlled himself to answer simply, "I promise; I'll never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> let +him speak to me again. Don't be afraid; he shall never say anything to +me."</p> + +<p>Her father came in presently, grumbling about the lack of light as he +stumbled against a chair. He let it be known that he had returned to the +city in some alarm about her, inspired by a letter from her aunt. She +hastily assured him that she was well—never better. But he demurred at +her remaining longer in town.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to get out, daughter. It's beastly unpleasant doing those +slum things in summer. You need life and gayety. You come with me and +dance, play bridge, swim, sail—enjoy yourself with your own kind for a +while. You're going on Tom Neville's yacht to-morrow. He's to pick us up +about noon with Randy Teevan."</p> + +<p>"Will he be there?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"He will, and he'll be one of a jolly crowd that will 'liven you up. +Here's Clarence—he must come, too."</p> + +<p>Her brother had felt his way through the darkness, and before she +guessed his intention he had found one of the electric lights and turned +it on. She shrank back with a strange, smothered cry, under the sudden +light, her hand before her face as if to ward off invisible horrors, her +eyes staring at them under it, wild with appeal. They were speechless +for the moment, alarmed by her manifest illness, her frightened, haggard +face, in which the fever raged. Her brother was the first to speak, +going to her and taking the blind, defending hand she had put out. She +clung to him when she felt his touch, but turned her face away.</p> + +<p>"See here, Nell," he began, in tones of savage decision, "no yachting +trip for you, my girl. 'Twon't do, governor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> you can see that for +yourself. But I'll tell you what she's going to do—she's going to pack +up and go back to the mountains with me and stay there till she's well."</p> + +<p>She still clung to him, drawing his arms around her with an effect of +hiding.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, that's it—let's go there—out where there's room. It's +stifling here. Have you noticed how curiously stifling it is? Too many +people, dead people and live people, and all hobnobbing. We must get +away, brother."</p> + +<p>"You hear that, dad? She'll go back with me. How soon, Nell?—I say, how +soon?" he repeated, for she had not seemed to hear him.</p> + +<p>"How soon?" She raised her eyes to them with sudden intelligence, then +sprang wildly to her feet.</p> + +<p>"Oh, soon, at once!—Well, not to-night, perhaps,"—she sank back +again—"but to-morrow, next day. We'll all go. Mr. Ewing is going." Her +eyes rested on Ewing a moment, then, with a difficult smile, she turned +to her brother. "And Virgie must go, too. Telegraph her to-night. She'll +make us gay, she'll make us—as we used to be. We couldn't go without +Virgie. She will—comfort us."</p> + +<p>"She'll go, too, Sis. It's all right. I'll telegraph. But what are you +afraid of? You'll be a well woman there in a month."</p> + +<p>"Afraid—I afraid?" She looked up at him in wonder. "I don't know. Oh, +yes I do. Why, I just tried to kill—I've just killed—killed a hundred +people—killed——"</p> + +<p>"Good Lord—there—she's fainted! Get some water and a drop of brandy, +dad!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>"Poor child—it's so fearfully unpleasant," murmured Bartell as he came +back with a glass and decanter. "It's that tenement house thing that's +got on her nerves."</p> + +<p>"An unpleasant business," returned his father, "all that rot—mighty +unpleasant!"</p> + +<p>Ewing waited in the outer room until he heard the broken murmur of her +voice and knew that she had recovered. Then he went quickly out, the +portrait under his arm. He had the feeling that it had been contaminated +by Teevan's touch.</p> + +<p>He began dismantling his studio that night. He stopped in the work once +to look out over the roofs, glowing luridly under a half moon. This was +because the pleading of the woman still rang in his ears—"Don't let him +tell you anything"—and the whole entreating look of her flashed back to +him. Then the big, slow tears of pity gathered in his eyes to set the +chimney pots dancing before him.</p> + +<p>"If only I hadn't owed him money!" he muttered, beside himself with pity +and hatred.</p> + +<p>It was not until the day before they started West that Mrs. Laithe +learned the secret of this pity of Ewing's that had so puzzled her. +Alden Teevan begged a moment with her in the afternoon of that day, and +she, sunk in the languor of her sickness, received him where she lay, in +her own sitting-room.</p> + +<p>He swept her with a long, knowing look as he entered, reading, she saw, +the truth about her condition.</p> + +<p>"I'd gladly go with you, Nell," he began—"let my own walls close at the +same time." But she would have no bald admissions.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going, Alden—I'm only a bit run down.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> I shall pick up in a +month out there." He detected her insincerity but only smiled in a hurt +way.</p> + +<p>"That's one of your rules of the game, isn't it, to keep up the +pretense? Of course I can't expect you to break rules for me." She faced +him stanchly, looking denial.</p> + +<p>"But I must tell you something," he went on quickly, "something horrible +and absurd and unbelievable." She listened, and grew faint in an agony +of unbelief, while he told her what had inspired Ewing's behavior the +night before. She made him repeat it, testing each detail, weighing its +credibility against Ewing's inexperience; dazedly trying to see herself +as he must see her now. Alden Teevan regarded her with quickening +sympathy.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't a pretty thing to do, Nell, but I saw he had some deviltry +afoot, and I got it from him—I half choked and half wheedled it from +him. Fortunately he was drunk or I couldn't have got it either way. But +now you know. It began, as nearly as I could gather, one night last +spring when Ewing saw you leaving the house. The vain little fool +guessed he'd seen you, and told him the tale about a woman who'd been +harassing him because he was trying to break off an affair with her."</p> + +<p>"I remember——"</p> + +<p>"And then last night——"</p> + +<p>"Last night—ah, last night!" She laughed weakly, recalling the scene +that had met Ewing's eyes, perceiving what he must have thought. "I'd +have done it for you," she heard him say again, and shuddered. She +recalled, too, her own later urging, "Never let him tell you anything." +How pitiful she must have seemed to him, and how monstrous! She laughed +again wildly, suddenly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> struck by the cunning of this satire on truth. +Alden Teevan recalled her from the picture.</p> + +<p>"It was like him, wasn't it, Nell?—like both of them—like him to say +it, and like the other to believe. But the harm can be undone. You can +explain—a word or two."</p> + +<p>She stared at him in sudden consternation. It had flashed upon her that +no half truth would satisfy Ewing. She knew she would be unequal to any +adequate fiction; she would falter and he would see to the heart of her +lie. She must let him think as he did—or blacken his dearest memory. +But to Alden Teevan she only said:</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes—a word will explain—and I'm so grateful to you." She was +wondering then if she were glad or sorry that he had told her. She might +have lived out her time without knowing, she thought.</p> + +<p>"Of course, if you'd like me to tell him, Nell——"</p> + +<p>"No, no, Alden, thank you; but that's for me."</p> + +<p>They had not spoken Ewing's name, but his concern in the matter, the +meaning of his faith in the woman, was a matter that seemed to lie open +to them both. Alden Teevan had assumed it and she had made no denial. +His recognition of it colored his leave-taking.</p> + +<p>"All happiness for you, Nell. The game ought to be worth playing with +you—and with him. You both live so hard." He found it difficult to say +as little, there was such gratitude and such misery in her eyes as they +fell before his, trying to veil at least a part of what she felt. But he +left her so.</p> + +<p>She lay a long time trying to realize Ewing in this new light. She had +never read anything in his eyes but the fullest devotion, and yet for +months he had believed this sinister thing. She caught again his young, +sorry,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> protesting look, and the poignancy of it brought her tears. +There came into the tenderness she had felt for him something of awe for +his unquestioning allegiance, a thing that had not wavered under the +worst he could believe. Then the monstrous absurdity of what he did +believe came upon her once more and she laughed; but her tears still +fell. And so, with laughter and tears, she set him up anew in her heart, +her beloved child and her terrible master. She was glad now that she +knew. It made him more to her. And the time would be so short.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> +<a name="xxvi" id="xxvi"></a>CHAPTER XXVI<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE SUNSET TRAIL</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">EWING had looked forward pleasantly to meeting Virginia Bartell again, +but it was a new Virginia who met him with a nod when he joined the +party on the evening of the start. She had eyes only for her sister, the +white, weak, phantom thing who smiled terribly as her brother half +carried her into the stateroom of their car. Through the days of the +journey he sought to cheer her, wistfully making jests about the flat +land and its people as they sped through the little wooden towns, +promising her a land that would be "busy every minute." But she would +only say, "I'll like your land when it makes sister well."</p> + +<p>"It's bound to," he assured her. "Nobody dies there unless he gets +careless. Here, this is the way it happens. Here's Ben Crider's last +letter. You'll like Ben. Listen to this and see if it doesn't make you +hopeful." He opened the scrawled sheet and read:</p> + +<p>"'Dear Kid, I thought it about time to write you a few lines. If you +seen the lake now you would want to of been here. Life and nature seems +very complete here. I heard Chet Lynch shot Elmer Watts. I been building +a haystacker for Pierce. Plenty deer sign around the lick. Lee Jennings +was killed by a bucker falling back on him. I can sell your saddle for +twenty-two dollars to Ben Lefferts. I put a new latigo on it. Let me +know. Say, Kid, I sent two dollars to the Mystic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> Novelty Company. The +address is Lock Box 1347. The ad. said they would send you a book how to +read past, present and future from the hand and a genuine ten-karat +Persian diamond pin set in solid gold, if you sent on one dollar in +stamps or P. O. order. Well, the diamond may be all right enough +Persian, but the solid gold setting has turned black. You go there and +ask for the head man and raise particular—'" He broke off the reading.</p> + +<p>"You see, they only die by getting shot, or falling off a horse."</p> + +<p>The girl shuddered and turned to him with a sudden helpless yielding.</p> + +<p>"I can hardly bear it," she said, almost in a whisper. "You don't know +what she is to me, how I've loved her and loved her and loved her. And +yet I've accepted her as a matter of course, a thing that couldn't be +taken from me, like the world itself. How could I think she might be +like—like those others? Oh, I never dreamed I could lose my dearest—my +dearest!"</p> + +<p>He waited a moment, and at last said gently, "You won't lose your +dearest—we won't lose her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but she's going, before our eyes."</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, listen now! She's going to get well. She'll be strong +again—I know it. I say she can't die; but you must be sure of it—as +sure as I am—do you hear?—as sure as I am."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes—I will be sure." She tried to look at him through her +tear-wet lashes. He smiled at her confidently.</p> + +<p>"If we're both sure, we can have your sister crying in a month because +Ben won't let her work in the garden."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>"Oh, if you only—" She broke off to look at him in wondering gratitude.</p> + +<p>"And I'll go in and tell her so now," he added, rising.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, make her feel sure, too," she implored. She turned quickly to +the car window, where twilight was blurring the fields to a far, dreamy +horizon, level and vast. He stood a moment, tracing with mental point +the line of her profile under the boyish cap pinned to her yellow hair.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Laithe lay on a narrow sofa in the stateroom. She had moved from +that only to the berth at night since their start, and had betrayed a +preference for being alone in the little compartment. Ewing had felt, +however, that she liked to talk with him as evening drew on. She had +sent for him at this hour the day before and they had sat together in +the dusk. He was reassured by the cheerfulness of her tone as she +greeted him now.</p> + +<p>"We're flying so fast," she said joyously.</p> + +<p>"To make you well the sooner. I've just been telling Virginia what we'll +do for you even in a month. You'll be riding and climbing, and you'll +cry because you can't fell trees or rive out shakes, or something."</p> + +<p>"I'm not worrying about that. It will come right very soon."</p> + +<p>"We'll make it come right. No one ever dies a natural death there, you +know. I was just reading your sister a letter from Ben. Lee Jennings +killed breaking a horse, Elmer Watts shot by Chester Lynch. Of course, +in a way, that was a natural death for Elmer. He was bound to go that +way sooner or later, but you're not going to ride a bucker, and you're +not a gunfighter. Oh, you'll thrive, with a little stall feeding."</p> + +<p>"And there's so much room out there." She smiled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> "So much room to—to +live. And life is so full. I like to hear it, through Virgie and through +you. You are shells that give me the roar of it."</p> + +<p>He was sensitive to some pathos of aloofness which her whole being +expressed for him, and he strove to meet this with pictures of herself +returning, a well woman; but she turned her face from him at length, and +did not speak for so long that he thought she might be sleeping. He went +carefully out, with a last enveloping look.</p> + +<p>When he had gone the woman laughed in a helpless, shuddering way, then +raised herself far enough toward the window to see the fields rushing by +outside. There was timidity in her look until she had seen a mile of +that relentless earth rush back and away from her. She seemed to need +this assurance that she was going away from the trouble in the crude, +literal sense of earthly distance—going off where there was room "to +live," she had told Ewing; "to die," she had amended the phrase to +herself. For death was now a solace she faced. She who had been so hot +for the fight, so avid of life, had been cheated of a combatant's +privileges. She could not tell Ewing the truth, and she could not live +while he believed the lie. It was well, she thought, to know that she +had only to let herself float down that placid current of the white +death. She was amazed at her own calmness and tested it in all subtle +ways, making sure of its foundations. She could find no weak spot. She +craved only a moderate speed in the descent. Too long a wait would be +wearisome, and the wise man had assured her against that. Yet she felt +that she had the right to be a little glad when her brother told her the +next day of a change in the plan.</p> + +<p>"It will be better for you and Virgie to go to Ewing's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> place, Nell. +It's always quiet there, and my place is pretty busy and noisy. I'll +manage to stay over there with you a good deal, and we'll get a woman to +come and do for you—I know one that will be glad to come. It will only +be for a little while, you know."</p> + +<p>She smiled at that well-worn fiction, but applauded the plan.</p> + +<p>"I shall like it, dear, and Virgie will, too, I'm sure, if you think it +best, and if Mr. Ewing——"</p> + +<p>"Ewing suggested it, and he didn't waste any words telling what a good +plan he thought it was. We'll have some extra things brought up from +Pagosa to make you comfortable, and you can have a bully long rest +there."</p> + +<p>"A long rest, yes—and let us have a piano. I'd like to hear some music +while I'm resting."</p> + +<p>"Sure! we'll have one up from Durango. You might need to stay there +until—well—into the winter, you know."</p> + +<p>"I think so, Clarence." She was tempted sometimes to confide to him the +truth about her sickness, but refrained.</p> + +<p>"Well, it won't be very long. All you want is a rest."</p> + +<p>Her mind echoed it when he had gone. Yes, a rest. She looked up at +Virginia, who had entered softly. Her face still shone with the thought +of rest and release, and she smiled up at the girl, who had laid a cool +hand on her flushing cheek, and now regarded her with devouring eyes. +She stood so a moment, then knelt to peer at the wasted face. She looked +a long time without speaking, looked shrewdly and, at last, accusingly.</p> + +<p>"What is it, dearest? I saw it in your face yesterday. What is it I see? +Something has frightened you—beaten you."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>The other smiled protestingly, chidingly, with a raised finger; but the +girl was not to be appeased.</p> + +<p>"You won't tell me, Nell; I know you; you'll keep it in. But, oh, +dearest!" She suddenly gathered the sick woman into her strong young +arms, raising her head from the pillow, holding the fevered face to her +breast, pressing her own cool cheek to the hot brow.</p> + +<p>"Dearest dear, let me in. Trust me. Tell me where it hurts. Let me +mother you."</p> + +<p>"There, there, dear! Everything is all right. Lay me down again and be +easy in that mind of yours."</p> + +<p>But once more on the pillow she had to endure again the girl's accusing +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Nell, someone hasn't loved you enough. That's what I feel. Who is it?"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! You're only worried because I'm a little run down. Everyone +loves me enough—all I deserve. There, dear, I think I can rest." The +girl kissed her shut eyes, and went out, after a long, doubting look. +The sick woman raised her arms once, like a child who would be taken, +but they fell back, and she painfully laughed the old low laugh of +secrecy.</p> + +<p>She mused on her brother's words. "A little rest." Yes, a rest. "Yet a +little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." +She remembered now that it would come to her in the shelter of those +hills, perhaps in that room to which her thoughts had flown so many +times, where she had seen the awakening man in the sleeping boy, and +caught misty shadowings of the portent he bore for her. Her eyes might +fall before his now, but they need not fall before the eyes of his +mother.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> +<a name="xxvii" id="xxvii"></a>CHAPTER XXVII<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE HILLS OF REST</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">BEN Crider waited for them on the station platform at Pagosa. He was +excited to a point of feverish unrest until the train warned its way out +of the last cañon. Then, by a masterful effort, he became elaborately +nonchalant. That train had brought Ewing back to him, but he constrained +himself to handle the occasion as one rising hardly to common levels. He +would have considered any other demeanor "shameless."</p> + +<p>He nodded to Bartell, who supported his sister from the car, and stared +politely at the pretty but anxious-looking girl who followed them. But +when Ewing appeared, burdened with handbags, Ben ignored him, and rushed +to shake the hand of Beulah Pierce, returning from a three-days' trip to +Durango. So effusive was his greeting that Pierce mentally convicted him +of having lingered at the "Happy Days" bar for one too many drinks, and +broke from his affectionate grasp with some embarrassment.</p> + +<p>Ben strolled forward to the baggage car, humming lightly, and, with the +bored air of a man creating diversion for himself, laid listless hands +on the trunks as they were unloaded. He was whirling one of the heaviest +of these to the waiting wagon when Ewing fell on him with a glad shout. +Ben paused briefly, balancing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> trunk on a corner, glanced up with +moderate surprise, and spoke his welcome.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that you, Kid? Howdy!" He resumed his struggle with the trunk, +blind to the other's outstretched hand, and when Ewing thereupon hissed +at him, "You damned Mexican sheep herder!" he allowed pleasure to show +but faintly in his face. But when he was seized by the collar, hurled +half across the platform, and slammed brutally against the wall of the +station, he protested with pleased annoyance as he picked up his hat, +"Aw, quit yer foolin', now, Kid! I got to hustle them trunks." He was +sufficiently refreshed by the attack, however, to sing to himself as he +labored. And when the start was made he insisted that Ewing should +drive. Ben sat in the rear seat. He wanted to look at Ewing's back for +five hours.</p> + +<p>The sick woman, in another and easier conveyance, rejoiced that she was +going still farther into the peace of her last refuge. As they left the +brown-floored valley and began to climb the mountain road, she was glad +that the green walls closed in behind them; glad of every difficult +ascent; every stream forded; every confusing turn of the way. She was +hiding herself, cunningly insuring the peace of her last hours.</p> + +<p>She was troubled now only by Virginia, who hung upon her with an +agonized solicitude. But she promised herself to wear this down by her +own cheerfulness and expressed certainty. Virginia would see her +peaceful, hopeful, happy; she would become used to the idea of her +wasting; and the actual going out would come gently to her as something +fit and benign. Life so abounding as Virginia's could not long droop +under the shadow of death.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>Made at home in the lake cabin, she still felt the world rushing back +from her as had the fields rushed by when she looked from the car +window. And she rested in this. Affairs went on about her, plans were +made, talk of the future or of the day; all went by her unheeded, save +for a blurred and pleasant effect of swiftness. Outwardly she was +serene, languorous, incuriously placid. Inwardly she thrilled with a +luxury of inertness. She had loosed herself in the ebbing tide, and she +folded her hands and smiled from this with the assured indolence of one +who knows that some earned reward will not long be delayed. The +slow-paced even life was a balm to her, the gathering about the table at +mealtimes, the evenings in the studio, when her sister played or talked +with Ewing; when she could lie still on the couch and try to make +herself forgotten, regretting only the short dry cough that racked her +night and morning and brought her to the minds of the others.</p> + +<p>She had thought that she could adjust herself, after a little, to the +new look in Ewing's eyes, knowing as she did its secret spring. It was a +look of blind acceptance, of unquestioning adoration—and mingled with +it was a maddening pity. But there flashed from him, too, at times, a +look of purpose and assurance, steady, secret, determined. She detected +this chiefly when he glanced up to her from his drawing. He had brought +with him a story to illustrate for the <i>Knickerbocker</i>, and he was, at +last, to finish that series of Western scenes for the same periodical. +And he had flown to this work with a frantic haste, with the look, as he +bent over the board, that seemed to say: "This is for you. Be patient +with me, it will soon be done."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>When the work did not claim him he stayed by her side, watchful for +service, jealous of Virginia for little acts he might not himself +perform. His eyes seldom left her, she thought, though she could not +long endure their look, and she knew that he read this evasion of hers +in the light of what Teevan had told him. Through all his devotion there +was a gentle aloofness, a constant withdrawing, as if he knew that he +must never come close.</p> + +<p>She had laughter and tears again for this when she was alone, though +there were times when, in her weakness, her wild craving for the +fullness of what she might not have, she would have told it all in one +surrendering cry to him but for the eyes of Kitty Teevan. They were +always upon her now—Ewing had hung the portrait in the studio—holding +her with passionate entreaty, the mother pleading for herself in the +son's memory. She could never tell him, she knew, under those eyes. She +must live out her few days in content with that wondrous thing his own +eyes revealed for her. She thought it comic and tragic and beautiful. +One night she dreamed that she was not to die, and woke in horror of +what his belief would then mean. But morning restored her serenity, and +she reposed placidly again on the unquestioned sureness of her going.</p> + +<p>Best of all times she liked the late morning and midday, when she could +be alone in the sun-heated nook out of doors and give her body to the +warmth. She knew it was a primal, sensuous pleasure, but she surrendered +to it; turned and bathed writhingly in the sun flood, feeling herself +transparent to it. And the pleasure had its reverse side. Autumn came +presently in these upper reaches; a less splendid autumn than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> would set +the Eastern woods ablaze with flaunts of gold and scarlet, but an autumn +more eloquent of death, the faded yellow of the aspen groves, broken but +rarely by some flaming shrub that only emphasized the monotone. This, +the unending, lifeless yellow, and the dead green of spruce and +hemlock—a false green, she felt, with its tale of ever-living—made a +coloring of nice symbolism for her state.</p> + +<p>Had she felt the need of a death's head at her sun feast, this neutral, +denying flatness would have sufficed. The end had come home to her. It +was her unseen familiar, voiceless, but ever present, with a look +unhurrying but constant.</p> + +<p>And there were the mountains themselves, things that had once leaped +alive and tortured themselves into frenzied furies of striving only to +be stricken and left at last in all the broken tossing of their folly. +They had tried the fighting death, and it had availed only to fix their +last agonies. Their scarred hulks testified to the wisdom of submission.</p> + +<p>Yet her mind was normal in these sun-warmed hours of musing. She knew +that those dead hills with their dying leafage told another tale to the +pair of young lives housed with her. To them they were but inspirations +to life vital and triumphant; eminences to be scaled in joyous effort, +offering to youth's dreaming, half-true clairvoyance, unending reaches +to provoke; near enough to seem attainable; far enough to be plausible +with promise of delights.</p> + +<p>Nor did she fail to rejoice in the fervor of this fresh view so unlike +her own. She was conscious of its truth to untouched souls like theirs, +and she sought to throw them together, urging them to excursions through +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> hills. She thought of them at first as her pair whom she had set in +a garden where the fruit of no tree was forbidden.</p> + +<p>She coolly studied Ewing on the days when he worked indoors, detaching +herself from his life as one about to go on a long journey. From her +shadowed couch she scanned his face as he bent over the drawing board. +It had filled in the year since she first saw it, and was an older face, +the strength of it more conscious, the promise of it almost kept in its +well-controlled, level-eyed maturity. Much of the boy remained to flash +out, but she saw that this would never go; that it would kindle his eyes +when the brown hair had gone white. It was this eternal boyishness, she +saw, that made him quick of response to another's interest; this that +had made him seem too ductile under Teevan's manipulation, when in truth +he had merely been loath to hurt, fearing nothing so much as another's +pain. The forward line of the nose and the smoldering fierceness of eye +should have been more informing. That was the face, vital, fearless, +patently self-willed for all its kindly immaturities of concession, that +Teevan had thought to prevail over by his stings of waspish contempt. +She smiled pityingly for Teevan, until she recalled that she also had +misread its lines. There were moments when her beaten spirit fluttered +up at thought of Teevan's being blasted by what he had thought to blast. +But a look at the mother's restraining face, or, still more, a look at +Ewing as he would glance from his work up to the portrait, stilled this +craving for battle. It was well, she thought, as it had fallen.</p> + +<p>Ewing had set to work doubtingly at first, but with laughing energy when +he found that the lines came again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> at his call. He felt, indeed, that +his facility had been increased, and he confided this to Mrs. Laithe one +day as she lay watching him.</p> + +<p>"I don't have to 'squeeze' the way I did," he said. "Perhaps I really +learned something there in spite of myself, in all that messing with +colors. I didn't learn to paint, but I seem to have a new line on +bucking bronchos and bucked cowboys." He stopped in sudden thought.</p> + +<p>"There, I've forgotten that old painting of mine. I'll treat us both to +a look at it."</p> + +<p>He went off to Ben's room beyond the kitchen and came back with the +dusty canvas. He wiped it with a cloth and placed it on the easel.</p> + +<p>She did not look at this. She knew it too well. Her look was for his +face as he studied it. She saw surprise there, bewilderment, +incredulity, and then, slowly dawning, a consternation of dropped jaw +and squinting scowl. Yet this broke at length, and, to her great relief, +he laughed, heartily, honestly. She smiled, not at the poor painting, +but in sympathy with him. Then he remembered that she had looked at this +same canvas once before, and that neither of them had laughed. His face +sobered, and he went over to her.</p> + +<p>"You had nerve, didn't you—after seeing that thing?"</p> + +<p>"You remember I didn't praise it."</p> + +<p>"But you saw I didn't know any better, and you never let me see that +<i>you</i> did. You must have thought highly of me, I can see that." He +stooped and laid one of his hands on hers with a friendly, thanking +pressure.</p> + +<p>"I saw plainly enough what you could do," she protested.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>He went to stand again before the despised canvas, playing upon it with +humorous disparagement.</p> + +<p>"But if you see now," she said, "that it's so—if it seems so——"</p> + +<p>"Say the word—do!"</p> + +<p>"If it seems bad to you now, that's a good sign. It means that you've +learned something about color. Suppose it had still seemed good."</p> + +<p>He took the thing off the easel.</p> + +<p>"If I've learned as much about color as I think this is bad—well +there's only a little left for me to learn."</p> + +<p>"Now you will paint others that will seem faultless at the time and bad +a year later. That's the penalty of growth, but it's the proof. Make +your prayer to the god of painting: 'May everything I do seem bad when +it's a year old!'"</p> + +<p>"I'll try to," he returned gravely. Then, "Let's put this out of sight +quick, before Virginia sees it."</p> + +<p>"You didn't burn it," she asked, when he returned.</p> + +<p>"I should think not. I'd have to fight Ben if I burned that. Of course I +didn't know any better when I gave it to him, any more than I knew about +his songs. That's another thing you must have laughed at me for."</p> + +<p>He laughed himself as she looked up at him with puzzled inquiry, and +went on to confess how he had sung Ben's choicest ballad at the +Monastery.</p> + +<p>"Of course it's a funny song," he continued, as he returned to the +drawing board, "but it isn't so very much funnier than a lot that aren't +supposed to be funny at all. Come, now," he rallied her, "don't they all +rub in the sadness, even the ones you might think serious? There must be +a million songs about 'Dreaming,'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> 'I Dreamed that You Were with Me, +Love!' and 'It was All a Dream!' and 'Could I but Recall that Day!' and +'Alas, It was not so to be!' and 'Must We, then, Part Forever!' Always +crying about something! Always moaning 'if only' something or other. +They're about as teary a lot as Ben's songs. I told Virginia last night +I never wanted to hear another 'Could I but—' song; they're as bad as +'The Fatal Wedding.'"</p> + +<p>Though he had rushed at the drawings with a powerful incentive—to make +himself free so that he could perform one great service for his lady—he +yielded often to the persuasions of Mrs. Laithe and took Virginia out +for adventures. They explored box cañons that she believed to be +impenetrable until he nonchalantly opened a way to their secret +recesses. They whipped trout streams and he complacently caught fish +from holes she would angle in without result. He tried to persuade her +that certain brown patches he professed to detect off through the forest +from time to time were deer; but vainly each time, until there would be +a sudden terrific shattering amid the underbrush, and perhaps a fleeting +glimpse of the brown patch with its white center, flying in swift rebuke +to her unbelief. They climbed hills together, and he irritated her by +his continued ease of breath under the strain, while her own "wind" that +she had thought so well of in Kensington was exhausted by the first +moments of effort. She believed him guilty of a polite fiction when he +explained that the altitude made all the difference. She disbelieved his +tale of the lake water's coldness—it was annoying to be told that even +he wanted no more than a single plunge in it—and bathed there one day +to her undoing. She refused to believe that he could shoot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> accurately +with a rifle that made so much noise, or with a revolver that wobbled +when one tried to hold it still, until he had demonstrated these +matters. And she refused to concede that she could not ride a certain +half-broken little mare—which Ewing rode without apparent +difficulty—until the mare proved it to the satisfaction of all +concerned.</p> + +<p>These little disbeliefs were not unpleasant to Ewing. He revenged +himself for having been proved a "duffer" at her own games.</p> + +<p>It was on their return from an afternoon's fishing one day that they +found Bartell bestowing Cooney on his sister.</p> + +<p>"I bought him for you from Pierce," he was explaining. "Of course Virgie +can ride him until you're fit again."</p> + +<p>The sick woman greeted her old friend formally in the presence of the +others. But when they had gone inside she led the little roan around to +the corral, and there, sheltered by its wall, she put an arm tightly +over his lowered neck and laid her face to his with fond little words of +greeting and remembrance. He had carried her so well on a day when +nothing had happened; when she was a girl herself, it almost seemed, +more curious of the world than knowing.</p> + +<p>That had been an age—a year—ago. The little horse had been bravely +doing his work, carrying his inconsequent burdens as they listed, while +she had been losing herself in protests. She had begun doing that, it +seemed, the first day he brought her there. She wondered if he could +remember it. She doubted that; but at least he remembered Ewing and +loved him. She clasped the arm more tightly about his neck, and the +little horse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> whinnied, pawing the earth with a small forefoot, and +moving his head up and down in a knowing way. To the woman he had the +effect of seeking to return her caress, so that in a moment she was +sobbing in a sudden weakness of love for him.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> +<a name="xxviii" id="xxviii"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE WHITE TIME</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">THE days went, shortening. She kept to her couch through all but those +hours when the sun was high. Then she lay to be warmed in the open while +the year died before her. She could not see another year. She must read +all her meanings into this one. September went and October waned. The +sky was often overcast. They had ceased to talk of her going back. Her +brother reminded her cheerfully that he had half expected a long stay +for her. She must be patient. She spoke in his own vein of hopefulness, +promising patience, and smiled as ever on her pair, who still wandered +in that garden, bantering comrades, tasting the fruit of every tree but +one.</p> + +<p>And one day she knew that all her imaginings about this pair had been +vain, caught it in the deepened look of Ewing as he turned from Virginia +to herself. It was a thing to bask in—that look—like the fervid sun +itself. But it hurt her, too; made it harder to let go of life. Yet +always before her was the face of Kitty Teevan with its beseeching eyes: +"You have so little time to live, and I must live in his memory always!" +And so she put the thing away, letting him think as he must, wincing +under his look of pity, and that devouring thing that lurked always back +of his pity, and striving for lightness when she talked with him.</p> + +<p>"I understand why our land seemed unreal to you,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> she said to him while +they loitered in the blue dusk of the pine woods near the cabin one day. +The peaks beyond were misty behind gray clouds that lay sullenly along +the horizon. "I understand why you called our land a stage land, for +this is unreal to me, painted, theatrical, impossible. I keep hearing +the person who's seen the play telling his neighbor what's to come +next."</p> + +<p>"It's real enough," he answered, looking away from her. "I have a way of +telling when a land is real."</p> + +<p>"You have?"</p> + +<p>"Any land is real where you are. New England or Colorado or Siberia +or——"</p> + +<p>"There, there!" she soothed him mockingly—"or India's coral strand. +That's quite enough. You have learned your geography lesson. What a busy +traveler you must have been!"</p> + +<p>"And no land can be real where you are not," he went on gravely. "I go +where you go, follow you around the world and out into the stars beyond +the moon, up and down and on forever, and it all seems real to me—all +except you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I—I'm real, real enough, but this land is a sad, fearful, +threatening land, so heartless." She shivered. "Let us go in!"</p> + +<p>"That's only because it's closing up now for the winter; that's why the +sky is sorry. The leaves are nearly gone, and the fat old bears are +slouching down from the high places to curl up in the holes, and the +deer are moving down into the valleys, and pretty soon the hills will +crawl under white blankets and go to sleep. And we shall have to do the +same. We shall be shut in before you know it, snowed in, frozen in, like +the bears. But the winter—it can't take you from me."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>"There, there!" But she could not finish. She flashed a helpless smile +at him and fled indoors. He went after her, crying that winter was upon +them.</p> + +<p>And then, all in a day and a night, winter came. The wind fell to an +ominous hush one midday, and a leaden quiet lay over the hills. Blurred +masses of cloud rose slowly above the peaks, shaping themselves with +ponderous sloth. Below these a white mist formed. Then one tiny snow +crystal fell. It was followed presently by another, and then by more, +floating down with unhurried ease. Meaningless wisps they seemed, +fugitive bits of wool, perhaps, from a sheep losing its fleece in some +nearby shearing pen. More of them came with the same slow, loitering +grace, as if they would lull suspicion of the fury they heralded.</p> + +<p>By night the storm had shut off the hills so that the cabin might have +been set in a plain, for all the eye could see. The flakes no longer +came saunteringly, but swiftly now, in a slant of honest fervor, frankly +threatening.</p> + +<p>By morning the land was muffled in white. The sun shone pale and cold +through the mist, and the wind began a game with its new plaything, +still light and dry, and quick to dance to any piping. Spruce and +hemlock seemed to have darkened their green, and their arms drooped +wearily under the white burdens they bore. The second day's fall buried +their lowest branches so that not even the circle of bare earth was left +about them.</p> + +<p>Inside the cabin they sought the peace of the earth under its cover, the +trustful repose of the live things sleeping there. The days sped by +almost unmarked. Scarcely ever were they certain of the day of week or +month, especially after Ben forgot to mark his calendar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> on the days he +and Ewing devoted to getting deer for their winter's meat. There were +but opinions as to the date after that.</p> + +<p>Ben, after his work with the stock each morning, hibernated gracefully +in a chair by the kitchen stove, sleeping with excited groans, like a +dreaming dog. Or, awake, he stared at the wall with dulled eyes. At +times he would touch his guitar to life and sing very softly, or hold it +affectionately in his lap, a hand muting its strings, while he pondered +dreamily of far-off matters, of cities and men, and the folly of +expecting ever to receive treasure such as the advertisements promise.</p> + +<p>Ewing and Virginia, after the snow packed, went forth on snowshoes far +into the white silence; over open spaces so glaring that the eyes closed +in defense; through ravines where once-noisy streams were stilled; and +under forest arches of green where the snow was darkened to hints of +blue—they agreed that Sydenham would paint it blue without +condescending to hints—and where the hush was so intense that they +instinctively lowered their voices. They passed long times without +speech, as they would have done in a church, worshiping the still beauty +about them, beauty of buttressed peak, of snow-choked cañon, of +green-roofed cathedral, of pink light at sunset on endless snow-quilted +slopes.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Laithe, too, sought the open when the sun was high, and one day in +midwinter she walked as far as the lake in the path beaten by the stock. +It did not occur to her then that this was no feat for a dying woman nor +even on the succeeding days when this walk became her habit. It was a +change for her eyes from the cabin prospect; the sun warmed her +genially, despite the intense cold, and she liked the stillness, all the +movements<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> of life going on in a strange, muffled silence. This helped +her to remember her own plight. Life still abounded with all its warmth +and glad clashing, but she must have only eyes for it—no heart of +desire. She had been so sure of this from the first that she gave but +heedless smiles to the others when they told her she was better. They +had always said such things.</p> + +<p>She slept the long nights through now, seeking bed like a tired child, +and waking in strange refreshment. And milk no longer appeased her +hunger as it had wholly done when she arrived. The savor of baked meats +was now sweet to her. She was presently walking to the lake both morning +and afternoon, breathing deep of the dry air that ran fire in her veins +as she absorbed it. And the flush on her face when she returned was not +that of fever.</p> + +<p>But more eloquent than these physical symptoms was a sullen current of +rebellion rising slowly within her, the old fighting instinct, a lust +for sheer living, a thing she had believed was long since extinct.</p> + +<p>She did not lose her certainty of death all in a day. For weeks she was +haunted merely by an unquiet suspicion. The cough still racked her night +and morning, and the fever came each evening, but the old potency seemed +to have gone from both. She tried to believe at first that this was one +of those false rallies so common before the end.</p> + +<p>The full, maddening realization came to her on a day when Ewing walked +with her to the lake. He turned on her suddenly when they had mounted a +slope, seized both her hands, and looked long into her eyes with a +certain grave wonder.</p> + +<p>"You are made new," he said at last. She trembled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> in a sudden panic, +divining the truth of it, feeling, as he spoke, a great rush of life +overwhelming her.</p> + +<p>"You are living again, you are going to live. I knew you would live." He +still gripped her hands. It was as if he had drawn her, warm and +pulsing, out of all the wintry death about them. She could not face him, +but released her hands and turned away. He had seen truly. She had +relaxed utterly when she came, to waver unresistingly down into the cool +abyss of her despair. But some indomitable brute thing had risen in her +while she slept, to fight for life, and to fire her whole being with its +triumph. While she had rested and waited in that luxury of +self-abandonment she had been cheated of her victory—betrayed back to +life.</p> + +<p>Trying now to think what life would mean to her, she was overwhelmed +with shame and dismay. With death so near things had been simple. But +how could she live on and face Ewing, shaming herself and shaming him in +the darkness of his belief about her?</p> + +<p>They walked back to the cabin in silence. Ewing, too, she felt, saw the +future to be less simple now.</p> + +<p>"I shall know what to do," he said, as they reached the door; and there +was again in his eyes that puzzling look of some fixed purpose. For the +first time this vaguely alarmed her now, and she questioned him swiftly +with her eyes. But he only pointed to his mother's portrait—they had +entered the studio—and said, "Do you think I'd do less for you than I +would for her?"</p> + +<p>She could endure neither his own look nor the mother's, and fled to her +room. There she studied her face in the glass. It was all true. She was +going to live, and she sickened at the thought. Again it was a time for +tears and laughter.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> +<a name="xxix" id="xxix"></a>CHAPTER XXIX<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE AWAKENING</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">THE white giant, sun-stricken, drooping languidly, crumbled and +dissolved before their eyes. The air softened. The streams rushed full, +the southern hillsides showed bare and gaunt.</p> + +<p>In the lake cabin they felt aged by their imprisonment. It had been so +long, so remote from the world rush. Like prisoners long confined, they +were loath to leave a dungeon where life had been well ordered if not +exhilarating. Benumbed in the first days of the change, they returned +indoors to the soothing evenness of their six months' hibernation. They +found those first changes unbelievable. Winter would surely go on +forever; too mighty a jailer it was to be vanquished by a mere breath of +honey and flowers. They stayed in to warn one another against false +appearances.</p> + +<p>But there came a day when, in the blaze of noontime, Ben Crider moved +his chair out by the door and sang softly to the strains of his guitar. +His eyes blinked in the sunlight as he sang, yet they did not fail to +detect the signs of spring so plentiful about the clearing in bud and +leaf and tiny grass shoot, even though patches of snow still lay in the +shaded spots.</p> + +<p>The woman who cooked came also to the door as Ben sang. He had spoken of +her the winter through as "the woman," dimly perceiving her as a spirit +that mumbled endless complainings as she toiled, for she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> was one who +had been disillusioned by much cooking. She cooked acceptably, and Ben +had burgeoned in the uncanny luxury of food prepared by another hand +than his own, but he had given her little attention beyond discovering +her opinion that cooking was a barren performance, since people +perversely ate and thereby destroyed, and the thing must be done again +endlessly. He had vaguely observed that this woman was not beautiful, +and now, as she faced him with a sudden joviality in the spring +sunshine, he saw that she could never have been beautiful. She beamed +amicably on the balladist, and he, turning casual eyes on her, was +stricken to dismayed silence; the tuneful praise of young love fainted +on his lips as he stared, aghast, and his startled hand hushed the +vibrant strings. A moment he looked, recovering from the shock. Then, in +swift recoil, he grasped his chair and went resolutely out under the big +hemlock, there to resume his song and his absent contemplation of +Nature's awakening—his back to the cabin door. In this sensitive mood +he wished not to incur again a vision that blighted song.</p> + +<p>It was no longer disputable that spring was real; no baseless tradition, +but an unfolding reality. Ben had divined it, and the other prisoners +were not long in proving it.</p> + +<p>One of them surveyed it in panic wonder, turning in upon herself to face +the ordeal of enforced living. They wandered in the open, three of them, +now, finding it good to feel the bare, elastic earth under their feet +again, and prove the noiseless but sensational life of growing things +all about them. They plucked buds to see their secret hearts, and +exposed the roots of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> peeping herbs that had begun their strivings +before the snow went.</p> + +<p>When the sunny places had been dried and warmed, and were pulsing in +their myriad hidden hearts, so that winter began to fade in their minds +as some dream of night, they would penetrate the sunless depths of a +narrow cañon where the snow yet lay deep and the stream was a mere +choking of ice in a gorge.</p> + +<p>It was in the flush of this exultation over winter's downfall that they +planned camp life in a vale at the edge of the lake, where the spruces +thinned to leave wide-vaulted arches, and spread the floor with yielding +brown rugs of the pine needle. They began it as a play, and finished +with a permanent camp into which they moved from the cabin. There were +tents and beds, a table, a sheet-iron stove, chests for their stores, +and hammocks in which to be fanned by the south wind.</p> + +<p>Bartell promised his sister vast benefits from this life.</p> + +<p>"This will put the finishing touches to you, Sis. A month here and +you'll be loping over the range, high, wide, and handsome. It'll take an +elk-high fence to hold you after you've slept awhile out here."</p> + +<p>She felt the truth of what he said, and was appalled by it. Almost daily +she dismayed herself by recalling some unpremeditated feat of strength +or endurance. Life had crept back to her like a whipped dog, and +bitterly she felt the sting of its satire. She was loath to leave the +cabin in which she had so long nursed death. She had impregnated the +very walls with an atmosphere of dissolution. But she understood now +that that prison house could no longer suffice her. Stubborn life had +prevailed over all its powers of suggestion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> There she had clung +stubbornly to the old solution, cherishing a hope of some sudden +relapse, despite the new life that taunted her with its animal buoyance. +But once in the open, her brain was washed of that. Her mind was as +clear as the fathomless blue above them at noon; and the stars at night +were not more coldly luminous than the reasoning she bent upon herself, +nor sharper than a certain deduction she made.</p> + +<p>Ewing brought his drawing to the camp and spent the mornings in work. He +had finished his series for the <i>Knickerbocker</i> during the winter, and +these drawings, with the illustrations for the story previously made, +had brought him enough to discharge the Teevan debt. He had reported +this transaction significantly to Mrs. Laithe, and was now busy on +pictures for another story for the <i>Knickerbocker</i>.</p> + +<p>"Only a little longer," he said, with a meaning she could not fathom, +and he returned to his work with a singular absorption. Not even Ben +could distract him when he sauntered up for his daily criticism. Ben was +respectful to the drawings after he saw the checks they brought, but his +summing up of the purchaser's acumen never varied.</p> + +<p>"Well, well—fools and their money! The idee of payin' out cash for a +thing that looks as much like Red Phinney as that there does!"</p> + +<p>When work was done for the day Ewing would turn to Mrs. Laithe with a +smile of release, and they would stray along some dim trail or off into +pathless, shaded silences of the wood, lingering in grassy mountain +meadows, or skirting the base of bleak crags where streaks of snow in +shadow still clung to the gray walls. She was conscious then of a tumult +throbbing wonderfully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> beneath the surface of their companionship—a +tumult of life aching for release. In little chance moments of silence +this rumbled ominously, leaving her fearful, but curiously resigned, +moved to blind flight, yet chained and submissive as were the hills +themselves.</p> + +<p>One afternoon they sought their cañon of delayed winter after many days' +neglect of it. They wondered if spring might not have reached even that +secret recess at last. They left the trail that skirted the edge and +descended a rocky way that Ewing found, emerging at last through a +fringe of the stunted cedars into the gloom of the depths.</p> + +<p>At first glance this last stronghold of winter seemed to have remained +impregnable. Snow lay deep along the bottom, enormous stalactites of ice +depended from overhanging ledges, and the stream itself appeared to be +still only a riven glacier. But, listening intently, they heard a steady +liquid murmur, the very music of spring come at last to sing the gorge +awake. As they stood, listening, there was a shivering crash; one of the +huge icicles had dropped, shattering on a lower ledge and raining its +fragments into the soft snowbed below.</p> + +<p>"It's the very last of winter," said Ewing mournfully. "That snow is +eaten through and through. See how those bits of ice drove into it. And +hear that running water. It will be off with a rush now. It's the very +last of it—all I shall have to look back to—that winter of ours +together." His tone was full of a meaning she dared not question. They +climbed in silence to the summer above and traversed, still silently, +the stretch of green woods that grew beyond the cañon wall. Only at the +first mountain meadow, a dazzle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> of emerald under the slanting sun, did +they halt to gaze at each other. His eyes were wonderfully alight with +sadness and rejoicing as she faced him, radiant in a moment of +forgetfulness, flagrant in her beauty's renewal.</p> + +<p>"You're wonderful again," he said, almost whisperingly, "you're all in +flower now!" She quickened under his look, feeling the glow on her +cheeks. But that faded at his next words.</p> + +<p>"I finished the last of those drawings to-day. Now I must go."</p> + +<p>"Ah—go?" It was a little cry, half of question, half of understanding.</p> + +<p>"Yes—I can go now. I couldn't go before, but I have the money now."</p> + +<p>She sickened as they walked on in silence, fearing to question him, and +when they reached the camp she ran to throw herself on the bed in her +tent, covering her eyes with her hands, pressing the lids down, but +making no sound.</p> + +<p>As they sat about their camp fire that evening Ewing was struck by a +certain view he caught of her. She sat in shadow on a stool at the foot +of a towering hemlock, and once when he rose to stir the waning fire a +flame shot up from a half-burned log, with a volley of sparks that fell +back in a golden rain. He glanced over to be sure that she escaped +these, and saw her sharply revealed in the sudden light, unconscious of +it, unaroused by the crackling explosion. She was staring fixedly into +the darkness, her body relaxed, her hands half clasped, her head, the +profile toward him, leaning wearily against the tree. Before this +background she seemed frail again, her face pallid under the dark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> of +her hair and against the rough, ruddy brown of the tree bole, her whole +body contrasting in its fragile lines with the tree's strength—human +weakness showing starkly against the vigor of the woods.</p> + +<p>To dull the sudden wanting of his heart for her he walked off alone over +the path that bordered the lake, to reduce the amazing actuality of +things, if he could, to proportions seemly with normal life. But the +lake was a mirror of enchantment, the booming of an owl was a magic +portent, the shadowed wall of granite was a turreted castle of +mysteries, vague in the starlight, and the very stars themselves huddled +down on him excitingly. He was in a world of the unreal, and must do an +unreal thing. He stumbled blindly back to camp. He was surprised to find +Mrs. Laithe as he had left her, still drooping against the rough-barked +tree, weak, submissive, overborne. He touched her arm gently to recall +her from some troubled distance. She looked at him with eyes unseeing at +first.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it bedtime?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>She smiled and stood up to shrug away the spell of her dreaming. She +spoke with such clear strength of tone that he was at once reassured of +her vigor.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's sleeping time—in a moment. I haven't said much to you, but +there's really little to say. You feel that you must go?"</p> + +<p>"How could I stay here—after that?"</p> + +<p>She repressed a sudden spasm of wild, weeping laughter that threatened +to overcome her.</p> + +<p>"And you'll not come back?" She waited breathless.</p> + +<p>"There isn't much chance of it."</p> + +<p>"You dear, dear fool!" was on her lips, but she held back the words and +said very quietly:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>"Go out, then, and live as you must. Only don't let life cow you. Don't +ever fear that living is intricate or hard or tragic—a thing to be gone +about warily. The wary people make the same mistakes as the careless +ones, and feel them ten times more. Don't be afraid to dream—afraid to +believe. I'm glad I've dreamed every dream of mine—false or true. Never +be afraid to want." She turned half away as if to go, but halted, and he +thought she had grown suddenly weak.</p> + +<p>"You're going——"</p> + +<p>"To-morrow, I'd thought—the sooner the better."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but that's so soon. Can't we have one more day here? One more day +to think of it?"</p> + +<p>"I've thought of it all winter, days and nights as well; but I'd like +another day—" He watched her longingly as she went beyond the +firelight.</p> + +<p>"Not a day to think about it," he called softly—"a day to forget."</p> + +<p>They made it a day of forgetting, as he had said. In the morning they +planned to ride, and their spirits were such as they rode off that Ben +was moved to regard them knowingly, as one who had taken a fling at life +in his time.</p> + +<p>The day long they rode or rambled, talking of all but obvious +things—making it, indeed, a day of forgetting and a day to remember. +Deep in the woman's heart stirred an instinct of primal coquetry, an +impulse to wield her charm upon him, to make the woman prevail over the +man, beating all reason down, blindly, madly. And she yielded to this, +watching its effect on him, divining the power of her freshened beauty +each time she compelled his eyes. Instinctively she would have had him +say, "I give up. I can't go.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> Let me stay—stay by you!" The natural +woman in her fought for that. But reason reigned above the conflict. She +knew he would not surrender and knew she would not have him surrender. +Still she could not resist that impulse to enchain him, and exulted each +time she made him tremble at their nearness.</p> + +<p>Not until night had come did the imminence of his going seem to lie upon +them. But then it lay with a weight. Together they left the camp and +felt a way over the darkened trail to the cabin. Ewing had spoken of +packing he must do, of matters in which she might help him.</p> + +<p>But when they were in the studio, and he had started a great blaze in +the fireplace he sat before it with her, silent. She spoke at length of +the packing.</p> + +<p>"There's none to do," he answered. "I'm taking scarcely anything—only +what I can carry back of the saddle."</p> + +<p>Her blood leaped with a quick hope.</p> + +<p>"Then you're not going for long—you <i>will</i> come back—" But he only +shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I can't expect to come back." He looked at her with a sudden lighting +of his eyes. "Come near to me this once." He moved a stool in front of +him. "Sit here, this once."</p> + +<p>She sat on the low stool at his feet and felt herself drawn slowly +forward until her arms rested on his knees. She laid her head on them, +shaken to the heart. Then she felt him bending over her, hovering, +sheltering her, and at last, with a long sigh, come to rest, his face +buried in her hair. They remained so, immovable, without further speech.</p> + +<p>The absurdity of the thing between them had never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> seemed so egregious +to her. The words rang in her mind, burning behind her closed +eyes—"It's all a mistake, that. How could you believe it, even you, +unused to the world though you are?" But she knew the questions this +would bring from him, the doubt that would stay with him; knew she could +never satisfy him with less than the truth. For a moment she heard +herself telling him this truth, gently, delicately, tenderly. But he +spoke, even while she was thinking this.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to be here to-night with you, and with her." He raised his +head at last, to look at the portrait of his mother. "She understands, +I'm sure. And she would have me go—she would have me do as I am doing."</p> + +<p>She knew finally, then, that she could never tell him. She ceased all +vain considering of that. He was going away from her because of the lie +he believed. The truth might come to him some day, but it must never +come from her. The certainty brought her a kind of rest. She could fall +back on laughter and tears for the thing.</p> + +<p>A long time they sat there, speaking little, her head still cradled on +his knees. But when the fire died they knew it must be late and rose to +go. Ewing looked long at the portrait, then turned to her.</p> + +<p>"I'm doing what I would do for her," he said, "and I'm glad I had you +both with me this last time. You'll always keep that for me, won't you?" +He raised a hand toward the portrait.</p> + +<p>"If you wish it," she said.</p> + +<p>When they came in sight of the camp fire they stopped and turned to each +other. He caught her by the shoulders.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>"Good night and good-by!" he whispered.</p> + +<p>She tried to speak, but could not for the trembling of her lips. She +turned to go, and took a few faltering steps, then flew back, and with a +wild gesture, drew him down and pressed his head against her heart.</p> + +<p>Ben came sleepily from the cabin next morning as Ewing was about to +mount his horse. He had felt at ease about this journey, because of the +slender equipment with which Ewing was setting out. An early return was +to be inferred.</p> + +<p>Ewing held out his hand, and Ben, observing that it was scarce daylight, +and that the act could in no way be considered a public scandal, grasped +it cordially.</p> + +<p>"So long, Kid—and good luck, whatever you're goin' to do!"</p> + +<p>"There's a man down in New York needs killing, Ben."</p> + +<p>"Now, look a here, Kid, you better look out"—but the practical aspects +of the affair at once seized his mind, and he broke off with, "Got your +gun?"</p> + +<p>"No—a gun's too good for him."</p> + +<p>Ben considered this, and became again solicitous.</p> + +<p>"Well, look a here, now, you be darned careful. If it's needed, why, do +it. But you jest want to remember that New York ain't Hinsdale County. +You want to be mighty careful you don't git into some trouble over it."</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> +<a name="xxx" id="xxx"></a>CHAPTER XXX<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE HARDEST THING</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">THE zest had gone from camp life with Ewing's departure, and the cabin +was again occupied. Mrs. Laithe filled the days with a sort of blind +waiting. It could not end so, she felt, despite the eyes of Kitty +Teevan, so watchful of her, and so certain that it had ended. Something +must happen. That was the burden of her hope—as vague as a child's +hope. She would set no time, nor would she name the thing. But come it +must, and she could wait.</p> + +<p>When Beulah Pierce rode by on his way from Pagosa and left their mail +one afternoon, she felt no eagerness about it. There could be nothing so +soon, she was sure. Virginia brought her some letters and read aloud one +from the aunt at Kensington. Then Mrs. Laithe looked through her own +letters and found one from Ewing. She did not open it, but rose after a +few moments, and walked swiftly over to the lake camp. Only there, +alone, could she trust herself.</p> + +<p>She read the thing staringly, haltingly, testing each phrase as if it +were worded in some strange tongue.</p> + +<p>"I can tell you now what I came for," the letter ran, "because the thing +will be done before this letter can reach you. It's a thing you want +done, but if you had known I meant to do it you would have tried to +prevent me, and that would only have distressed us both. But now, when +it is all over, you will see that I was the one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> person in the world to +do it for you. Think if you had killed him yourself that night, the pain +you would have brought to yourself and to others. It wasn't a woman's +work. I would have done it for you then, but I owed him money. I +couldn't kill him till I had paid that.</p> + +<p>"I used to dream of doing things for you always, many things, big and +little, but it has turned out that I can do only this. So won't you try +to believe that I am putting all my heart into it for you, all that +thing I would have tried to show you if it had been scattered over the +rest of our lives? I must put it all into this one act.</p> + +<p>"Ben seemed to suspect that such affairs could be managed here with the +informality that often marks them in the San Juan, but you and I know +better. I cannot expect to return, nor to see you again. Yet I shall see +you always; see no one else—while they let me see at all. We must take +life as it falls, do the next thing without complaining, even if it is +the hardest thing. And be sure of this—I shall do it so quickly that he +will have no chance to tell me anything. He will not even speak your +name. Afterwards you can have this to remember, that I did it gladly, +knowing what the consequences would be. I hope that will be, in time, +the happiness to you that it is to me. It is enough for me."</p> + +<p>Over and over she read it, and at last she mastered it—all the horror +of it. A long time she gazed dumbly at the sheets, then once more she +laughed the old, low laugh, with a sinister note in it now. Ben Crider +found her there an hour later, staring blankly out over the flawed +surface of the lake. The breeze was swirling many finely torn bits of +paper about her feet.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>As they walked back to the cabin she reflected that the letter had lain +four days in the postoffice at Pagosa. It had been written nine days +before. Then Ewing had done the thing. She no more believed that Randall +Teevan still lived than she believed that the mountains about her were +phantoms. A sentence from the letter ran in her mind. "We must take life +as it falls—do the next thing without complaining, even if it is the +hardest thing."</p> + +<p>"The hardest thing!"</p> + +<p>She pleaded fatigue and lack of appetite to Virginia and sought her bed +to lie and think in the dark. She saw her own hardest thing, the thing +she must do.</p> + +<p>She had caused a man to be put to death; a vicious, mischievous fool, it +was true, but still a man. That was sad and horrible. But of another +man, one she had thought to guard and cherish and care for in all of +woman's ways—she had made a murderer, and she had murdered him. For she +knew that Ewing must die. It was as if he were already dead. Perhaps out +there in the agonized void of the world he had already killed himself, +his work being done. Or, if not, they would kill him. She felt a blind, +hollow sickness, as if her heart had broken and was bleeding away inside +her. She had made her beloved a slayer and had slain him. She could not +live with it. She hungered for her own death with intolerable desire.</p> + +<p>She arose with a despair-cleared mind the next morning, her resolve +made. Only the smaller details were to be worked out. She walked by the +lake, <a name="resolving" id="resolving"></a><ins title="Original has revolving">resolving</ins> +these. Once she wept, from the very +abundance and color of life about her. Life was so full, and she had +taken it from him in his splendid youth. But she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> not shirk the +penalty of her blood-guiltiness. She looked out to the hills beyond the +valley that fell away from the lake, studying headland and wooded slope +and cañon opening, choked with green. Some spot far out there would be +secret and gracious to her—welcome her with a finger on its lips—take +her and keep. Death, to her, was no longer terrible. There had been a +long intimacy with it. She rushed to the idea of it as to a home—a +benignant succor from the unendurable thought.</p> + +<p>Back in the cabin she lay counting the minutes as they rushed—thinking +and counting. She must not let herself be prisoned by a mere body that +exulted blindly, basely, in its vigor. She could make everything right. +She could conform to the law of a life for a life.</p> + +<p>"The hardest thing," she murmured. "I must do the hardest thing." That +would be her expiation, though not a sufficing one; she recognized that. +She longed for it too avidly, for the relief from thought, from +torturing visions. Yet it was formally perfect as a punishment, +according to the world's standards. She would be her own executioner, +and it would satisfy the world if the world knew. And despite her +longing for release, it was still, she thought, the hardest thing, +although it saved—saved her from that old man and that young man slain: +that young beloved one, lying dead with blood upon his hands. Poor +sacrificed, poor betrayed, poor ruined one! Again, the hollow sickness, +as if her heart were bleeding away inside her. To expiate—to do the +hardest thing. She came back to that always. It was the hardest thing, +although it saved.</p> + +<p>When her brother rode up in the afternoon, she instantly saw her plan +completed. There came an hour in which she walked and talked and laughed +in a waking dream,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> without sensation, except as she could imagine it +felt by a creature she seemed to watch from afar, a creature who had +looked strangely like herself. She saw this woman greet the others and +sit at table with them to laugh and talk with acceptable ease. Their +voices were soundless as voices in a dream, their shapes and flittings +as illogical. So benumbed was her spirit that she suffered little even +at the moment of hurried parting from Virginia. Her rôle was played with +flawless detachment. She studied herself coolly and guarded against +wrong speeches.</p> + +<p>"I shall go home with Clarence; I haven't seen that magnificent ranch +yet," she remarked carelessly, and Virginia and her brother had +applauded this.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you a ranch that is a ranch," Bartell had answered.</p> + +<p>Ben led Cooney around, saddled. She kissed Virginia lightly and was on +the little horse. She turned to wave gayly as she fell in ahead of +Bartell on the trail to the lake.</p> + +<p>The moon had sailed up over the eastern hills with the going down of the +sun, and the shadows were sharply cut in its light. They reined in at +the lake, lingering there a moment in its charm. Under the slanting moon +rays it shone like another moon, radiantly silver in its setting of +cloudlike leafage. She drew a long breath as her brother started on, and +called to him.</p> + +<p>"Clarence!" He pulled up his horse, looking back at her.</p> + +<p>"You'll think me absurd, but I've decided not to go with you, after all. +I believe I'd rather stay with Virginia. She'll be lonesome."</p> + +<p>He came back to her, scolding whimsically.</p> + +<p>"I know I'm foolish," she persisted, "but you're so dreadfully busy and +noisy over there."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>"Nonsense! And Virgie will be all right. She doesn't need you for a few +days."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure she'll need me. No—go on alone, there's a dear. I can ride +over myself and bring you back for a few days, after your rush is over."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you're really set." He submitted, grumbling.</p> + +<p>"And kiss me, dear!"</p> + +<p>He did so, still grumbling. "And you skip back, if you're going back. +You're cold as ice. So long, weathervane! And come over when you feel +like it."</p> + +<p>"I'll be warm, dear—and good-by."</p> + +<p>She watched him down the slope and across the meadow until he vanished +into the black of the forest wall. Then she rode on to the camp. Without +dismounting she took from the end of a broken branch a revolver in its +holster that she had hung there earlier in the day. She made sure again +that it was loaded and buckled the holster about her waist.</p> + +<p>Turning from the ranch trail, then, she found another that led off to +the north and away from the Pagosa road—off into a wooded wilderness of +hills where she would be safe from discovery. She halted again on the +first ridge above the camp, sitting motionless in the shadow, her eyes +on the little moon-flooded opening across the lake where the cabin trail +came down to the shore. That was a walk for lovers, but they could not +walk there now. After a little time she whirled Cooney about in a sudden +gust of fierceness and sent him along the winding ridge, keeping close +within the shadow.</p> + +<p>When the trail fell away into the first of the unknown valleys she +breathed a sigh of relief and release. Her burden was falling from her. +She could not again be cheated back from her refuge.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>She began to rejoice in the wide, wild sweetness of the night, its piny +fragrance, the soft-footed scurryings of its lesser people, the gloom of +its sharply defined shadows, and the silvering haze that enveloped the +peaks. She came on a deer feeding in the open, and was delighted when it +did not run. It only lifted its head to look at her.</p> + +<p>She began to rejoice, also, in the cleverness of her plan. As well as +she might she had preserved the decencies. A week might ensue before +they missed her. Cooney, stripped of his trappings, would appear at the +lake cabin, to be laughed at and chided for his desertion of the Bar-B +ranch, a week before she was missed; and then she would never be found. +There was, indeed, small chance of their having the pain of that. She +would keep to the trail as long as the night hid her; then a climb up +some unpathed slope, over rocks that would show no trace of her passage; +then a tangled thicket, remote, secret, improbable—and the tale of a +lost woman, a woman who wandered confusingly far on a night of tempting +splendor. She thought of Virginia's pain with a feeble pity. It seemed +as if humanity was dead in her.</p> + +<p>The narrow trail wound beckoningly before her, the land stretched off to +peaks of silver or barren gray slopes or shadowed promontories, glooming +above ravines where little rivers turned restlessly in their beds; and +over all hung the mystic shimmer of moon rays, softening all angles and +picking the fronds of trees with dancing lights as she passed.</p> + +<p>An owl boomed from a dead pine, and a little off the trail she heard the +scream of a cougar, like the scream of a woman in some strange terror. +But all sounds were indifferently alike to her, the shrilling of the +beast, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> sibilance of running water, the bellow of the owl, the +whistle of a deer, or the throaty mutterings of an awakened bird. She +heard them as receding echoes of a life already remote.</p> + +<p>She kept Cooney moving as rapidly as the trail permitted, checking his +little snatches at the wayside herbage. He could fast with her for one +night, she told him. To-morrow he could feast his way home harassed by +no rider. He stopped at times to test some doubtful bit of trail with a +cautious forefoot; or slowed to feel a sure way down a gullyside of +loose stones; or lingered knee deep in a melody of swift water, to +drink, with swelling sides. She was glad to have this last night with +the little horse that had been Ewing's. Ewing—only not to think of +him—for one cannot ride with the heart all bled away.</p> + +<p>The light faded from the lower ways after a while. The moon had +completed its short arc and fell below the mountain ahead of her; +defining sharp little notches in its rim.</p> + +<p>The hills seemed to steal upon her in the darkness then, huddling close +about her, muffling her with their black plumage. But she was glad of +this—surmounting the mere physical oppression of it—for she felt that +it doubled the secrecy of her going; and Cooney's eyes, with his skilled +feet, sufficed for the trail.</p> + +<p>At times she shrank as under the touch of a palpable hand reached out to +her from the darkness, a thing that frantically protested, pleaded, +expostulated—but she knew it for the hand of mere brute life, a +cowardly, blind, soulless thing, that would subvert all fitness. She +shook it off, knowing herself its superior by right of mind, with power +to inflict justice upon it. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> <i>he</i> was dead, he, the young and +strong—alas, poor slayer, poor slain! How her heart bled away. To +expiate——</p> + +<p>She clung to that: it was an obligation that lay on her, a secret +obligation, but the more imperative for that. She could not hold a +forfeited life. She must redeem herself. The hardest thing was demanded +of her. And then, one could not go on with this bleeding heart.</p> + +<p>"The hardest thing—the hardest thing!" she murmured, shutting her lips +tightly on the words, with a sudden inexplicable fear of some flaw in +her logic. Again and again she forced the words from her lips with +stubborn, deaf insistence, to still some mental voice of inquiry, a +passionless, cold thing that lifted itself in her brain, but which she +could beat down with this bludgeon of her phrase. She was even bold +enough to cross-examine herself presently. The hardest thing was +demanded of her, and she was doing the hardest thing. Her hand fell on +the laden holster at her side with a panic impulse to rush the thing +through. But the touch reassured her and she laughed in the +consciousness of her security. She could not be thwarted now, and she +need not hurry. She could afford to the very end that deliberate +thoroughness with which she had begun. Her will for the thing had lost +none of its iron.</p> + +<p>An hour or so after the darkness had crowded the hills in upon her she +rode into a dense mist, chilling to the bone after the dryness of the +early night. The range of her vision was again shortened, and even the +little horse halted more frequently to feel his way. Once he seemed to +have wandered, and stood a moment in uncertainty. She let him rest, then +flicked his shoulder with the bridle rein, and he struggled stanchly on +over the ridge of loose gravel where he had halted, feeling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> for the +trail with expert hoofs. He found it a moment later, and was moving +forward again. She patted his neck and blessed him for being so "trail +wise." He, too, was doing the hardest thing, and doing it faithfully.</p> + +<p>She fell again into the rhythm of her battle cry—"The hardest +thing—the hardest thing!"</p> + +<p>And yet it was not hard. She was so near to it now that she could afford +the luxury of this admission. It required only a sense of justice, of +moral symmetry. She had taken a life—two, doubtless—and by the law she +must pay. But no debtor could have had a willinger spirit. And she would +not be paying too much. She recalled certain homely words of an old man +whose life she had watched out, a man whose worn, seamed face showed his +right to speak.</p> + +<p>"Experience, lady, a dear thing sometimes—yes—but never too dear. It +is worth always just what we pay for it. It is had at slightest cost, +high or low. No other thing is like it thus. All else of the world may +cheat us in their price, but not experience. Our fee shall vary as we +are quick to learn, but the good God teaches us what we must know at +flat cost, as says the merchant, with never the penny of profit. This it +saves much to know—much sorrowing, much whining. It would make us +wise—so!"</p> + +<p>"So!" She echoed his rich guttural imitatively and laughed as she drew +in a deep breath of the damp air. She was numb with the cold now, and +laughed at foolish life for registering so petty a discomfort at such a +moment. The humor of it came home to her—that she should sensually feel +the cold.</p> + +<p>Another span of hours the little horse strode on at his quick step, +valiantly lifting her up steep ascents,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> or descending the sides of +ravines with devoted sureness of foot, treading narrow ways where she +could feel that he hugged the bush-lined bank, and knew that a fall lay +the other side.</p> + +<p>"The hardest thing—the hardest thing!" Again she muttered it, beating +at her purpose. And again, that mental, passionless query lifted its +head. Strike it down as she would, its cool, curious eyes were always on +her, not denying, not disputing, only questioning, calmly but +implacably, until her soul seemed to writhe in loyalty to her motives, +holding them sacred even from questioning.</p> + +<p>"The hardest thing"—but her brain rang with the relentless +question—"are you doing it because it is the hardest thing or because +you want to do it?"</p> + +<p>"I am doing it because I want to do the hardest thing."</p> + +<p>"A quibble!"</p> + +<p>She set her lips, shut her eyes, even to the darkness, and tried to +deafen her ears to the sounding thing. A long time she rode so. And then +she wept because she was alone and cold and dying and unsuccored by the +only one who could have comforted her.</p> + +<p>"I would never, never have left <i>you</i>!" she called back toward Ewing, +with the first reproach she had ever given him. Her voice had a broken +sweetness like that of a child speaking through tears. "I'd never have +let you be so cold! I'd have stayed—stayed by you—warmed +you—comforted you!"</p> + +<p>But after a little her tears ceased, as an unpitied child wears out its +crying, and her eyes closed again as she laughed at her own sad lack of +reason.</p> + +<p>When she opened her eyes again she gave a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> gasping cry of relief. +The black of the night had faded to gray. A dull, dark, opaque gray it +was, but ghosts of the land already bulked massively through it; +shrouded, vague shapes without line. And the spirit of her purpose +quickened as she looked.</p> + +<p>Slowly the mist lightened, still opaque but silver now, and presently +she saw the murky face of a nearby rock and could trace the cedar that +twisted outward from its summit. They were amazing shapes to her, so +long had she seemed to live in the dark, and she named them over, +wonderingly—"A tree, a rock—a rock, a tree!"</p> + +<p>Again the question struck at her: "You want to do the hardest thing?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>must</i> do the hardest thing—it only happens that I also wish to."</p> + +<p>"Is there nothing harder than what you are doing?"</p> + +<p>Again she shut her eyes and set her lips, but the voice came with +merciless insistence.</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> would be harder than dying?"</p> + +<p>Then she threw back her head and challenged the voice.</p> + +<p>"<i>Living!</i> To live would be harder." She made the confession without +flinching, even with a laugh, and a weight dropped from her.</p> + +<p>"Then you are not doing the hardest thing—not doing it—not doing the +hardest thing!"</p> + +<p>She coolly scanned the descending bed of a creek that the trail now +crossed. The ravine widened below, and she saw that an ascent would be +practicable farther down. It was time, then, to leave the trail. If the +impossible should happen, if by some chance or trick of woodcraft they +tracked her all the miles of her night-long ride, they must lose her +here.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>She turned Cooney down the shallow stream with a furtive smile of pride +in her own craft. He splashed through the water, stumbling over the +submerged bowlders, but always recovering himself, and picking a sure +way over the creek bed.</p> + +<p>The cool gray of the mist-steaming water reminded her that she was +thirsty, but she would stop for nothing now. She knew herself for a +coward at last, guilty of a cowardice hideously selfish. She had planned +her act to be remote, secret, undiscoverable. But now she faced squarely +the grief her loss would be to others.</p> + +<p>But the sting would pass. And she had her own right—her own obligation +to meet. She had killed—she had killed her love—and she could not +live. There was service she might have performed through the years, but +others would perform it now, quite as acceptably. A gnat dropping from +the ephemeral human swarm could be nothing but a gnat the less. She no +longer pretended to call it the hardest thing. "But it's the next +hardest," she pleaded to herself. Her lips quivered, but she stilled the +spasm with a gust of fierce resolving to be done with the thing quickly.</p> + +<p>The shelving bank along which the stream had wound now fell away, and +she could dimly make out a draw between two hills where she might +ascend. She chose a place of broken stone and loose gravel for Cooney to +clamber out, so that he might leave no sign even to a searcher who had +come this far. Then, ascending the draw a little distance, she turned +and sent him up the side of the lesser hill. The mist still shut her in, +but she could make out that the woods were denser on this hill.</p> + +<p>Cooney made his way through a growth of the thick,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> wet buck brush, then +between white files of the quaking aspen, and at last into the heavier +wooded forest where his feet slipped and slid on the yielding pine +needles as he climbed. The hill lengthened before her in gradual +ascents, broken by terraces, and the way was rough with bowlders and +fallen trees and the clutching tangle of undergrowth. But the mist, +receding before her, revealed aisles of the wood farther on that allured +her. She would be thorough. Ahead of her were ruddy, yellow hints of the +sun, striking down through the green arches of the forest.</p> + +<p>At last she saw that she had reached the summit of the hill. "It is the +place," she said, then reined in and dismounted by a clump of bushes. +She found herself stiffened by the cold, and a sudden fear of failing +force seized her. She stamped on the ground until she felt warmth in her +feet again, and the stirred blood mounting through her. She drew a great +breath and straightened her body with a consciousness of its strength +and wealth of life. "It is the place," she repeated.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> +<a name="xxxi" id="xxxi"></a>CHAPTER XXXI<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE MISSION OF EWING</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">IN a dingy little bedroom of a dingy little hotel in one of the lesser +avenues of New York Ewing sat waiting for his hour. He had sealed his +letter to Mrs. Laithe with the feeling that this was the last +intelligible word he could say to anyone. Henceforth he must be silent; +refuse reasons. He must let them devise reasons for him. Any but the +true reason would suffice.</p> + +<p>When darkness came on he went out into the noisy street, mailing the +letter as he passed through the hotel office. Then, by unfamiliar +thoroughfares he made his way to Ninth Street and resumed his old vigil +in front of Teevan's house.</p> + +<p>There were lights in the house, both above and below. The thing was not, +then, to be attempted at the moment. He walked for an hour through +squalid streets to the west and came back to his post. The house was +still alight. Teevan, apparently, was entertaining. He watched but a +moment, then returned to his hotel and went to bed. He could be patient, +and he must be thorough. Before extinguishing his light he made sure +that he had not lost what was now his most important possession: a key +to Teevan's door. Teevan had bestowed it on him the year before, in +order that he might obtain books during the little man's absence from +town. Ewing had forgotten the key until he set on his present mission; +then he had perceived a use for it.</p> + +<p>He fell asleep, despite the recurrent tumult of elevated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> trains outside +his window; fell asleep thinking of Teevan. There was no bitterness in +his heart toward the little man. It was only necessary that he die.</p> + +<p>He kept closely to his room the next day, wishing not to be recognized +by any of his acquaintances, and he was at his post early in the +evening. This time the house was dark. Teevan was out, but he would +return. So he paced back and forth through Ninth Street, going only so +far as would let him keep the house in view. He felt no impatience. It +was his last work, and he could bide the time when it might be well +done. A little after midnight two men entered the street from Fifth +Avenue, strolling leisurely in the warm June night, and ascended the +steps of the Teevan house. Ewing felt a slight tingling of relief when +he recognized Teevan, but then he saw the other take a key from his +pocket, and he knew that this would be Teevan's son. They went in +together, and the watcher left his post. He must have Teevan alone in +the house.</p> + +<p>He walked on with strange echoes from another time—from another world, +it seemed, sounding in his ears. The sight of Teevan, the tones of his +voice, faintly heard, seemed to awaken him from some dream in which he +walked, awaken him to a time when the little man was his good friend. He +felt a sudden nausea, but then he raised his eyes to the Bartell house +opposite and was himself again. He crossed the street and stood a moment +before the door, seeing his lady there, seeing her again as he had seen +her that night in Teevan's grasp, striving with Teevan, weakly, but with +the killing light in her eyes. The vision convinced him. The other time +had been the time of dream. He had not been awake until now.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>Again he slept and again he passed a day of waiting. That night there +were no lights in the house, but also no returning master, though he +waited until the night was far on. Yet he went to sleep in all patience, +knowing he had only to wait.</p> + +<p>On the fourth night there were lights again, but about ten o'clock he +saw Teevan's two servants leave. He walked on, to avoid recognition by +them. When he returned a man was leaving the house. He thought this +might be Teevan, but when the figure had descended the steps and passed +under the street lamp he saw it to be Teevan's son. Still he waited. He +must be sure.</p> + +<p>After half an hour the lights in the lower part of the house went out, +save one that shone dimly through the fanlight over the door. A moment +later two windows on the floor above leaped ruddily into view and he saw +a shadow pass across them. This was Teevan's room, and Teevan was +doubtless there, alone at last.</p> + +<p>He did not cross the street directly, but walked east to the end of the +block and came back on the other side. As he passed the Bartell house he +opened and closed his hands tensely, recalling Ben's suggestion about a +weapon. His bare hands were sufficing weapons.</p> + +<p>He went up the steps and softly turned his key in the lock. The door +yielded noiselessly to his push and he was in the hall. Unconsciously he +took off his hat and was about to leave it, but then he smiled and +replaced it firmly on his head. He stood listening a moment. There was +no sound. Then, very slowly, taking each step with caution, he mounted +the thickly carpeted stairs.</p> + +<p>So intent was he on his purpose that he felt no anxiety, no excitement. +As he halted at the head of the stairs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> to listen again, he thrilled +only with the need for perfect silence, a thing he would have felt in +the same degree if his quarry had been a deer in some green cover of the +hills. Still without a sound he felt his way to the door of Teevan's +room. The door was open and light from it glowed dimly into the hall. He +paused within the shadow and peered into the room. He could see the desk +but not the man who sat before it. Of him he could see only an arm and +hand—writing at the moment. Presently the hand dropped its pen and took +up a tall glass that stood near. The glass ascended and passed beyond +the watcher's range of vision. The hand brought it back, empty, a moment +later, and resumed the pen once more.</p> + +<p>He took a step forward and brought the room into view. Teevan sat at the +desk, his head bent and half turned away. Ewing coolly noted his +position. He seemed smaller than ever, smaller and older. But now no +time must be wasted.</p> + +<p>Ewing stepped through the doorway with noiseless tread and took one long +step toward the desk. Teevan turned his head and looked up. His eyes +rested on Ewing, at first vacantly, his mind still busied with the +matter of his writing. Ewing thrilled with a sudden alertness, his +purpose growing in his eyes, his hands tensely closing and unclosing. +Teevan started back from the desk, conscious now of the intruder's +menace. Yet such was the cool fixedness of Ewing's gaze, the hypnotic +tenseness of his crouch, that the little man made no sound; only stared +as one under a spell, the pen still held in his poised hand.</p> + +<p>Only when the crouching figure leaped toward him did his lips open. But +then, what would have been a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> cry of terror became a mere gurgling +snarl, for Ewing's hands had met about his throat with unerring +deftness. Teevan was half-raised from the chair, his head was forced +back, and for an instant his eyes met Ewing's in full consciousness. +Then his mouth opened wide, but not for speech, and his eyes rolled in +the agony of that choking grip. Ewing felt the thing writhe in his +clutch, then felt a sudden terrible relaxation, and his pressure ceased +in unthinking response to this. He stood a moment, holding the limp +form, then dropped it in the chair, feeling himself sicken at the sheer +physical horror of what he was doing. There was no pity for Teevan—only +for the animal that suffered. He had had to kill a dog once and his +loathing of that deed was like this. Teevan's head lay over on his +shoulder, his face distorted and purple, his eyes upturned and fixed in +a hideous stare. The fine little hands hung limply down.</p> + +<p>At the moment Ewing believed his task was done, but then he was dismayed +by a gasping, indrawn breath and the convulsive shuddering of Teevan's +chest. The little man was breathing again, though still unconscious. The +dog had shown this same horrible tenacity. He must do the thing all over +again. He bent over the figure, again fixing his grip nicely at the +throat. He would make sure this time. Then nerving himself to exert the +needed pressure, he turned his eyes away—he could not look at the face +in its death agony—turned his eyes away and found himself staring +stupidly at Alden Teevan, who stood inside the door. They gazed at each +other a moment until Ewing had appraised the significance of this +interruption. It meant only that he would be swiftly apprehended, for he +knew that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> Alden Teevan could not save his father. He had not changed +his position, still bending over the little man, still fingering his +throat. He was conscious of an increase in his purpose; this hint of +opposition would enable him to kill Teevan with a better spirit. He +spoke and his voice was only a little hoarse under the strain.</p> + +<p>"I'm killing your father. I don't want to hurt you, but you mustn't try +to stop me. If you do, by God! I'll kill both of you. If you keep away +I'll go with you after I've done it. I promise that."</p> + +<p>He turned again to the livid face beneath him. But the younger Teevan +called sharply to him, though with only irritation in his voice:</p> + +<p>"Stop! Don't be an ass! You're making an ass of yourself!"</p> + +<p>Ewing only stared at him. The other came a step nearer in his eagerness.</p> + +<p>"You'll be sorry if you don't listen to me. You're a fool, I tell you."</p> + +<p>Ewing smiled confidently, bitterly, not relaxing his hold of the little +man's throat.</p> + +<p>"I'm not doing it for myself."</p> + +<p>"All the more fool!"</p> + +<p>"For some one who couldn't do it—who has reason to do it."</p> + +<p>The other came nearer, clutching Ewing's sleeve with gentle persuasion +and speaking with quick intensity.</p> + +<p>"Ah, so that's it—she never told you! But you're a fool. She had no +reason—she was merely trying to save you from the truth about your +mother, and she has let you believe his lies about herself. What a +rotten fool you were to think that contemptible little mucker could ever +have been anything to her. He lied to you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> do you hear me? Lied to you +about her, and she let you believe it—a fool herself for doing that—so +you wouldn't know the truth about your own mother."</p> + +<p>Slowly Ewing unclasped his hands from the throat of Teevan and stood +facing the son. Two phrases rang in his ears: "He lied to you about +her—the truth about your mother." He put up a hand to loosen his +collar. It seemed now as if he himself were being choked.</p> + +<p>"The truth about my mother—<i>what</i> truth about my mother?"</p> + +<p>"Sit down there."</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> truth about my mother?"</p> + +<p>"Come—get hold of yourself. The truth that your mother happened to be +my mother."</p> + +<p>Ewing passed a hand over his face, as if to awaken himself from some +trance in which he had moved.</p> + +<p>"Sit down there."</p> + +<p>He felt for a chair now and sank awkwardly into it, repeating dazedly:</p> + +<p>"My mother was your mother—" He could get no meaning from the words. +The other answered sharply:</p> + +<p>"Your mother married my father. She left him for your father when I was +a baby. Do you understand that? Mrs. Laithe knew it. He knew it—" He +pointed toward the limp but breathing figure in the chair—"and she was +afraid he would tell you."</p> + +<p>He tried to take it in.</p> + +<p>"My mother—his wife? Ah—you—you are my brother."</p> + +<p>"That's beside the point; but if it means anything to you, listen to +me—try to understand."</p> + +<p>Again and again he told the thing point by point, as simply as he could, +while his listener stared curiously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> at him. The figure in the chair +stirred, the head rolled, the breathing became quieter and more even, +but neither gave any heed to this.</p> + +<p>At last the incredible thing began to shape itself in Ewing's mind, but +it was not until the very last, and then it came as a sudden blinding +illumination. The man in the chair drew a long, shuddering breath and +opened his eyes on them. Ewing at the same moment caught the full force +of the little man's deceit. He had felt no anger toward Teevan before, +but now rage grew within him as he remembered what the woman had +suffered. He sprang toward Teevan, feeling no longer a specific desire +to kill, but only a mad impulse to beat down and blindly destroy.</p> + +<p>"You lied about her!" he cried, towering above the little man with +clenched, threatening fists. If Teevan had retorted, had raised a hand, +or betrayed anything but abject fear, shrinking in his chair, turning +eyes of appeal to his son, Ewing would have vented his rage. But this +died into mere loathing as he looked. Teevan was near to whimpering, in +his fear. Ewing turned away with a gesture of +<a name="repulsion" id="repulsion"></a><ins title="Original has replusion">repulsion</ins>.</p> + +<p>"That's best, after all," remarked the son coolly.</p> + +<p>"Doubtless he deserves kicking more than any unkicked man alive, but +you'll be glad you didn't do it."</p> + +<p>Ewing shot another look at Teevan, and then said, almost as if to +himself.</p> + +<p>"How wise my mother was!" He turned again to the little man with a +sudden blaze of scorn.</p> + +<p>"And you believed I could think less of her for leaving you—leaving you +for a <i>man</i>!" Teevan merely closed his eyes and cautiously raised a hand +to his neck.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>"You'll be glad you let him off," repeated the son, "and so will she. +She wouldn't have you——"</p> + +<p>"Ah—she!" It was a cry of remembrance. "Why—she's—" He broke off, +glowing with a strange illumination. "Why, I left her——"</p> + +<p>A moment longer he stood, like a sleeper wakened, then rushed from the +room.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> +<a name="xxxii" id="xxxii"></a>CHAPTER XXXII<br /> +<br /> +<small>THE TURNING OF COONEY</small></h2> + + +<p class="cap">WHEN she again felt sure of her strength she began to unsaddle Cooney. +The cinches bothered her stiffened fingers, but she had them worked +loose at last, and lifted the heavy saddle off, smiling grimly at her +own strength. When she took off the blanket she warmed her hands a +moment in its heat. Then she stripped off the bridle, and the little +horse, after a moment's mouthing to rest his jaws from the bit, fell to +grazing. As he seemed inclined to stay by her, she broke a switch from +one of the nearby bushes and cut him sharply. Even after this he +galloped off but a little way, with astonished, resentful shakings of +his head. She had wanted him to be on his way back over the miles he had +come before the thing was done.</p> + +<p>She glanced shrewdly about her. She was far away from the cabin, a +night's ride at Cooney's best trail pace, and in a region rough and +untraveled, except as an occasional way to the lower valleys. There were +no trails about her, no dead camp fires, no trees rimmed by the axe or +scarred by a "blaze." There was life enough of a sort; jays called +harshly, and squirrels barked their alarm; and half a dozen grouse eyed +her from a few yards' distance, with a sort of half-timid stupidity. But +there was no life to touch hers. She walked about the chosen thicket, +admiring its denseness, not notable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> in any way, but casual, improbable +to the searching eye.</p> + +<p>"The hardest thing!" It was satire now, and she murmured it as such, +done with all fighting. It was good to anticipate the thing, the +restfulness of extinction—or not, as that might be. That was no matter. +She was beaten in this life. It was good to know that in a moment she +would feel as little as Randall Teevan—or as much. She unconsciously +drew herself up at the thought of facing that withered fop.</p> + +<p>She rejoiced in the warming air. She would take a long breath of it, and +then the triumphant exit. She stepped a few paces forward to peer about +a low-growing spruce that had shaded her. She had a last fancy for +following the echo of her shot to the farther valley wall.</p> + +<p>As she lifted the curtain boughs the sun dazzled her. She would see its +golden points, she thought, when she shut her eyes in the thicket. She +shut them quickly now, to prove this, and saw the myriad dancing lights.</p> + +<p>As she opened her eyes again and turned to draw back into the wood there +was imprinted curiously on her recovering vision a silhouette of the +lake cabin. She shut them quickly again, dreading memories she was +forever done with, and laughing in the certainty that the cabin was +miles away. Then she looked again, blinking dazedly in the sunlight, and +the cabin loomed before her across the clearing.</p> + +<p>As she stared desperately, her mind roused to frantic denials, her eyes +straining to banish this monstrous figment, the door of the cabin opened +and Ewing came out. She sprang forward with an impulse to shatter the +illusion by some quick movement. But her eyes still beheld him, +bareheaded, turning his face up to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> sun. He stretched his arms and +drew deep breaths. He had never seemed so tall. His look had a kind of +triumph in it.</p> + +<p>She swayed under the shock of the thing, feeling herself grow faint. +Cooney had betrayed her. Some time in the night, at one of those +confusing bends in the trail, he had turned. He had brought her home.</p> + +<p>Ewing's head had turned as she moved; his eyes were on her. She saw the +rapt gladness in his face and beheld him approach her across the +clearing. She managed another step or two and gained the support of a +felled tree. As Ewing came up she essayed a little smile of nonchalance.</p> + +<p>"Cooney—" she begun. The word came itself, but she felt easier under +the sound of her own voice and went on—"Cooney came with me. I didn't +go at all. I rode—but you see—" She beamed on him with explanatory +embarrassment—"I took an early morning ride—it was so pleasant—and I +thought I was lost—indeed I did, and I took off his saddle. I left it +right there—" She pointed with the literal exactness of a child in its +narrative of adventure—"right there behind that tree, and then I found +I was—found I was closer to home than I thought."</p> + +<p>He had not seemed to hear her, but stood looking narrowly, as if she +were still far away. Gradually his eyes widened, as if he were drawing +her close to him. He took a step toward her, with arms half raised.</p> + +<p>"I'm so ashamed—" he muttered; "but you—you let me think that."</p> + +<p>His voice brought her to sudden agonized alarm. The blood ebbed from her +face and she almost staggered toward him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>"Did you do it—do <i>that</i>?" she whispered, ready to fall.</p> + +<p>"No; I found out in time. I found out everything—everything you didn't +tell me." He was shaken with longing, yet shamed into restraint before +her.</p> + +<p>"I'm so ashamed—I came as soon as I could to tell you. I rode all night +to be here, to tell you as soon as I could."</p> + +<p>"You didn't do it—you didn't do it?" she insisted pitifully.</p> + +<p>"I stopped in time." She muttered this over and over, and at last the +truth struggled into her chilled brain.</p> + +<p>"You dear, dear fool!" she said with a little sobbing laugh.</p> + +<p>Again his arms were half raised to her, but she turned swiftly and ran +to Cooney, who had fallen to grazing a little way off, throwing her arms +about his neck and weeping out incoherent words of endearment.</p> + +<p>Ewing gathered his strength, like a wrestler who has been pressed to the +ground, but lifts himself with infinite effort, and went resolutely +toward her. Gently he unclasped her arms from Cooney's neck.</p> + + +<h4>THE END</h4> + + + + + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<hr class="double1" /> + +<h2>A STORY OF AMERICAN LIFE</h2> + +<hr class="double2" /> + +<p class="noi tp3"><strong>David Harum.</strong></p> + +<p><big>Illustrated Edition. With 70 full-page and text pictures by B. West +Clinedinst, and other text designs by C. D. Farrand, and a biography of +the author by Forbes Heermans. 12mo. $1.50.</big></p> + + +<p>"What seems to us to be the final judgment of 'David Harum' is given in +the <i>North American Review</i> by no less a personage than John Oliver +Hobbes. This review strikes at the root of the matter.</p> + +<p>"'It would not be presumptuous to say,' opines Mrs. Craigie, 'well +remembering the magnificent ability of certain English authors of the +present day, that not one could create a character which would win the +whole English population as David Harum has won the American public. The +reason is plain. With so many class distinctions, a national figure is +out of the question. A national hero—yes; but a man for "winterin' and +summerin' with"—no. Social equality and independence of thought, in +spite of all abortive attempts to introduce the manners and traditions +of feudal Europe, are in the very air of the United States. One could +not find an American man or woman of the true stock who had not known +intimately, or who did not count among his or her ancestors, connections, +relatives, a David Harum. The type, no doubt, is getting old: becoming +more and more "removed" from the younger generation. In the course of +the next twenty years it may become so changed as to seem extinct, but +it is a national figure—certainly the most original, probably the +purest in blood. And the spirit of Harum is the undying spirit—no +matter how much modified it may eventually become by refinement, +travel, and foreign influence—of the American people. Individuals +may change, but the point of view remains unalterable.'"—<i>New York +Mail and Express.</i></p> + +<p>"'David Harum' is one of those extremely rare and perfectly fresh +creations in current fiction which really enrich our literature. In +brief, it is a masterpiece, and one that deserves an immense popularity. +No words can adequately describe its wholesome, sparkling humor, its +quaint and endearing originality, its genuine Yankee wit and native +shrewdness. A well-nigh perfect work it is—a creation which will take a +permanent place among American literary portraits."—<i>Literary Review.</i></p> + +<hr class="single1" /> + +<p class="center tp5">D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.</p> + +<hr class="single2" /> + + +<hr class="double1" /> + +<h2>THE LEADING NOVEL OF TODAY.</h2> + +<hr class="double2" /> + +<p class="noi tp3">The Fighting Chance.</p> + +<p><big>By <span class="smcap">Robert W. Chambers</span>. Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell. 12mo. Ornamental +Cloth, $1.50.</big></p> + +<p>In "The Fighting Chance" Mr. Chambers has taken for his hero, a young +fellow who has inherited with his wealth a craving for liquor. The +heroine has inherited a certain rebelliousness and dangerous caprice. +The two, meeting on the brink of ruin, fight out their battles, two +weaknesses joined with love to make a strength. It is refreshing to find +a story about the rich in which all the women are not sawdust at heart, +nor all the men satyrs. The rich have their longings, their ideals, +their regrets, as well as the poor; they have their struggles and +inherited evils to combat. It is a big subject, painted with a big brush +and a big heart.</p> + +<p>"After 'The House of Mirth' a New York society novel has to be very good +not to suffer fearfully by comparison. 'The Fighting Chance' is very +good and it does not suffer."—<i>Cleveland Plain Dealer.</i></p> + +<p>"There is no more adorable person in recent fiction than Sylvia +Landis."—<i>New York Evening Sun.</i></p> + +<p>"Drawn with a master hand."—<i>Toledo Blade.</i></p> + +<p>"An absorbing tale which claims the reader's interest to the +end."—<i>Detroit Free Press.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Chambers has written many brilliant stories, but this is his +masterpiece."—<i>Pittsburg Chronicle Telegraph.</i></p> + +<hr class="single1" /> + +<p class="center tp5">D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.</p> + +<hr class="single2" /> + + +<hr class="white" /> + + +<div class="block"> +<p class="center"><big><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></big></p> + +<p>Spelling, grammar, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained as +in the original publication except as follows:</p> + +<table summary="Transcriber's Note"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 9</td> +<td class="tdl3">you'll <i>git</i> somewhur's, I says<br /> + you'll <i>git</i> <a href="#quote">somewhur's,'</a> I says</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 14</td> +<td class="tdl3">comsummation of this mild adventure <i>changed to</i><br /> + <a href="#consummation">consummation</a> of this mild adventure</td> +</tr> + + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 23</td> +<td class="tdl3">considered is so quietly <i>changed to</i><br /> + considered <a href="#it">it</a> so quietly<br /><br /> + front of "art emporiums." on <i>changed to</i><br /> + front of "art <a href="#comma">emporiums,</a>" on</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 33</td> +<td class="tdl3">rainment was donned <i>changed to</i><br /> + <a href="#raiment">raiment</a> was donned</td> +</tr> + + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 48</td> +<td class="tdl3">sasshaying down Fifth Avenue <i>changed to</i><br /> + <a href="#sashaying">sashaying</a> down Fifth Avenue</td> +</tr> + + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 50</td> +<td class="tdl3">that man every marry <i>changed to</i><br /> + that man <a href="#ever">ever</a> marry</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 84</td> +<td class="tdl3">vista of heartshaking surprises <i>changed to</i><br /> + vista of <a href="#heart">heart-shaking</a> surprises</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 133</td> +<td class="tdl3">latest golf and yatching news <i>changed to</i><br /> + latest golf and <a href="#yachting">yachting</a> news</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 243</td> +<td class="tdl3">slay me an you will <i>changed to</i><br /> + slay me <a href="#and">an'</a> you will</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 292</td> +<td class="tdl3">walked by the lake, revolving <i>changed to</i><br /> + walked by the lake, <a href="#resolving">resolving</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page 311</td> +<td class="tdl3">with a gesture of replusion <i>changed to</i><br /> + with a gesture of <a href="#repulsion">repulsion</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class="white" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ewing\'s Lady, by Harry Leon Wilson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EWING'S LADY *** + +***** This file should be named 32988-h.htm or 32988-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/8/32988/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Ewing's Lady + +Author: Harry Leon Wilson + +Release Date: June 27, 2010 [EBook #32988] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EWING'S LADY *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +EWING'S LADY + + _B_y + HARRY LEON WILSON + + Author of "The Spenders" + + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + NEW YORK + 1907 + + + COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + + COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY + AINSLEE MAGAZINE COMPANY + + _Published, November, 1907_ + + + + +To N. B. T. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I.--EWING'S KID 1 + + II.--A LADY LOSES HERSELF 12 + + III.--A PRIVATE VIEW 20 + + IV.--A PORTRAIT 32 + + V.--INTO THE PAST AND OUT 43 + + VI.--THE LADY AND THE PLAN 55 + + VII.--TWO SLEEPERS AWAKEN 64 + + VIII.--THE JOURNEY WONDER 71 + + IX.--A DINNER AT SEVEN-THIRTY 83 + + X.--THE WAY OF THE LITTLE MAN 97 + + XI.--A NIGHT AT THE MONASTERY 105 + + XII.--THE NEW MEMBER 124 + + XIII.--SEARCHING THE WILDERNESS 131 + + XIV.--THE TRICK OF COLOR 140 + + XV.--FLESH OF HER FLESH 147 + + XVI.--TEEVAN AS SPECIAL PROVIDENCE 156 + + XVII.--AN ELUSIVE VENUS 164 + + XVIII.--MRS. LAITHE IS IN 174 + + XIX.--THE UNBLAZED WAY 185 + + XX.--A LADY BLUSHES 196 + + XXI.--THE DRAMA IN NINTH STREET 203 + + XXII.--A REVOLT 211 + + XXIII.--THE LITTLE LAND 222 + + XXIV.--EWING INTERRUPTS 231 + + XXV.--MRS. LAITHE IS ENLIGHTENED 247 + + XXVI.--THE SUNSET TRAIL 256 + + XXVII.--THE HILLS OF REST 262 + + XXVIII.--THE WHITE TIME 273 + + XXIX.--THE AWAKENING 279 + + XXX.--THE HARDEST THING 290 + + XXXI.--THE MISSION OF EWING 304 + + XXXII.--THE TURNING OF COONEY 313 + + + + +EWING'S LADY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +EWING'S KID + + +Two weeks of instructive contact with the Bar-7 school of gallantry had +prepared Mrs. Laithe to be amazed at her first encounter with Ewing's +kid. Riding out from the ranch one afternoon and turning, for coolness, +up the wooded mesa that rises from the creek flat, she overwhelmed him +at a bend in the trail. Stricken motionless, he glared at the lady with +eyes in which she was compelled to believe that she read more horror +than admiration. There was a moment of this; then her pony neighed a +greeting to the statue--of dusty bronze--as if to say that things were +not so bad as they seemed, and the gazing youth broke the spell his +vision had laid upon him. He bowed his head doggedly and vanished beyond +some low-growing cedars that lined the way. + +As he fled the lady laughed softly, yet was silent, with face austerely +set as she passed the point of his evanishment. His behavior recalled +that of a deer she had terrorized one day in this same green isle of the +woods; and she had laughed the same furtive laugh, as if in confidence +to herself, when the creature tossed its head in challenge, pawed the +earth with a dainty bravado, and then fled in such an ecstasy of panic +that she could hear it crashing through the underbrush long after it had +vanished. But this human woods-creature had gone silently; and no great +way, she suspected--far enough only to screen himself while his eyes +still held her through some opening in the green curtain. Wherefore let +us comprehend the mien of austerity as she passed. + +Elusiveness in the male, be it bluntly said, was confounding to the +experience of Mrs. Laithe since she had ventured into the San Juan +Mountains under the nominal care of an inattentive brother, and her +belief was still firm that the men about her suffered little from +shyness. This latest specimen would be a single variation from type and +of slight value in determining the ways of his kind. + +As her pony picked its way up the trail she mused over the not +unpleasant picture of the youth at bay. It was a thing to be caught at +the moment, for she would find him otherwise, she believed, at their +next meeting. She would come on him some day at Bar-7, or at one of the +ranches neighboring it, and find him quite like his fellows, rigidly +respectful, but with a self-confidence and a simple directness in his +gallantry that had entertained her not a little as practiced by local +courtiers. He would be like the others, from Beulah Pierce, owner of +Bar-7, down to Shane Riley, humble helper in the cookhouse. + +An hour later, refreshed by the balsam-laden air of the upper reaches, +she left the woods at the foot of the mesa and rode out on the willow +flat, lush with grass for Bar-7's winter feeding. From the first bench +above the creek she descried the figures of two men in front of the +ranch house. One she saw to be Beulah Pierce, his incredible length +draped lazily over the gate that opened into his wife's flower garden. +Outside this gate, under the flow of his talk (Pierce would surely be +talking) stood one whom the lady, riding nearer, identified as the youth +who so lately had shirked a meeting with her. At this sight she warmed +with a little glow of pride in her powers of prophecy. Truly he had +waited no long time. His hat was off and he leaned restfully against the +withers of a saddled horse, a horse that drooped, head to the ground, in +some far low level of dejection. + +She laughed again, comprehending the fellow at last. His variation from +type had been but seeming, due to an erratic but not constitutional +embarrassment. Brazenly enough now he contrived to await her coming, +craftily engaging the not difficult Pierce in idle talk. And Pierce, as +she rode up, would perform, with stiff importance, the orthodox ceremony +of presentation. Whereupon the youth would bow with visible effort, +shake her hand with a rigid cordiality, once up, once down, and remark, +after swallowing earnestly, "Pleased to meet you, ma'am!" or perhaps, +"Glad to make your acquaintance!" Then, tactfully affecting to ignore +her, he would demand if Pierce had seen anything of that buckskin mare +and colt that strayed off last Tuesday; or if anyone had brought mail up +from Pagosa Springs lately; or if Pierce happened to need two thousand +hemlock shakes. This query he would follow with a popular local +witticism concerning sheepmen or the Colorado climate--nominally +addressed to Pierce but intended for her own refreshment. And, in +readjusting the silk kerchief at his throat, he would manage a quick +side glance at her to see how she relished the jest. For Mrs. Laithe had +learned their ways in two weeks, and this was one of them--to favor one +another with witty sallies in her presence, and solely in her behalf. +All the men of Bar-7 practiced this amiable strategy. When a group of +them assembled within her hearing the swift exchange of repartee, +accompanied by the inevitable side glance, was a thing to wonder at. + +Indeed, the lady had learned their ways. Even before she neared the gate +Alonzo Pierce, son of Beulah, appeared round the corner of the ranch +house to take her pony, sauntering with a flagrant _ennui_, in full +knowledge that Sandy Goodhue had started violently on the same gallant +mission, but from the farthest corral. Shane Riley, chained by his +labors to the doorway of the cookhouse, smirked genially out over a pot +that he polished; and Red Phinney, star rider at Bar-7, seated himself +on the step before the front door, so that he might have to arise with +flourishing apologies--a performance that would move the lady to ask +about his sprained wrist, now in bandage. + +This familiar assembling of her court, professedly casual, was swiftly +detected by Mrs. Laithe. But she saw now, being near the gate, a quick +turning toward her of the strange youth. It was a brief, impersonal +survey that seemed not to disengage her from the background of gray road +and yellowish-green willows; but clearly it sufficed. With a curt nod to +Pierce he was mounted; in another breath his amazed and indignant horse, +spurred viciously from its trance, raged with protesting snorts over the +road to the east. As Mrs. Laithe reined up at the gate she beheld, +through a nimbus of dust, the rider's boots groping pathetically for +their stirrups. + +She repressed a little gasp of astonishment in which the natural woman +might have betrayed her view of so headlong a retreat, although, had +Beulah Pierce been alone at the gate, she might have descended to speech +with him about this strangely retiring youth. But as 'Lon Pierce waited +for her pony, with a masterly taunt for Sandy Goodhue, who came up +breathless but late, and as Red Phinney had already risen from his +obstructive seat in the doorway, his wrist held cunningly forward to +provoke solicitous inquiry, the lady passed in with only such easy words +as the moment demanded. She was reflecting, with agreeable interest, +that the young man's avoidance of her would presently begin to seem +pointed. + +This conjecture was to be abundantly confirmed. Returning from her ride +the following afternoon, she saw that the youth must pass her on the +public highway. They were out on the flat, with no arboreal sanctuary +for the timid one. The lady looked forward with genial malice to a +meeting which, it appeared, he was now powerless to avoid. But the +youth, perceiving his plight, instantly had trouble with a saddle girth. +Turning well out of the road, he dismounted on the farther side of his +horse and busied himself with the mechanics of proper cinching. As Mrs. +Laithe rode by she saw only the top of a wide-brimmed gray hat above the +saddle. + +The day following, when, in an orderly sequence of events, they should +have met at the ford, he turned with admirable promptness down the +stream, where no trail was, sharply scanning the thinned edge of a wood +in the perfect manner of one absorbed in a search for lost stock. +Clearly, his was a mind fertile, if not subtle, in resource. + +Not until a day later did he come truly to face her, and then only by +the circumstance of his being penned by her within the high-walled +corral where Red Phinney broke green horses to ride, work or carry. +Returning this day earlier than was her wont, and finding no one at the +front of the house to take her pony, she had ridden back to the corrals. +Here she delivered the animal to Phinney, but not before the timid one +had been compelled to pass her. He did this, she thought, only after +swiftly calculating the height of the walls that pent him. And though +his hat was doffed as he hurtled by, his eyes were on the ground. Mrs. +Laithe, feeling thus at liberty to stare brutally at him, felt a +prodigious heightening of that tower of amazement he had been rearing +within her mind, for she saw him blush most furiously; beheld it under +the brown of his beardless face. + +Yet there was more in the young face than this flaunted banner of +embarrassment; and scanning it intently, she resolved forthwith to know +him. + +Late that day she was pleased to come upon Beulah Pierce alone in the +big living room of the ranch house. Smoking a last pipe before the call +to supper, Beulah relaxed on the "lounge" after a toilsome season of +ditch-making. + +"Oh, him?" he answered, luxuriously extending legs that seemed much too +long for any reasonable need of man, and pulling at his ragged red +mustache. "Why, that's Ewing's kid." + +"Ewing?" retorted Mrs. Laithe, provocatively, winningly. + +"Ewing," affirmed Pierce, with unaccustomed brevity, his mind at +dalliance with other matters. + +"Ewing's kid," murmured the lady, as if in careless musing. + +"Sure, Ewing's kid--Hi Mighty! I struck one o' them willow roots to-day, +on that piece o' ditch over on the west forty, an' say! it yanked me +clean over the plow handles. It did, fur a fact--straightened me out +like a whiplash. It scraped all the wall paper off'n this left shoulder +o' mine when I landed, too, say nothin' o' the jounce it give me. Ma, +whur's that embrycation fur man _and_ beast?" And Beulah laid a gentle +hand on the abraded member. + +"After you've et a bite," called his wife from the next room. "Shane has +the things all on, so come along an' set up." + +Beulah erected himself with an unctuous groan and spoke his favorite +jest: "Wa'al, le's go out an' see what the neighbors has brought in." + +The meal over, Mrs. Laithe again found herself with Pierce in the living +room. She sat on the bearskin before the open fire, her hands clasped +about her knees. Through the dancing jets of flame she observed the kid +of Ewing with his downward, troubled face. Pierce, tucking shreds of +tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, glanced toward her, the light of +coming talk in his eyes. + +"How'd you like that there little red roan you're ridin', Mis' Laithe?" +he began. + +"Cooney? Oh, Cooney's a dear, generally. Sometimes he's stubborn and +pretends to know the way better than I do." + +"Sound and kind, though, I bet you." + +"Oh, yes; but when I want to ride down the east side of the valley, why +does he always try to go up that steep trail to the left? Sometimes I've +quite a struggle to keep him in the valley road." + +"Wa'al, you see I bought him off'n Ewing's kid an' he wants to git back +home. Sure's ever we dast let him loose with the saddle band, he's over +to Ewing's place, come sun-up. You give him his head any time--he'll +carry you straight there." + +"He will?" + +"Surest thing _you_ know! When that kid breaks a pony he gits it all +gentled up so's it hones to git back to him." + +"How interesting!" + +"Naw--makes lashin's o' trouble fur them that buys off'n him. Say, Mis' +Laithe, you was askin' about Ewing's kid." + +"Was I?" She looked politely blank. + +"Sure you was--jest 'fore supper. Wa'al, Ewing's kid is the son of a man +named--now hear me _talk_! Course he's his father's son. Wa'al, anyway, +this man Ewing comes in here with this kid about fifteen, sixteen year +ago, an' takes that place over there by the lake to git cured up o' the +consumption. He was a painter, painted pitchers an' all sech, +understand?--puts up a big stoodio with a winder in it six feet high to +paint by. But he was puny. He couldn't fat up none. You never seen a +critter so gaunted as he was. Some said he never got over losin' his +wife. Anyway, 't wa'n't no surprise when he was took off, seven, eight +year ago. An' since he died that there kid has sort o' half run the +place along with a feller named Ben Crider that the old man had got fur +help. O' course we all kind o' looked in on the boy at first to make +sure he wa'n't in need, an' done a day's work now an' then, an' they +raised a few horses an' a few cattle an' one thing an' another. Trouble +with that boy, though, he's always putterin' round with his dad's paint +brushes, an' talkin' about portrayin' art an' all like that, understand? +I've told that kid time an' time again, 'Kid,' I says, 'never _you_ mind +about portrayin' art an' depictin' the linnerments an' the varied +aspecks o' nature,' I says; 'you jes' burn up them foolish little +long-shanked paint brushes in your Charter Oak cookstove,' I says, 'an' +ten' to portrayin' a good little bunch of cattle an' depictin' Ben +Crider to work also, an' you'll _git_ somewhur's,' I says. But him--why, +he jes' moons along. An' Ben Crider ain't much better. Ben ain't no +_stimulant_ to him. Ben had ort to been the only son of a tenderhearted +widow lady of means. That's what he'd ort to been. You give him a new +coon song out of a Sunday supplement an' his guitar, an' Ben's fixed fur +half a day at least. _He_ ain't goin' to worry none about a strayed +yearlin' or two. Why, one time, I rec'lect----" + +"Then young Mr. Ewing is a painter, too?" she interrupted. + +"Wa'al"--Pierce became judicial--"yes an' _no_. He ain't a reg'ler one, +like you might say--not like his pa was. Still, he can do hand +paintin'--if you want to call it that. Made a pitcher o' me this summer, +bein' buckjumped by old Tobe. Tobe was cert'n'y actin' high, wide an' +handsome, comin' down with his four hoofs in a bunch, an' me lookin' +like my works was comin' all apart the next minute. A _lively_ +pitcher--yes; but, my Lord! it wa'n't a thing you could show! It made me +out that reediculous. Course, I ain't Mrs. Langtry, but you got to draw +the line somewhurs, hain't you? Now there"--Beulah pushed an informing +thumb toward crayon portraits of himself and Mrs. Pierce that graced the +opposite wall in frames of massive gilt, one on either side of the +organ--"that's what you can call art--drawn by a reg'ler one down to +Durango--everything showin' like it ort to, expressions _an'_ all, even +down to Ma Pierce's breastpin an' my watch chain, made out o' my own +mother's hair. They're _decent_ pitchers. That other one was plumb +indecent, I can tell you. Ma she up an' hid it away, quick as she seen +it." + +"And has he done other things?" + +"Hey?" + +"Painted other pictures?" + +"Slathers--horses an' animals an' Ben Crider with his gun an' all sech, +an' deer. Say now, I seen another artist down to the Durango fair last +fall that was a genuine wonder an' no mistake. He was writin' callin' +cards at a little table, an' he could draw a runnin' deer all in +flourishes an' curlycurves, without liftin' his pen from the card, all +slick an' natural as you'd want to----" + +"Did you know his mother?" + +"No-o-o--didn't even know him. I jest stopped to look an' he drawed a +fine big bird right while I watched, havin' a ribbon in its bill with my +name on it in red ink; about as tasty a thing as you'd care to see, fur +a quarter of a dollar. It's round the house somewhur now, I reckon, if +you----" + +"Ewing's kid's mother?" + +"Hey? Oh, no, I never knew that lady. She passed away sommers off up the +state before these other parties moved in." + +"Does the boy resemble his father?" + +"Ewing? Wa'al, not to _say_ resemble. In fact he didn't favor him, not +at all, that I can rec'lect. He must of been most like his ma." + +The lady had been speaking as from a distance, staring fixedly into the +fire, with the distraction of one engaged in some hopeless feat of +memory. So intently aloof was she that Pierce had to repeat his next +remark. + +"I say, you don't never want to let Cooney git you started up that trail +you was speakin' about. First place, it's steeper'n the side of a house. +Next place, ever let him git you to the top, he'd land you slambang over +to Ewing's, spite of all you could do." + +"Thank you! I'll be sure to remember that. Good night!" + +She left him, still with the far-centered, puzzled look on her face--the +shadow of some resemblance, indefinite, nameless, but insistent. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A LADY LOSES HERSELF + + +Only a few miles separate Bar-7 from the Ewing place; but they are +interesting miles and at least one of them will be found exciting by the +town-bred novice. There is a stretch where the trail leaves the valley +road and zigzags up the face of the east bench to a height from which +one may survey the whole sleeping valley of the Wimmenuche as through a +reducing glass. The way seems no broader than one's hand, and to Mrs. +Laithe, who approached it from across the flat and studied it for the +first time as a practicable thoroughfare, it looked to be impossibly +perpendicular; a climb that no horse in its right mind would attempt, an +angle of elevation that no rider could sustain. + +Brought to incredulity by this survey, she pulled Cooney to a walk as +she neared the parting of the ways. Then, indecisively, she let the +bridle rein fall on his neck. The little horse loitered on, splashing +through the creek with a few leisurely sips of its icy water (taken +merely in the spirit of a connoisseur), and a moment later halted where +the bench trail turned out. At the beginning of his intimacy with his +present rider he had adopted rushing tactics at this point, leaping at +the trail in a fine pretense that no other way could have been thought +of, and showing a hurt bewilderment when the sudden pull brought him +about and into the valley road. For that was a road that led nowhere, +since it led away from his home. Day after day he had played this game, +seemingly with an untouched faith that some time he would win. Day after +day had he exercised all his powers of astonished protest when the +frustrating tug was felt. But these tugs had become sharper, to betoken +the rider's growing impatience, and it may be surmised that on this day +Cooney had lost his faith. If it were inevitable that one should be +whirled back into the broad, foolish way, one might save effort by +omitting that first futile rush; one might stop and let evil come. +Cooney stopped now, drooping in languid cynicism. + +His rider waited, wishing that he had not stopped; wishing he had rushed +the trail as always before. She felt the need of every excuse for daring +the hazards of that climb. Cooney waited--and waited--morosely +anticipating the corrective jerk of a rider who refused to guide him +properly by pressing a rein across his neck. The shock was delayed. +Cooney thrilled, aspiring joyously. He waited still another uncertain +moment, bracing his slim legs. At last, with a quick indrawing of +breath, he sprang up the only desirable trail in all the world, with an +energy of scurrying hoofs that confined his rider's attention wholly to +keeping her seat. She hardly dared look down even when the little horse +stopped on a narrow ledge to breathe. Nor did Cooney tarry. Still +fearful, perhaps, of that deadly backward jerk, he stopped but once +again before the summit was reached. Doubtless he suspected that the +most should be made of this probably fleeting mood of compliance in one +who had hitherto shown herself inveterately hostile to his most +cherished design. + +Looking back over the ascent while the stanch little animal panted under +her, Mrs. Laithe discovered that the thing had been worth while. The +excitement had been pleasurable and the view was a thing to climb for. +On the north the valley narrowed to a canyon, its granite sides muffled +in clouds of soft green spruce. To the south it widened away until, +beyond a broad plain, quickened with flying cloud shadows, a long, +low-lying range of blue hills showed hazily, far over the New Mexico +border. Straight before her, across the valley, were mountains whose +rough summits leaped gray and barren above their ragged hemming of +timber--mountains not to be seen from the ranch because of the +intervening mesa. + +But the picture was not long to be enjoyed--no longer a time than Cooney +needed to recover his wind. He was presently off through a sparse grove +of aspen, breaking by his own will into a lope as they crossed a wide, +grassy meadow, level between the wooded hills that sloped to its edge on +either side. And this was the horse who, when he bore her lazily up and +down the valley, constantly cropped the good green stuff to right and +left, a horse always before willing to loiter, or to stand motionless +for an hour with his bridle rein on the ground, while she adventured +beyond him on foot. The rider caught his new spirit and laughed as she +felt herself hurried to the consummation of this mild adventure; hurried +up the long ridge, over a cross system of sudden gullies, through +another wide meadow of the mountains where strange cattle paused to +regard her rather disconcertingly; on through the gloom of other woods, +the trail worrying itself up another ascent, and then out upon an open +summit that looked down upon a tiny lake set in a cup of the hills. On +one side the water, its shining surface pierced only by the heaps of +hungry trout, flashed the green of chrysoprase up to the spruce trees +that crept to its edge; on the other it mirrored a scarred wall of rock +that rose sheer from the water to some far, incalculable height, its +summit carved into semblances of buttressed castles with gray and +splendid battlements. + +But Cooney was still loath to linger over mere scenery. He hurried his +rider down the ridge and out on a flat of marshy grass, thickly starred +with purple gentians. Here he delayed only to recall, as it later +appeared, a duty familiar to him in the days before he was sold into +bondage. Standing across the trail where it neared the margin of the +lake, a sedate-looking cow grazed and was at peace with the world. + +Looking up as the horse bore down upon her, and observing that she was +expected to move, the cow did so with but slight signs of annoyance in +the shaking of her head. The incident, however, was not thus simply to +be closed, for now began that which enabled the lady to regard the day +as one of red adventure. Cooney swerved from the trail with a suddenness +that was like to have unseated his rider. Then as the cow halted, head +down and forefeet braced, he swerved once more, heading so obviously for +the beast that she turned and trotted off on the trail, mumbling +petulant remonstrance. With a knowing shake of his head Cooney fell in +behind her. + +His intention might no longer be mistaken. He meant to drive the cow. +Did she turn aside, Cooney turned aside, ever alert for her slightest +deviation. The trail now lay through a grove of spruce and balsam +that had been partially cleared, but the trees were still too many +for the lady to relish being hurtled among them by a volatile and +too-conscientious cow pony. She found herself eying their charge as +alertly as did Cooney himself, praying that the driven beast might +prove less reluctant. When she did break from the trail Mrs. Laithe +braced herself to meet Cooney's simultaneous detour, and thereafter, +until the indignant animal was again in the beaten way, the rider was +engaged in avoiding fearful impact with trees and entanglement with +low-growing branches. She debated the wisdom of dropping from the saddle +and abandoning herself to the more seemly fate of starvation in this +wooded fastness. To be sure, there was a chance that Cooney would rush +on to find his late master, who might return to solve the problem of the +empty saddle. But even so, that young man would only glance at her and +run swiftly away, after he had blushed. Moreover Cooney, whom she now +believed to be demented, had increased his speed, despite her +restraining pulls, while the cow, in a frenzy of desperation, became +more daring in her sorties. + +Then, to the glad relief of the rider, an opening showed through the +trees close ahead, and in another moment Cooney had galloped her out +into an extensive clearing. Swiftly about its edge he circled, to thwart +a last dash of his prey for the glad, free grazing life from which she +had so summarily been withdrawn. Half round the clearing they went in +the startled gaze of a person who had been at work over a deer hide in +the shade of a mighty hemlock. Then, with lightning swerve pursued and +pursuers fled straight and swiftly across the clearing--Cooney close on +the flanks of his prize--into the astounded vision of Ewing's kid, who +had sauntered to the open door at the sound of flying hoofs. + +Hereupon the little roan abandoned his task, halting before the figure +in the doorway. The halt was so abrupt that Mrs. Laithe never knew +whether she dismounted or was thrown. + +They looked at each other helplessly, the lady's eyes still wide with +the dismay that had been growing in them since Cooney's mysterious +seizure. She felt herself trembling and she tried to smile. The young +man released the arm he had seized to support her and stepped back, +putting a hand up to Cooney, who had been mouthing his sleeve with +little whinnies of rejoicing. + +Then the lady heard the voice of Ewing's kid, heard him say with quick, +embarrassed utterance, "It's too bad you went to all that trouble. We're +not milking Clara any more." + +Still breathing rapidly, she turned half away, confused by this cryptic +utterance. + +"Clara?--I didn't know--I don't--I beg your pardon, but I'm afraid I +don't understand." + +"Yes, we don't drive her in any more. Midge came in fresh a few weeks +ago, and we let Clara run along with her calf again." + +Pondering this item, she put her hands to her head. One of them found +her cap which a low branch had raked awry; the other grasped a tangle of +hair that muffled the other side of her head, regrettably out of place. +From this surprising touch of things she divined the picture she must be +making. More, she saw herself dash into this sylvan opening apparently +in mad pursuit of a frenzied cow; for, as a requisite to keeping her +seat in the saddle, she had been compelled to seem as eager in the chase +as Cooney himself. She sank--collapsed, rather--upon the broad slab of +stone before the door, laughing weakly. + +The youth looked down at her with puzzled eyes in which she saw alarm +rising. + +"But I didn't try to chase your cow--I didn't want to," she broke out. +"It was your horse; _his_ idea, his alone." + +There was such fine, shy commiseration in his face as she rose that she +laughed again. + +"Of course it must have been Cooney's fault," he said. "I might have +known that. He used to have to drive her in every day." He regarded her +for a moment with a sort of dumb chivalry, then politely offered his +hand, saying, with a curious little air of taught formality: "I'm very +glad to see you. Thank you so much for coming!" + +In avoiding each other's eyes, as their hands fell apart, they both +looked out to the person who stooped busily over a deer hide in the +shade of the big hemlock. His view of the circumstance was revealing +itself. Only his rounded back could be seen, but this rose and fell in +the rapid, rhythmic convulsions of silent laughter. They turned quickly +back to each other and smiled in a sudden sympathy with his mirth. + +"If I may have a glass of water--" she suggested, as a device for +establishing ease between them. + +"Of course!" He called to the person under the tree, arresting the back +at the height of one of its recurrent spasms. The face turned upon them +was rigidly sad, a face of almost saturnine solemnity, the face of one +who has been brought to view life as an engine of woe. As he ambled +dejectedly toward them, his head bowed from his work-bent shoulders, the +lines of grief in his face seemed to deepen, and a gnarled hand tugged +at the already drooping ends of his long mustache, as if he would be +assured that they, also, testified to the world's objectionableness. + +"Mr. Crider, this is Mrs. Laithe--she has come to see us." The youth +achieved this with austere formality. The sad one nodded and put forth +his hand with a funereal "Glad to know you, ma'am!" as if they met at +the open grave of a friend. + +"Ben, won't you go to the spring and get her some fresh water? She's +thirsty. She's had a hard ride." + +The other turned quickly away, and there was a sound as if he had +manfully stifled a sob. Ewing faced his guest with eyes that twinkled a +bit, she thought, beneath their apologetic droop. + +"I'd be glad to have you come inside," he ventured. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A PRIVATE VIEW + + +From the first room, a kitchen and general living room, such as she had +learned to know in the other ranch houses, he conducted her up two steps +to a doorway, from which he pushed aside a Navajo blanket with its rude +coloring of black and red. There was disclosed beyond this an apartment +of a sort with which she was more familiar, a spacious studio with its +large window giving to the north. In the clear light her eyes ran +quickly over its details: the chinked logs that made its walls, the huge +stone fireplace on one side, the broad couch along the opposite wall, +covered with another of the vivid Navajo weaves, the skins of bear and +lynx and cougar on the stained floor, the easel before the window, a +canvas in place on it; the branching antlers over the fireplace, +contrived into a gun rack; a tall, roughly made cabinet, its single +shelf littered with half-squeezed tubes of paint, a daubed palette, and +a red-glazed jar from which brushes protruded. Above the couch were some +shelves of books, and between it and the fireplace was a table strewn +with papers, magazines, a drawing board with a sheet of paper tacked to +it, and half a dozen sharpened pencils. + +He indicated the couch. "It will be a good thing for you to rest a +little," he said. She seated herself with a smile of assent. He rashly +began to arrange the pillows for her, but left off in a sudden +consciousness of his temerity, withdrawing a few paces to regard her. +He was still apprehensive, but his boy's eyes were full of delight, +amusement, curiosity, and, more than all, of a wistfulness like that of +a dumb creature. He stepped to the door for the pitcher of water and +glass that Ben now brought. + +She had studied him coolly as he spoke--the negligent out-of-doors +carriage of the figure, not without a kind of free animal grace, the +grace of a trampling horse rather than that of soft-going panthers. The +floor boards reechoed to his careless, rattling tread, and occasionally, +his attention being drawn to this reverberation, he was at great pains +for a moment to go on tiptoe. He was well set up, with a sufficient +length of thigh. Mrs. Laithe approved of this, for, in her opinion, many +a goodly masculine torso in these times goes for nothing because of a +shortness of leg. His hair was a lightish brown and so straight that a +lock was prone to come out behind and point uncompromisingly toward +distant things. This impropriety he wholly disregarded, whereas the more +civilized man would have borne the fault in mind and remembered +occasionally to apply a restrictive hand. His face was a long, browned +square, with gray eyes, so imbedded under the brow that they had a look +of fierceness. His lips showed only a narrow line of color, and trembled +constantly with smiles. These he tried to restrain from time to time, +with an air of pinning down the corners of his mouth. + +She had noted so much while he poured out the water, and now he came to +her, walking carefully so as not to thunder with his boots. + +"You must have been frightened," he said, and his eyes sought hers with +a young, sorry look. + +"Not after we left the woods; it wasn't funny among those trees." + +He brightened. "I'd always thought women don't like to look funny." + +"They don't," said the lady incisively, "no more than men do." + +"But you can laugh at yourself," he insisted. + +"Can you?" She meditated a swift exposure of his own absurdity at their +meetings in the valley, but forbore and spoke instead of his pictures. + +"You must show me your work," she said. + +For a moment it seemed that she had lost all she had gained with him. He +patently meditated a flying leap through the door and an instant +vanishing into the nearest thicket. She had an impulse to put out a hand +and secure him by the coat. But he held his ground, though all his +geniality was suddenly veiled, while he vibrated behind the curtain, +scheming escape, like a child harried by invading grown people in its +secret playhouse. + +She looked cunningly away, examining a rip in her glove. + +"I tried to paint a little myself once," she essayed craftily. Nothing +came of it. He remained in ambush. + +"But it wasn't in me," she continued, and was conscious that he at least +took a breath. + +"You see, I hadn't anything but the liking," she went on, "and so I had +the sense to give it up. Still, I learned enough to help me see other +people's work better--and to be interested in pictures." + +"Did anyone try to teach you?" he asked. + +"Yes, but they couldn't make me paint; they could only make me see." + +"Perhaps you could tell me some things," he admitted at last, "if you've +tried." He paltered a little longer. Then, "Ben Crider says this is the +best thing I've ever done," and he quickly took a canvas from against +the wall and placed it on a chair before her. + +She considered it so quietly that he warmed a little, like a routed +animal lulled once more into security by the stillness. + +"Do you get the right light?" he asked anxiously. + +She nodded, and managed a faint, abstracted smile, indicative of +pleasure. She heard him emit a sigh of returning ease. He spoke in +almost his former confiding tone. + +"That's our lake, you know, painted in the late afternoon. Ben is set on +my sending it down to the Durango fair next month." + +It was the lake, indeed, but, alas! an elaborate, a labored parody of +it. The dead blue water, the granite wall evenly gray in shadow, +garishly pink where it caught the sun, the opaque green of the trees, +the carefully arranged clouds in the flat blue sky--all smirked +conscious burlesque. It recalled the things in gilt frames which Mrs. +Laithe remembered to have seen in front of "art emporiums," on +Fourteenth Street, tagged "Genuine Oil Painting," the "$12.00" carefully +crossed out and "$3.98" written despairingly below to tempt the alert +connoisseur. + +She knew the artist's eyes were upon her in appeal for praise. She drew +in her under lip and narrowed her eyes as one in the throes of critical +deliberation. + +"Yes, I should recognize the spot at once," she dared to say at last. +"How well you've drawn the rock." + +"I hoped you'd like it. I don't mind telling you I put in a lot of time +on that thing. I 'carried it along' as my father used to say. I don't +believe I could better that. And here are some others." + +He displayed them without further urging, his shyness vanished by his +enthusiasm, in his eye a patent confusion of pride and anxiety. She +found them in quality like the first. In one the valley of the +Wimmenuche from the east bench was as precisely definite as a +topographical map; in another the low-lying range of hills to the south +had lost all their gracious and dignifying haze. + +"They are immensely interesting," observed his critic with animation, +"It may be"--she searched for a tempering phrase--"it is just possible +there's a trick of color you need to learn yet. You know color is so +difficult to convict. It's shifty, evasive, impalpable. I dare say that +lake isn't as flatly blue as you've painted it, nor that cliff as flatly +pink in sunlight. And those hills--isn't there a mistiness that softens +their lines and gives one a sense of their distance? Color is _so_ +difficult--_so_ tricky!" + +She had spoken rapidly, her eyes keeping to the poor things before her. +Now she ventured a glance at the painter and met a puzzled seriousness +in his look. + +"You may be right," he assented at last. "Sometimes I've felt I was on +the wrong track. I see what you mean. You mean you could reach over a +mile and pick up the ranch house at Bar-7--that it's like a little +painted doll's house; and you mean you could push your finger into those +hills, though they're meant to be a hundred miles away. Well, it serves +me right, I guess. My father warned me about color. And I never saw any +good pictures but his, and that was years ago. I've forgotten how they +ought to look. He sold all his when I was young--all but one." + +"You've done well, considering that." + +"He said I must learn to draw first--really to draw--and he taught me to +do that. I _can_ draw. But black and white is so dingy, and these colors +are always nagging you, daring you to try them. If I could only learn to +get real air between me and those hills. I wonder, now, if my colors +seem like those Navajo blankets to you." He flung himself away from the +canvases like an offended horse. + +"Let me see your black-and-whites," she suggested hastily. + +"Oh, those! They don't amount to much, but I'll show you." He thrust +aside the canvases and opened a portfolio on the chair. + +She saw at a glance that he had been right when he said he could draw. +She let her surprise have play and expanded in the pleasure of honest +praise. She had not realized how her former disappointment had taken her +aback. But he could draw. Here were true lines and true modeling, not +dead, as he had warned her, but quick with life, portrayed not only with +truth but with a handling all his own, free from imitative touches. He +had achieved difficult feats of action, of foreshortening, with an +apparently effortless facility--the duck of a horse's head to avoid the +thrown rope; the poise of the man who had cast it; the braced tension of +a cow pony holding a roped and thrown steer while his rider dismounted; +the airy grace of Red Phinney at work with a stubborn broncho, coming to +earth on his stiff-legged mount and raking its side from shoulder to +flank with an effective spur. There was humor in them, the real feeling +in one of the last. Mrs. Laithe lingered over this. + +"It's Beulah Pierce's wife in that flower garden of hers," the artist +explained. "It seems kind of sad when she goes out there alone +sometimes. You know how tired she generally is, and how homesick she's +been for twenty years or so--'all gaunted up,' as Ben says, like every +ranchman's wife--they have to work so hard. And in the house she's apt +to be peevish and scold Beulah and the boys like she despised them. But +when she goes out into that garden----" + +"Tell me," said his listener, after waiting discreetly a moment. + +"Well, she's mighty different. She stands around mooning at the +hollyhocks and petunias and geraniums and things, the flowers that grew +in her garden back East, and I reckon she kind of forgets and thinks +she's a girl back home again. Her face gets all gentled up. I've watched +her when she didn't notice me--she's looking so far off--and when she +goes into the house again her voice is queer, and she forgets to rampage +till Shane Riley lets the stew burn, or Beulah tracks mud into the front +room, or something. I tried to show her there, looking soft, just that +way." He sounded a little apologetic as he finished. + +"It's delightful," she insisted, "and they're all good--I can't tell you +how good. You must do more of them, and"--she paused and shot him a +careful glance to determine how wary it behooved her to be--"and I +believe you should let color alone for awhile, until you've had a +teacher show you some things. You must learn the trick." + +"Oh, I'd try to learn fast enough, if I had the chance." His eyes +lighted with a kind of furtive wistfulness, as if he would not have her +wholly fathom his longing. + +"Of course you could learn. I believe you can do something--something +fine." + +She rose from the couch and glanced over his books, with an air of +wishing to touch other matters before they dwelt long on this. She +noticed with some surprise a set of Meredith. + +"Do you read these?" she asked, taking down one of the volumes. + +There was an instant return of his former shyness, a hint of the child +and the invaded playhouse. But she knew what to do. Without further +remark she calmly lost herself in "Diana." + +"Those books were my father's," he said at last, with the air of +addressing an explanation to some third person. She ignored this, not +even glancing at him. "But I've read them," he added, still as if to +another person. + +At last, after studying her face a bit, he ventured, "Have you read them +all?" He spoke low, so as not to interrupt her too pointedly. She did +not look up, but nodded, with a smile that said confidentially, "Well, I +should think so!" He edged nearer then, like one who would be glad, if +pressed, to share his secrets. + +"I was sorry when I reached the last one," he began. "It was another +world. Oh, he's a great writer. He writes as if he was thinking all the +time in fireworks, and he makes you do the same thing. Every page or two +he sets off a bunch of firecrackers in your mind that you didn't know +you had there. But he writes as if he didn't care whether anybody +understood him or not. It's a blind trail, lots of the way, and on some +pages I just bog down." + +She smiled sympathetically. "Many of us have that trouble with him." She +put "Diana" back on the shelf and held up the poems of Robert Browning. + +"And this?" + +"Oh, do you read that, too?" he counterquestioned with sparkling +curiosity. She could see that he was enlivened beyond his +self-consciousness for the moment. "Well, I do, too, in spots. He's +pretty good in spots. But other times he's choppy and talky and has a +hard time getting into the saddle. Why, sometimes when Ben Crider is +talking to himself, it would sound just like Browning, if you broke it +up into poetry lengths and gave it a good title." + +"And this you like, too?" She was opening a volume of Whitman. + +"_Sure!_" he rang out. "Don't you? There's the man." He began walking +about with a fine smile that was almost a friendly grin. She felt +suddenly sure that he had never talked about the books before, and that +it was a kind of feast day for him. + +"Yes," he continued easily; "when I get to feeling too much alone up +here I pretend I see him striding in off the trail, his head up, +sniffing the air, his eyes just _eating_ these big hills, and he'd march +right in and sit down. Only I can't ever think of what we'd say. I +reckon we'd sit here without a word. He must have had wonderful eyes. +He's good in winters when you're holed up here in the snow and get on +edge with nothing to do for five or six months but feed the stock and +keep a water hole open. Sometimes I wonder if Ben and I won't come out +crazy in the spring, and then I read old Whitman and he makes me feel +all easy-like and sure of myself." + +He paused again, but she only waited. + +"I had a funny thought last winter," he pursued. "It seemed to me that +if people turn into other things when they die--the way some folks +believe, you know--that Whitman must have become a whole world when _he_ +died, whirling away somewhere off in space; a fine, big, fresh world, +with mountains and valleys and lakes, with big rivers and little ones, +and forests and plains and people, good people and bad people, he just +liked all sorts--it didn't seem to make much difference to him what they +were, so they were people--and he'd carry them all on his back and +breathe in and out and feel great." + +He laughed as if the idea still delighted him, and she laughed with him. + +"I'd like to have told him that," he continued, almost meditatively. +"But I'll bet he often thought of it himself. I guess he wouldn't be +satisfied with anything less than that." + +When he stopped they stood a moment smiling at each other. Then she went +back to the couch with rather a businesslike air. + +"How old are you?" she asked. + +"I'm twenty-four. How old are you?" + +She smiled, quite disarmed by the artlessness of this brutality. + +"I am twenty-seven." + +"That's pretty old, isn't it?" he commented, gravely. "I shouldn't have +said you were older than I am. Some ways you look younger. And what a +lot you must have seen out yonder!" + +"You should go there yourself, to work, to study." She felt that he was +curiously watching her lips as she spoke rather than listening to her. + +"Now I see it's only your profile that's sad," he began in the same +detached, absent way he had spoken of the books, the way of one talking +in solitude. "Your full face isn't sad; it's full of joy; but there's a +droop to the profile. Here--I'll show you." He took a sketch-book from +the table. + +"I'll show you this, now we're such good friends. I could only draw the +profile because--well, that was the only thing I could look at much." + +She looked and saw herself on three pages of the book, quick little +drawings, all of the side face. + +"I didn't dream you had seen me enough," she said. "And you have +everything from cap to boots, and Cooney----" + +"I knew Cooney, and I've--well--I've watched you some when you didn't +know." + +"Certainly you never watched me when I did know," she retorted. + +"I should think not!" He laughed uneasily. "But you see the sadness +there. I tried to locate it, but I couldn't. I only knew it was there +because I found it in the sketches when they were done. I think I caught +the figure pretty well in that one. Stand that way now, won't you?" + +She rose graciously. + +"Here's your quirt, and catch your skirts the way you've done +there--that's it. Yes, I got that long line down from the shoulder. It's +a fine line. You are beautiful," he continued critically. "I like the +way your neck goes up from your shoulders, and your head has a perky +kind of a tilt, as if you wouldn't be easy to bluff." + +She smiled, meditating some jocose retort, but he still surveyed her +impersonally, not seeing the smile. She dropped to the couch rather +quickly. + +"Let us talk about you," she urged. But he did not hear. + +"Your face, though--that's the fine thing--" He was scanning it with +narrowed eyes. But a protesting movement of hers restored him to his +normal embarrassment. He writhed in uncomfortable apology before her. +"I'd 'most forgot you were really here," he explained. "I've seen you +that way so often when you _weren't_ here. There now--I see that +sadness; it's in the upper lip. It showed even when you laughed then." + +"Really, this must stop," she broke in. "People don't talk this way." + +"Don't they? Why don't they? I'm sorry--but all that interested me." The +wave of his hand indicated the fluent grace of the lady impartially from +head to foot. + +"Of course," he added, "I knew there must be people like you, out there, +but I never dreamed I'd have one of them close enough to look at--let +alone get friendly with. I hope you won't hold it against me." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A PORTRAIT + + +Though she had made him tingle with an impulse to flee from her, he was +at the edge of the east bench early the next afternoon. He might see her +from a distance. If she came close upon him--well, it was worth risking; +he had a good horse. Her eyes were the best of her he thought, big gray +things under black brows, with a dark ring, well defined, about the +iris. He had seen no such eyes before. And how they lighted her face +when she spoke. Her face needed lighting, he thought. It was pale under +the dark hair--her hair stopped short of being black, and was +lusterless--with only a bit of scared pink in her cheeks, after that +ride of the day before. He thought of her hands, too. They were the +right hands for her, long, slender, and strong, he did not doubt, under +a tricky look of being delicate. It was not possible that they could +ever talk together again so easily. He could not make that seem true, +but he could look at her. He had hoped she would promise to come again, +but they had parted abruptly the afternoon before. Riding back with her, +as they breasted the last slope leading to the ranch, he had rejoiced +boldly at the chance that had led her up the lake trail that morning. +Then Beulah Pierce had hailed them from his station at the bars, hailed +them in a voice built to admirable carrying power by many cattle +drives. His speech began, "Didn't I _tell_ you where that upper trail +would----" + +Whereupon the lady turned to dismiss her escort rather curtly. + +"Thank you for riding back with me. I shall not trouble you any +further." And he, staring suddenly at her with the wild deer's eyes +again, had fled over the back trail. + +He thought if there had been more time she might have said, "I will come +again soon--perhaps to-morrow." He liked to think she might have said +that, but he could not give it much reality. + +He sprawled easily in the saddle, leaning his crossed arms on the pommel +and gazing out over the sun-shot valley to the group of buildings and +corrals at Bar-7. At least she rode somewhere every afternoon, and he +would see her leave. If she turned down the valley road or up the +canyon--well, that emergency could be met. He thought of speeches to make +it plain that he had not followed her, daring to approach her in his +mind, but knowing well that he would probably hide at sight of her. + +A half hour he waited so, beholding visions of their accidental meeting. +Then his pulses raced. He saw the stocky-barreled Cooney led from the +corral to the front of the house by Red Phinney. He could almost discern +the Sabbath finery of Red across that crystal mile--for this was the +breathing day of the week, when faces were rasped cruelly by indifferent +razors, and fine raiment was donned, black trousers and gay, clean +shirts and neckerchiefs of flaming silk. + +He could not see her mount. The ranch house hid that spectacle. But she +rode into view presently, putting Cooney first to his little fox trot +and then to a lope, as the road wound among the willows. + +He straightened in the saddle as she reached the creek. He was eager to +retreat, yet feared to have his cowardice detected. And when Cooney +halted midway of the stream, pawing its rocky bed and making a pretense +of thirst, the woman looked up and saw her watcher on the trail. She +waved the gauntleted hand that held her quirt, and he found himself +holding his hat in his hand with an affectation of ease. Then each +laughed, and, though neither could hear the other, it was as if they had +laughed together in some little flurry of understanding. He could still +pretend to have happened there at that moment, he reflected. And this +brought him courage as he saw her give Cooney his way where the trail +branched. When the little horse had carried her to the summit and stood +in panting gratitude, the waiting youth evolved a splendid plan for +hiding his fright. He dismounted and forced himself to go coolly and +take her hand. Perhaps it was as well that he had not trusted himself to +remain in the saddle at that first moment. But when the thing was really +over he no longer made a secret of his delight at her coming. His first +anxious look at her face had shown him the cordial friendliness of the +preceding day. She was amused by him, he could see that, and did not +resent it; but she was kind, and in his joy at this he babbled, at +first, with little coherence. + +"I rode right over here to make sure I would see you," he began, "and +then if you rode down the valley, or up, I was going to loaf along and +find you by accident, and pretend I was hunting a colt. I was going to +be afraid the mountain lions had got it." He laughed immoderately at +this joke. "And while I waited for you I kept trying to think how fine +it would have sounded last night if you had said, 'I think I shall go +over and look at your place again to-morrow.' I couldn't make your voice +sound true, though. It's a good thing we needn't try to paint voices." + +They were riding together over the first stretch of meadow. It seemed to +have been agreed without words that they should ride to the lake cabin. + +"To paint voices?" she queried. + +"Voices, yes; how could yours be painted? It couldn't. You'll see that. +I thought of a jumble of things--wine and velvet, for instance; some +kind of rich, golden wine and purple velvet, and then, warm flickers of +light in a darkened room, and a big bronze bell struck with something +soft that would muffle it and yet make everything about it tremble. You +see, don't you?" he concluded with a questioning look of deep +seriousness. + +His own voice was low and eager, with its undernote of wistfulness. +Already he had renewed upon her that companionable charm which she had +felt the day before, a charm compounded of half-shy directness, of +flashes of self-forgetfulness, of quick-trusting comradeship. She +rejected a cant phrase of humorous disclaimer that habit brought to her +lips. It would puzzle or affront his forthrightness. + +"Very well, we'll agree that my voice can't be painted," she said at +last. "So let us talk of you." + +"I guess I should like that pretty well," he answered after a moment's +pondering. "I don't believe I've ever talked much; but now I feel as if +I could tire you out, talking as we did yesterday. Queer, wasn't it?" + +He fell silent, however, when the trail narrowed to climb the long +ridge, as if the acknowledgment of his desire to speak had somehow +quenched it. She fell in ahead, half turning in her saddle to address +him from time to time, but he would talk only about things of the +moment. In a marshy spot at the edge of the meadow he pointed out a bear +wallow, and farther on a deer lick. "It's a sulphur spring," he +exclaimed, "and deer come from miles around to drink there." + +"Do you shoot them?" she asked. + +"We always have fresh meat when we need. Ben Crider says he won't let a +deer come up and bite him without trying to defend himself." + +"It's like murder, isn't it?" + +"Well, I never murdered anyone myself, but I hit the first deer I ever +shot at, and I felt as if I'd lain in wait at a street corner and killed +a schoolboy on his way home. But I missed the next three or four, and +that made me blood-thirsty. I guess if you carried that feeling back far +enough a man could go out and shoot his little sister if he'd had to +still-hunt her over rough ground all day, and especially if he'd missed +two or three cousins or an uncle in the meantime. I think that would +raise the savage in him enough." + +They were skirting the lake now, a glinting oval of sapphire in its +setting of granite. Beyond this they rode through the thinned +timber--where Cooney was dissuaded, not without effort, from pursuing +his ancient charge, and emerged into the glare of the clearing. + +As they dismounted at the door of the cabin a melancholy of minor chords +from a guitar came to their ears, and a voice, nasal, but vibrant with +emotion, sang the final couplet of what had too plainly been a ballad of +pathos: + + "While they were honeymooning in a mansion on the hill, + Kind friends were laying Nellie out behind the mill." + +"That's one of Ben's best songs," said Ewing, with so genuine a gravity +that he stifled quite another emotion in the lady as she caught his +look. + +"Indeed! I must hear him sing more," she managed with some difficulty. + +The sorrowful one arose as they entered, hastily thrusting aside his +guitar as might an assassin have cast away his weapon. His face was +shaven to a bitter degree; in spots it was scarified. But the drooping +lines of woe unutterable were still there in opposition to his Sabbath +finery--a spreading blue-satin cravat, lighted by a stone of impressive +bulk, elegant black trousers, and suspenders of red silk embroidered +with pansies and a running vine of green. He greeted the visitor as one +who would say, "Yes, it's a sad affair--wholly unexpected," and, cocking +an eye of long-suffering negation on Ewing, he went out to the horses. + +As they entered the studio Mrs. Laithe saw that the easel had been +wheeled into the light from the big window and that a woman's portrait +had been placed upon it. Had Ewing looked at her on the instant he might +have detected that her face seemed to ripple under some wind of emotion. +But his own eyes had been on the portrait. + +"That's my mother," he said, unconsciously hushing his voice. + +"I should have known it," she answered, with a kind of spurious +animation. "The face is so much like yours. It is a face one seems to +have known before, one of those elusive resemblances that haunt the +mind. It is well done." She ended the speech glibly enough. + +"She was beautiful. My father did it. He had that trick of color, as you +call it, or he could never have painted her. She was so slight, but she +had color. And she was quick and fiery. I used to see her rage when I +was very small. I believed there were coals in her eyes, and that +something blew on them inside to make them blaze. I wouldn't know what +it was about, only that it wasn't us she raged at--not my father or me. +I could go up and catch her hand even when she frightened me. And +sometimes, after a while, my father would get excited, too. He was +slower to take fire, but he burned longer. And at last she would become +afraid and grow quiet herself and try to soothe him. I never could tell +what they were at war with." + +They looked in silence at the vivid young face on the canvas, a thin, +daring, eager face, a face of delicate features, but strong in a perfect +balance. The eyes were darkly alive. + +"You were young when she died?" the woman asked at last. + +"Too young to understand. I was eight, I think. There was a lot I shall +never understand. Sometimes my father would tell me about their life +here in the West, but never of the time before they came here. It always +seemed to me that either he or she had quarreled with their people. They +were poor when they came here. We lived in Leadville when I first +remember. My mother sang in a church choir and made a little money and +nights--you'll think this queer--my father played a piano in a dance +hall. They had to live. Days, he painted. He had studied abroad in Paris +and Munich, but he wasn't selling his pictures then. It took him years +to do much of that. Sometimes they were hungry, though I didn't know +it." He paused, overwhelmed by a sudden realization that he was talking +much. + +"Tell me more," she said very quietly. "I wish to hear the rest." + +"Well, at the last my mother was in bed a long time, and my father +worked hard to get things for her, things she must have. But one night +she died--it was a cold night in winter. He and I were alone with her. +I'll not soon forget that. I sat up on the cot where I slept and saw my +father sitting on the bed looking down at my mother. They were both +still, and he wouldn't answer or turn his head when I spoke. Then I +cried, for it was cold in the little cabin and my father's stillness +scared me. But I don't think he heard me crying. He kept looking down at +my mother's face, even when I called to him as loud as I could. Then I +was afraid to see him that way any longer, so I pulled the blankets over +my head and I must have cried myself to sleep. + +"He was sitting the same way when I woke in the morning, still looking +at my mother's face. Even when the people came to take her away he kept +silent--and while they put her in the ground in a great, snowy field +with little short waves all over it. And when we were back in the cabin +not a word could I get from him, nor a look. He just sat on the bed +again, looking at her pillow. + +"In the evening some one brought a letter. I lighted a candle and took +this letter to him, crowding it into his hand. I wanted him to notice +me. I saw him study the envelope, then tear it open and look at a little +slip of green paper that fell out. It was money, you understand, for +pictures he had sent to New York. I knew this at once. I'd heard them +talk of its coming and of wonderful things they'd do with it when it +did come. I was glad in an instant, for I thought that now we could get +my mother back out of the ground. I was sure we could when he held the +green slip close to the candle and began to laugh. It wasn't the way he +usually laughed, it was louder and longer, but it was the first sound +I'd heard from him, and it made me happy. I began to laugh myself as +loud as I could, and danced before him, and his laugh went still higher +at that. I ran for my jacket and mittens and cap. I wanted him to stop +laughing and hurry along. I pulled his arm and he stopped laughing and +looked down at me. I shouted 'Hurry--let's hurry and bring her back--let +me carry the money!' He caught my shoulder and looked so astonished, +then he burst into that loud laugh again, after he'd made me say it +over. I ran for his overcoat, too, but when I came with it I saw he +wasn't laughing at all. He was crying, and it was so much like his laugh +that I hadn't noticed the change." + +He had kept his eyes on the portrait while he spoke. He stopped abruptly +now, turning to the listening woman, searching her face with new signs +of confusion. + +"I--I didn't know I was telling you all that." + +She did not answer at once. + +"And you came here after that?" she said at last. + +"Yes; my father found this place. He wanted to be alone. I think he +began to die when my mother went. He couldn't live without her. He +taught me what he could, about books and pictures, but I couldn't have +been much to him. I think it hurt him that I looked like her--he said I +looked like her. He worked on that portrait to the very last, even on +the morning of the day he died." + +"What was your father's name?" + +"Gilbert Denham Ewing. I was named for him." + +"And your mother's name before marriage was----" + +"I'm ashamed that I never knew. It must have been spoken often, but I +was so young; it never stayed in my mind. And a little while before he +died my father burned all his letters and papers. I've wondered about +their life long ago before I came, but I think my father meant me not to +know. He had some reason." + +"I am glad you have told me all you did know," she said. + +"But you have made _me_ glad," he assured her, returning to his livelier +manner. + +"Your mother's first name"--she asked--"what did your father call her?" + +"Oh, that--Katharine. He called her Kitty." + +"Kitty!" She repeated it after him, softly, as if she spoke it in +compassion to the portrait. + +"But see," he continued, "it's late. Stay and eat with us and I'll take +you back by moonlight. I've ordered a fine, big, silver moon to be set +up in the sky at seven, and Ben is already getting supper." + +He pulled aside the blanket portiere, and through the doorway she could +see the saturnine one--a man fashioned for tragedies, for deeds of +desperate hazard--incongruously busied with a pan of soda biscuits and a +hissing broiler. + +When they rode back to Bar-7 the hills were struck to silver by the +moon. They were companionably silent for most of the ride, though the +youth from time to time, when the trail narrowed to put him in the rear, +crooned stray bits of a song with which Ben Crider had favored them +while he prepared the evening meal. The lines Mrs Laithe remembered +were: + + "Take back your gold, for gold it cannot buy me; + Make me your wife, 'tis all I ask of you." + +When they parted she said, "You must think about leaving here. It's time +you rode out into the world. I think my brother will be back from his +cattle-driving trip to-morrow, and I mean to bring him to see your +pictures very soon. Perhaps he will suggest something for you." + +"This moonlight does such wonderful things to your face," he remarked. + +"Good night! I'm sorry you have so far to go." + +"It isn't far enough," he answered, still searching her face. "Not half +far enough--I have so much thinking--so much thinking to do." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +INTO THE PAST AND OUT + + +It was not without concern that Mrs. Laithe awaited the return of her +brother the following day. The cattle drive that had beguiled him from +habits of extreme and enforced precision had occupied a fortnight, and +she understood the life to be sorely trying to any but the rugged. +Earnestly had she sought to dissuade him from the adventure, for +insomnia had long beset him, and dyspepsia marked him for its plaything. +Eloquently exposed to him had been the folly of hoping for sleep on +stony ground after vainly wooing it in the softest of beds with an air +pillow inflated to the nice degree of resiliency. And the unsuitability +of camp fare to a man who had long been sustained by an invalid's diet +had been shrewdly set forth. None the less he had persisted, caught in +the frenzy of desperation that sometimes overwhelms even the practiced +dyspeptic. + +"It can't be worse, Sis," he had tragically assured her at parting. "If +I've got to writhe out my days, why, I shall writhe like a gentleman, +that's all. I can at least chuck those baby foods and perish with some +dignity." + +"But you're not leaving your medicines, those drops and things?" she had +asked, in real alarm. + +"Every infernal drop. I've struck all along the line--not another morsel +of disinfected zwieback nor sanitary breakfast food nor hygienic prunes +nor glutenized near-food--not even one pepsin tablet. It's come to where +I'd sooner have no stomach at all than be bullied night and day by one." + +With which splendid defiance he had ridden desperately off, a steely +flash in his tired gray eyes and a bit of fevered color glowing in his +sallow cheeks. + +When Mrs. Pierce loudly announced the return of the men early in the +afternoon, therefore, the invalid's sister was ready to be harrowed. +There would be bitter agonies to relate--chiefly stomachic. She had +heroically resolved, moreover, not immediately to flaw the surface of +her sympathy with any gusty "I told you so!" That was a privilege sacred +unto her, and not to be foregone; but she would defer its satisfaction +until the pangs of confession had been suffered; until the rash one +should achieve a mood receptive to counsel. + +At the call of Mrs. Pierce she ran down the flower-bordered walk to join +that lady at the gate, and there they watched the cavalcade as it jolted +down the lacets of the mesa trail--four horsemen in single file, two +laden pack animals, another horseman in the rear. The returning invalid +was equal, then, to sitting a horse. The far-focused eyes of Mrs. Pierce +were the first to identify him. As the line advanced through the willow +growth that fringed the creek she said, pointing, "There's Mr. +Bartell--he's in the lead." + +"But Clarence doesn't smoke; the doctors won't let him," his sister +interposed, for she could distinguish a pipe in the mouth of the +foremost horseman. "And, anyway, it couldn't be Clarence; it's too--" On +the point of saying "too disreputable," she reflected that the person +in front looked quite like the run of Mrs. Pierce's nearest friends and +might, indeed, be of her own household. + +"It's sure your brother, though," insisted Mrs. Pierce, as the riders +broke into a lope over the level, "and he _don't_ look quite as--" Mrs. +Pierce forbore tactfully in her turn. She had meant to say "dandified." + +"And I tell you, Mis' Laithe, he does look husky, too. Not no ways so +squammish as when he started. My suz! Here we've et dinner and they'll +be hungry as bears. I must run in and set back something." + +The other men turned with the packhorses off toward the corrals, but +Bartell came on at a stiff gallop to where his sister waited. When he +had pulled his horse up before her with perilous but showy abruptness, +he raised himself in the saddle, swung his hat, and poured into the +still air of the valley a long, high yell of such volume that his sister +stepped hastily within the gate again. She had heard the like of that +yell as they passed through Pagosa Springs, rendered by a cowboy in the +acute stage of alcoholic dementia. + +"Why, Clarence, _dear_!" she gasped, fearing the worst. But he hurriedly +dismounted and came, steadily enough, to kiss her. She submitted +doubtfully to this, and immediately held him off for inspection. He was +frankly disreputable. The flannel shirt and corduroy trousers were torn, +bedraggled, gray with the dust of the trail; his boots were past +redemption, his hat a reproach; his face a bronzed and hairy caricature; +and he reeked of the most malignant tobacco Mrs. Laithe had ever +encountered. Only the gold-rimmed spectacles, the nearsighted, peering +gray eyes, and a narrow zone of white forehead under his hat brim served +to recall the somewhat fastidious, sedate, and rather oldish-looking +young man who had parted from her. + +He smiled at her with a complacency that made it almost a smirk. Then he +boisterously kissed her again before she could evade him, and uttered +once more that yell of lawless abandon. + +"Clarence!" she expostulated, but he waved her to silence with an +imperious hand. + +"Quickest way to tell the story, Nell--that's my paean of victory. Sleep? +Slept like a night watchman. Eat? I debauched myself with the rowdiest +sort of food every chance I got--fried bacon, boiled beans, +baking-powder biscuit, black coffee that would bite your finger +off--couldn't get enough; smoked when I wasn't eating or sleeping; drank +raw whisky, too--whisky that would etch copper. Work? I worked harder +than a Coney Island piano player, fell over asleep at night and got up +asleep in the morning--when they kicked me the third time. And I +galloped up and down cliffs after runaway steers where I wouldn't have +crawled on my hands and knees two weeks before. And now that whole bunch +of boys treat me like one of themselves. I found out they called me +'Willie Four-eyes' when I first came here. Now they call me 'Doc,' as +friendly as you can imagine, and Buck Devlin told me last night I could +ride a streak of lightning with the back cinch busted, if I tried." + +He broke off to light the evil pipe ostentatiously, while she watched +him, open eyed, not yet equal to speech. + +"Now run in like a good girl and see if Ma Pierce has plenty of +fragments from the noonday feast. Anything at all--I could eat a deer +hide with the hair on." + +Wavering incredulously, she left to do his bidding. As he led his horse +around to the corral he roared a snatch from Buck Devlin's favorite +ballad, with an excellent imitation of the cowboy manner: + + "Oh, bur-ree me _not_ on the lone prai-_ree-e_--" + +After he had eaten he slouched into a hammock on the veranda with +extravagant groans of repletion, and again lighted his pipe. His sister +promptly removed her chair beyond the line of its baleful emanations. + +"Well, Sis," he began, "that trip sure did for me good and plenty. Me +for the high country uninterrupted hereafter!" + +She regarded him with an amused smile. + +"I'm so glad, dear, about the health. It's a miracle, but don't overdo +it, don't attempt everything at once. And the trip 'sure' seems to have +'done' you in another way--how is it--'good and plenty'? You walk like a +cowboy and talk and sing and act generally like one----" + +"Do I, really, though?" A sort of half-shamed pleasure glowed in his +eyes. "Well, you know they're good, companionable fellows, and a man +takes on their ways of speech unconsciously. But I didn't think it would +be noticed in me so soon. Do I seem like the real thing, honestly, now?" + +She reassured him, laughing frankly. + +"Well, you needn't laugh. It's all fixed--I'm going to be one." + +"But, Clarence, not for long, surely!" + +"It's all settled, I tell you. I've bought a ranch, old Swede Peterson's +place over on Pine River; corking spot, three half sections under fence +and ditch, right at the mouth of a box canyon where nobody can get in +above me, plenty of water, plenty of free range close at hand." + +"Clarence Bartell, you're--what do you call it?--stringing." + +"Not a bit of it. Wait till I come on in about two years, after selling +a train load of fat steers at Omaha or Kansas City--sashaying down +Fifth Avenue and rounding into Ninth Street with my big hat and +long-shanked spurs and a couple of forty-fours booming into the air. +_You'll_ see, and won't dad say it's deuced unpleasant!" + +"But I'll not believe until I see." + +He spoke ruminantly between pulls at the pipe. + +"Lots of things to do now, though. Got to go down to Pagosa this week to +pay over the money, get the deed, and register my brand. How does +'Bar-B' strike you? Rather neat, yes? It'll make a tasty little monogram +on the three hundred critters I start with. I'm on track of a herd of +shorthorns already." + +"And a little while ago you were off to the Philippines, and before that +to Porto Rico, and last summer you were going on one of those +expeditions that come back and tell why they didn't reach the North +Pole, and you came out here to be a miner and you've----" + +There was an impatient, silencing wave of the pipe. + +"Oh, let all that go, can't you?--let the dead past bury its dead. I'm +fixed for life. You and dad won't laugh at me any more. Come on out now +and see me throw a rope, if you don't believe me. I've been practicing +every day. And say, you didn't happen to notice the diamond hitch on +that forward pack horse, did you? Well, I'm the boy that did most of +that." + +She followed him dutifully to the corrals and for half an hour watched +him hurl thirty feet of rope at the horned skull of a steer nailed to +the top of a post. When the noose settled over this mark his boyish +delight was supreme. When it flew wide, which was oftener, his look was +one of invincible determination. + +As his sister left him he was explaining to Red Phinney, who had +sauntered up to be a help in the practice, that the range of Bar-B had a +lucky lie--no "greaser" could come along and "sleep" him. + +She went back to her chair and book, shaping certain questions she would +put to this brother. But it was not until after the evening meal that +she could again talk with him, for the ardent novice found occupation +about the stable and corrals the rest of the afternoon, and even sat for +a time with the men in the evening, listening avidly to their small talk +of the range, watchful to share in it. When he dared ask a question +knowingly, or venture a swift comment couched in the vernacular, he +thrilled with a joy not less poignant because it must be dissembled. + +But conscience pricked him at length to leave those fascinating +adventurers in the bunkhouse and to condescend for an interval to mere +brotherhood. He found his sister alone in the "front" room, ensconced on +the bearskin rug before a snapping and fragrant fire of cedar wood. + +He drew up the wooden rocker and remarked that the fire smelled like a +thousand burning leadpencils. He would have gone on to talk of his great +experience, but the woman wisely forestalled him. + +"Clarence," she began directly, "I've been thinking over that old affair +of Randall Teevan and his wife, Kitty Lowndes, you know. Do you happen +to recall the name of the man--the man Kitty went away with?" + +"Lord, no! That was before I'd learned to remember anything. If you want +to rake that affair up, ask Randy Teevan himself. I'll wager he hasn't +forgotten the chap's name. But why desecrate the grave of so antique a +scandal? Ask me about something later. I remember he had a cook once, +when I was six----" + +"Because--because I was thinking, just thinking. Are you certain you +remember nothing about it, not even the man's name, nor what sort of man +he was, nor what he did, nor anything?" + +"I only know what you must know. Randall Teevan's wife decided that the +Bishop had made two into the wrong one. I doubt if I ever heard the +chap's name. I seem to remember that they took Alden with them--he was a +baby of four or five, I believe, and that Randy scurried about and got +him back after no end of fuss. I've heard dad speak of that." + +"Did Kitty and that man ever marry?" + +"No; you can be sure Teevan saw to that. He took precious good care not +to divorce her. They manage those things more politely nowadays; +everything formal, six months' lease of a furnished house in Sioux +Falls, with the chap living at a hotel and dropping in for tea every day +at five; and felicitations from the late husband when the decree is +granted in the morning and the new knot tied in the afternoon--another +slipknot like the first, so that the merest twitch at a loose end +will----" + +"Please don't! And did you never know anything more about them, where +they lived or how they ended?" + +"Never a thing, Sis. It's all so old, everybody's forgotten it, except +Teevan. Of course he'd not forget the only woman who ever really put a +lance through his shirt-of-mail vanity." + +"You forget Kitty's mother. She remembers." + +"That's so, by Jove. Teevan got what was coming to him, he got his +'cone-uppance' as the boys say; but old Kitty--yes, it was rough on her. +But she's always put a great face on it. No one would know if they +_didn't_ know." + +"She's proud. Even though she's been another mother to me she rarely +lets me see anything, and she's tried so hard to find comfort in Kitty's +boy, in Alden. She's failed in that, though, for some reason." + +Her brother glanced sharply at her. "I'll tell you why she's failed, +Nell. Alden Teevan wasn't designed to be a comfort to anyone, not even +to himself. There was too much Teevan in him at the start, and too much +Teevan went into his raising." + +"They're back in town, you know." + +"Yes; Teevan must have realized that old Kitty is getting on in years, +and has a bit of money for Alden. Say, Sis, I hate to seem prying, but +you don't--you're not thinking about Alden Teevan seriously, are you? +Come, let's be confidential for twenty seconds." + +She mused a moment, then faced him frankly. + +"There's something I like in Alden, and something I don't. I know what I +like and I don't know what I don't like--I only feel it. There!" + +He reached over to take one of her hands. + +"Well, Sis, you trust to the feeling. You couldn't be happy there. And +you deserve something fine, poor child! You deserve to be happy again." +His inner eye looked back six years to see the body of poor Dick Laithe +carried into the Adirondack camp by two silent guides who had found him +where a stray bullet left him. + +She turned a tired, smiling face into the light. + +"I _was_ happy, so happy; yet I wonder if you can understand how vague +it seems now. It was so brief and ended so terribly. I think the shock +of it made me another woman. Dick and I seem like a boy and girl I once +knew who laughed and played childish games and never became real. I find +myself sympathizing with them sometimes, as I would with two dear young +things in a story that ended sadly." + +He awkwardly stroked and patted the hand he still held. + +"Come and live with me, Nell. There's only a one-room cabin at that +place now, with a carpet of hay on the dirt floor. But I'll have a +mansion there next summer that will put the eye out of this shack at +Bar-7. I believe in getting back to Nature, but I don't want to land +clear the other side of her. You'd be comfy with me. And it's a great +life; not a line of dyspepsia in it. And think of _feeling_ yourself +sliding off to sleep the moment you touch the pillow, as plainly as you +feel yourself going down in an elevator. That reminds me, I'm going to +bed down with the boys in the bunkhouse to-night. I'm afraid to trust +myself in that bed upstairs again--I've lain awake there so many +nights." + +For a time she lost the thread of his rambling talk, busied with her own +thoughts. She was faintly aware that for luncheon he had been eating a +biscuit, a thick, soggy, dangerous biscuit, caught up in the hurry of +the morning's packing, wrenched in half and sopped in bacon grease. +There was a word about shooting. He was learning to "hold down" the +Colt's 44, and had almost hit a coyote. Later, words reached her of a +cold night on the divide, when ice formed in the pail by the cooking +fire. What at last brought her back was a yawn and his remark that he +must "hole up" for the night. + +"Clarence," she began, looking far into a little white-hot chamber +between two half-burned logs, "listen, please, and advise me. If you +were going to do something that might, just possibly, and not by any +means certainly, rake up rather an ugly mess, in a sort of remote +way--that might make some people uncomfortable, you understand--I mean +if you saw something that ought to be done, because the person deserved +it, and it was by no means that person's fault, not in the least, and +the person didn't even know about it nor suspect anything, would you +stop because it might be painful to some one else--just possibly it +might--or to a number of people, or even to the person himself, after he +knew it? Or would you go ahead and trust to luck, especially when +there's a chance that it mightn't ever come out?--though I'm quite sure +it's true, you see, and that's what makes it so hard to know what to +do." + +She looked up at him with bright expectancy. Clutching his head with +both hands, he stared at her, alarm leaping in his eyes. + +"Would you mind repeating that slowly?" he began, in hushed, stricken +tones. "No, no--I shouldn't ask that. One moment, please--now it all +comes back to me. I see in fancy the dear old home, and hear faithful +Rover barking his glad welcome. Ah, now I have the answer; I knew it +would come. It's because one is a toiler of the sea and the other is a +soiler of the tea--then the ball is snapped back for a run around the +end and the man on third must return to his base." + +"I might have known you couldn't understand," she said regretfully; "but +I can't possibly be more explicit. I thought if I stated the case +clearly in the abstract--but I dare say it's a waste of time to ask +advice in such matters." + +"You've wasted yours, my child, if that's the last chance I get. Do you +really want help about something?" + +"No, dear, it wasn't anything. Never mind." + +"All right, if you say so. And now, me for the blankets!" + +When he had gone she stepped out into the night under the close, big +stars. She breathed deeply of the thin, sharp air and looked over at the +luminous pearl of a moon that seemed to hang above the cabin where +Ewing's kid would doubtless be dreaming. Her lips fell into a little +smile, half cynical, half tender. + +"I'll do it anyway!" The inflection was defiant, but the words were +scarcely more than a whisper. She said them again, giving them tone. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE LADY AND THE PLAN + + +They were chatting the next morning over the late breakfast of Mrs. +Laithe. Her brother, summoned from the branding pen, where tender and +terrified calves were being marked for life, had come reluctantly, ill +disposed to forego the vivacity of that scene. He had rushed in with the +look of a man harassed by large affairs. His evil beard was still +unshorn, his dress as untidy as care could make it. He drew a chair up +to the oilcloth covered table and surveyed the meager fare of his sister +with high disapproval. + +"What you need is food, Nell," he began abruptly. "Look at me. This +morning I ate two pounds of oatmeal, three wide slices of ham, five +chunks of hot bread, about two thousand beans, and drank all the coffee +I could get--and never foundered. How's that, against one silly glass of +malted milk two weeks ago? And I slept till seven. I woke up for just +eight seconds at four-thirty to hear the boys turning out. Oh, it was +gray and cold in that bunkhouse--with me warm in the blankets. That was +the one moment of real luxury I've ever known--not to turn out if I +didn't choose. And I did _not_ choose--if anyone should ride up hastily +and inquire of you. When we were on the drive I had to turn out with the +rest of the bunch and catch horses and unbuckle frosty hobbles with +stiff fingers, and fetch pails of ice water and freeze and do other +things, but this morning I just grinned myself asleep again. That was +worth living for, my girl." + +But his sister was for once unresponsive. She had not seemed to hear +him. + +"Clarence," she began, as if reciting lines she had learned, "there's a +chap over on the next ranch--Ewing's his name--that ought to have +something done for him. He's young, twenty-four, I believe, and boyish +even for that age, but he draws; draws well. His father was a painter +who died here years ago, and the boy has lived in these mountains ever +since. His father taught him to draw, but he has had no chance to study, +and he's reached a point where he must learn more or lose all he has. +I'm almost certain he can make something of himself. He ought to go to +New York, where he can study and see pictures and find out things. Now, +please advise me about it." + +"How's his health--his stomach?" + +"I believe we've never spoken of it. That's hardly the point." + +"Well, I call it a big point. Suppose he went off to New York and got +plumb ruined, the way I did--no eats, no sleeps. If you want my advice, +he ought to stay right here where everybody's healthy. He shouldn't be +foolish." + +"Clarence!" Her eyes shone with impatience. "It isn't whether he's to go +or not. He's _going_, and he's to have money to keep him there till he +makes himself known. It's on that point I need advice." + +"Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn't savvy at first. You're to tell me what +to advise and I'm to advise it? Well, tell me what to say." + +"Don't be stupid, dear--just for a moment, please. You're bound to +agree with me when you see his work. And you might offer to lend him the +money--my money, though he's not to know that. Or perhaps you ought to +buy his pictures. I'm sure you'll want some of those things he has. Of +course that's the better way. It will let him feel independent. There, +it's fixed. It was simple, after all." She flashed him a look of +gratitude. "You're a help after all, dear, when you choose to be." + +"But--one moment, my babe! Perhaps after listening to my advice so +meekly you'll let the poor chap say a word for himself. Perhaps he'd +rather stay right here in God's own country if he eats and sleeps well +now." + +"Please, please, let's not be so--so foody! Of course he wants to go!" + +"But what in Heaven's name would you ever have done without my help, +poor mindless child that you are?" + +But she was oblivious to this subtlety. + +"Yes, dear, you're always a comfort. We'll ride over this afternoon and +tell him he's to go. It will be a fine thing to do--he's so promising." + +"Look here, Nell"--he glanced at her shrewdly--"is this to be his picnic +or yours?" + +She burned with a little inner rage to feel her cheeks redden, but the +black fringe of her eyes did not fall before him. + +"We'll ride over after luncheon," she repeated, "and I do wish, +Clarence, that you'd shave and wear a collar or a stock, and throw that +unspeakable coat away, and have your boots cleaned, and send for some +cigars." + +He looked complacently down over the objectionable attire, pulled +sputteringly at the condemned pipe, then grinned at her. + +"Say, Sis, if it's going to be _that_ much fun for you, I'll rope and +throw him, and send him on tied if he acts rough." + +Late that evening the two inmates of the lake cabin sat before the big +fireplace in the studio to talk of a wondrous thing. They had survived +the most exciting half day in the life of either, and the atmosphere of +the room was still electrical with echoes of the big event. Through +their supper Ewing, unable to eat, had sat staring afar, helpless in the +rush of the current, inert as a bowlder in the bed of a mountain stream. +He, so long at rest, was to be swept down from the peace of his hill +nook to the ocean, to life itself. It was a thing to leave one aghast +with a consternation that was somehow joyous. Since supper he had stared +into the fire in dumb surrender to the flood, with intervals of dazed +floor-pacing, in which he tried to foresee his course. + +Ben Crider, submerged by the waters of the same cloudburst, was giving +stouter battle to the current. His face drawn to more than its wonted +dejection, he strove to play the beacon. Between snatches of worldly +counsel he read with solemn inflection certain gems of guidance from +authors in whose wisdom he had long felt a faith entire. His ready mind +harked forward to direful emergencies, and he submitted devices for +meeting these. + +"Remember what that says, Kid," he urged impressively, and he read once +more a saving passage from his well-thumbed "Guide to Polite Behavior." +"'If you cannot sing a song or tell a mirth-provoking story at an +evening ball or party you may well perform a few tricks in legerdemain. +The following are among the simplest and, when deftly performed never +fail to provoke loud applause and win you the undying gratitude of your +hostess.' Are you a-hearin' me? Well, I've turned down the pages at that +one with the coin and the hat, and the one where you must tell the right +card by a simple act of mind-readin'. And don't forget what he says +here, 'the hand is quicker'n the eye.'" + +"Yes, Ben; I'm listening." + +"Well, listen to this here other book. It's more serious." + +He took up his treasured "Traps and Pitfalls of a Great City," and again +became a voice in the wilderness, waving a forefinger to punctuate and +warn. + +"'It is the habit of these gentry to lie in wait for their intended +victims when they alight at the principal railway stations, and where, +by their plausible and insinuating advances, they ingratiate themselves +into the _confidence_ of those whom it is their purpose to fleece; hence +the name, "confidence men." Only by constant watchfulness and a thorough +knowledge of their methods may the stranger in the great city hope to +escape their wiles, since their ways of approach are manifold.' You hear +that, Kid--their ways is manifold. Here's a pitcher of one of 'em +tacklin' a countryman. See what an oily-lookin' feller he is, stovepipe +hat, fancy vest, big watchchain, long coat, striped pants. You'd say he +was a bank president. Oh, I bet they're slick ones. They'd have to be to +tog out like that every day in the week. Now remember, if one o' them +ducks comes up to you and starts to butter you up with fine words and +wants to carry your satchel, you just let out a yell for the police and +hand him over. That's the way to settle 'em!" + +"I'll surely remember, Ben." + +"And there's thugs and footpads. Always keep your coat buttoned over +your watch, it says, and if you're goin' along Broadway or Fifth Avenue +after dark, get out and walk in the middle o' the street, so's they +can't spring around a corner and slug you. And don't talk to strangers, +and don't look into store windows ner up at the high buildin's, else +they'll spot you fer a greeny and give you the laugh." + +"I can't believe it yet, Ben." He rose to walk the floor again, his +hands sunk deep in his pockets, his head bent low. + +"And don't git into no card game on the train with a couple o' smooth +strangers that ain't ever met each other before and want to pass away +the time pleasantly. And don't bet you can open the patent lock after +you think you found the secret spring. And don't buy any o' that money +you can't tell from real, that was printed from stolen Gov'ment plates." + +"Think of his giving a hundred dollars for that drawing of 'Lon Pierce +on the pinto, throwing a steer, and all that money for the others." + +"Serves him right!" Ben hissed this vindictively, having first +reluctantly laid aside "Traps and Pitfalls." "Serves him dead right! +That feller puts on a wise look that's about sixty-five years beyond his +real age, as I'd cal'late it. I tell you, son, it sure takes all kinds +o' fools to make a world." + +"But he said they were worth the money," Ewing pleaded. "He said I would +do even better, some day." + +"Sure--_sure_ he said it! An' didn't he ask me if I had dyspepsia, an' +did I sleep at night, an' I'd better remember to live an outdoor life of +activity if I ever got that a-way. An' he thinks he's learned how to +grain a deer hide after watching me do it three minutes, an' he's goin' +to pick up a live skunk next chanct he gits, because I told him jest how +to grab it. Oh, he _said_ things all right! He said a variety o' +things!" He glared at Ewing as he rounded out this catalogue of follies. + +"I'm torn in two, Ben. I shan't be glad to leave here, and yet I'll be +glad to go. I've dreamed it so long. It seems as if I'd dreamed it so +hard I'd made it come true." + +"Always pin your money to the inside of your vest, like I told you," +came the voice of warning. + +"I will, I will. But things _do_ happen, don't they? This is like a +fairy tale." + +"Fairy tale!" The wise one uttered this with violent scorn. "Likely you +was the sleepin' beauty, an' this here princess comes along with an +alarm clock!" + +"Not a princess, Ben." He laughed boyishly. "She's a sure-enough queen." + +"Jest remember they's knaves in the deck. That's all _I_ ask." + +"You like her don't you?" + +Ben made an effort to be fair. + +"Well, I do an' then I don't. She's saddle stock, fur looks, that lady +is, but she ain't serious. No, sir! When her eyes is on me I know as +well's I want to she's snickerin' inside; makes no difference if her +face does look like it was starched. You'll find, when all's said an' +done, that she's plumb levitous, an' levitous folks is triflin'." + +"Have you seen how sorrowful she looks sometimes, a sort of glad-sorry, +as if she felt sorry for herself and glad for other people? She makes +me feel old when she looks that way--as if I must protect her." + +"Yes, an' other times she's stiffer'n Lot's wife!" + +"Other times she seems older than all the world, a woman who has always +lived and always will." + +"Well, son, when you git put afoot there, you write on an' I'll manage +to scare up a git-away stake fur you." + +"It's wonderful to think of going out into the world that _they_ knew, +Ben--my father and mother. It seems as if they must be out there now, +and that I'm going to meet them very quietly and naturally some day. I +think it wouldn't astonish me." + +"Look a-here, Kid! That'll be about enough o' _that_! You go to bed." + +The other smiled a little wanly. + +"I can't. I'm afraid to. I'm going to sit here awhile and think, and +when the moon gets up I'm going outside to think. The hills haven't +heard the news yet, and the trail over to the lake doesn't know about +it. I've got to spread it before I sleep. You see, when I do sleep, I'm +afraid I'll wake up and find it was stuff I dreamed." + +"Shucks, Kid, what's the use o' talking like that? It ain't no dream. +It's true as God made little apples." There was, at the moment, a +noticeable relaxation from the speaker's habitual austerity. An awkward +smile of affection melted the hardness of his face as he held out a hand +to Ewing. "An' I'm doggoned if I'd be so _all-fired_ amazed if +everything come out fur the best. Yes, sir, blame me, Kid, if I don't +almost half b'lieve you'll make good!" + +"You can bet I'll try, Ben!" + +"That's right; you do your damndest--'angels can do no more,' as the +feller said." + +As he lighted a candle his face was grim once more--savagely grim, even +as he sang, in going to his rest: + + "Oh, 'twas on a summer's eve when I first _metter_, + Swingin' on the garden ga-a-ate!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +TWO SLEEPERS AWAKEN + + +It now befell that the imminent adventure of Ewing should bring him a +double rapture. The day after Mrs. Laithe secretly played special +Providence to that unsuspicious youth her brother found profit of his +own in the plan. + +"I've a world of things to do here, Nell," he said. "I ought to stay +here this winter. I'd be that much forwarder with my work next spring." + +"I shall be quite safe alone," she answered. + +"Why go alone? If you insist on robbing the cradle, why not take the +innocent with you? Of course you'll have to see that he doesn't walk off +the train, or lose his hat out of the window, or eat too much candy, or +rough-house the other children on the way, but he'll serve every purpose +of a man and brother." + +"To be sure!" she broke in with enthusiasm. "I worried last night about +his going. We'll put it that I'm in his charge, and he will really be in +mine." + +"That's it. He'll feel important, and you'll be the tidy nurse. And with +both of you off my mind I can start those chaps to getting out logs for +the Bar-B mansion. I'll camp over there till a good tracking snow comes, +then I'll have an elk hunt--I want a good head for the dining room--then +I'll hole up here at Pierce's for the winter and learn how to handle my +stock. So that's settled." + +Mrs. Laithe rode over to apprise Ewing of this plan. The little clearing +slept vacant in the sunlight. She left Cooney "tied to the ground" by +throwing the bridle rein over his head, and knocked on the open door of +the cabin with the handle of her quirt. There was no response save +echoes from the empty living room. Crossing this she drew aside the +blanket that curtained the door of the studio. The big room lay before +her in strange disorder. Pictures and hangings were gone from the wall. +Two yawning trunks stood by the door; canvases and portfolios lay about; +loose drawings and clothing littered the chairs and floor. Beyond this +disarray stood the easel, still holding the mother's portrait. In the +light from the window the eyes looked livingly into her own through the +silence. She was struck by some new glint of meaning in them, something +she read as an appeal, almost a prayer. Her own eyes fell and then she +first noticed the room's living occupant. + +On the couch, in the shadow of the half-drawn curtain, Ewing lay asleep. +He had sprawled there easily, half turned on his side, one arm flung +about his head, the other hanging over to the floor. Now that she saw +him she heard his measured breathing. Some new, quick-born +interest--curiosity, sympathy, she knew not what--impelled her to scan +the sleeping face more closely. She stepped lightly across to the couch +and looked down at him, with a little air of carelessness against his +sudden awakening. It was the first time she had studied his face in +repose. Lacking the ready, boyish smile, it was an older face, revealing +lines of maturity she had not suspected in the arch of brow above the +deep-set eyes, in the lean jaws and sharply square chin, and in the +muscled neck, revealed by the thrown-back head. It was a new face, for +the unguarded faces of the sleeping, like the faces of the dead tell +many secrets. Ewing's face was all at once full of new suggestion, of +new depths, of unsuspected complexities. As she gazed, scarce breathing, +she was alive to a new consciousness of him. He had been a boy, winning +from her at once by his fresh, elemental humanness a regard that came +partly from the mother lying alert in her, and partly from the joyous, +willing and even wistful comrade which this woman was fitted to be. Now, +bending over the unmasked face, she divined with swift alarm that her +old careless attitude toward the sleeper might never be recovered. What +her new attitude must be she could not yet know, but she was conscious +of being swept by a great wave of tenderness for him; swept, too, by +fear of him; and the impact of these waves left her trembling before +him. Some flash of portent, some premonition born of instinct, warned +her with a clearness that was blinding. Tenderness and fear rolled in +upon her, though her reason weighed them as equal absurdities. Then her +look rose to the mother's portrait and she saw that the eyes had +followed her: they seemed now to challenge, almost fiercely. Only the +briefest of moments could she endure their gaze, a gaze that in some way +drew life to itself from the breathing of the sleeper. Instinctively she +brushed her hand before her own eyes, drew herself up with a little +flinching shudder and moved slowly backward to the door. + +Then she was happily out in the sunlight, breathing deep of the +pine-spiced air, gratefully eying the familiar boundaries of the +clearing, the stumps, the huge pile of cut wood, and the fenced-in +vegetable garden. Over the line of green to the north a gray, bare +mountain shot above the lesser hills, rising splendidly from its +timbered base to a peak hooded in snow. It swam in her vision at first, +but presently something of its grounded sureness, something of the peace +that slept along its upper reaches, fell upon her own soul and her +serenity was restored. + +Not pausing to review those amazing moments of inner tumult, she stepped +again to the door and with her old, careless, mildly amused laugh she +beat upon it, loudly this time. She heard an inarticulate call from the +studio, and again she assaulted the panel. Then the curtain was drawn +aside and Ewing stared at her from the doorway. + +"I believe you were sleeping," she started to say, but he came quickly +to her with something between a laugh and a shout. + +"Then it's true, it _is_ true--you're real! I just dreamed that you +became Ben Crider and made me walk in the middle of the street." He +fairly rushed her into the studio and waved excitedly to the open +trunks. + +"There! I began to pack last night so I could see it when I woke up and +have a proof that things were true. I didn't sleep at all till about +eight this morning." + +She sat on the couch, feeling that she was foolish beyond measure to +avoid the eyes of the portrait. Then she smiled at him with an effort to +recover the amused ascendancy of their first meetings. + +"It's all true, I assure you, and I wonder if you'd mind taking charge +of me when you go East. My brother has suggested it, and I'll promise +not to be a trouble." + +His look of wondering delight was so utterly boyish, his helpless +laughter so entirely without reserve that she regained for the moment +her old easy dominance. + +"Would I mind--mind going with you? That's a joke, isn't it?" He seized +both her hands in a grasp from which she caught some thrill of his +deep-breathed, electric joy. + +"But of course this is nonsense," he went on; "I'm still lying there." + +"Enough of dreams," she broke in warningly. "You'll find it only too, +too real. You're going to work. It's simple." + +He sat down on one of the trunks, trying to subdue his excitement, his +hands clenched. + +"If this feeling lasts I can do anything, _anything_, you understand, +learn everything, do everything, be everything. I have power. Ever since +you left yesterday I've felt full of steel springs, all tightly coiled. +Only I must be careful. If they went off all at once there'd be an +explosion, and I'm afraid I couldn't ever be repaired." + +She grimaced with an effort at mock dismay which was not wholly +successful. She divined the literal truth under his jesting. The springs +were coiled and their steel was not too well tempered, she believed. The +thought left a shadow on her face. + +"You're not doubting anything?" he asked quickly. + +"Not doubting, O youth! Only a little innocent wonder." + +"But isn't life an enchantment? Isn't it all miracles? Oh, I understand +poets at last. They can't tell you their secret unless you already know +it. They sing in big numbers. They say a million is true, and you say, +'Yes, that's very pretty, but it's poetry--exaggeration; he really means +that a hundred is true,' and you never know any better till the light +comes. Then you see that the poet was literal and quite prosaic all the +time. The whole million was always true, in beauty and bigness and +wonder." + +"Stop!" she protested. "You're making me feel as old as the world +itself, ancient and scarred with wisdom." + +"You!" he burst in, "you're as young as the world. You are foolish and I +am the wise one if you can't see that. Indeed, you're looking +beautifully foolish this minute. You are thinking all kinds of doubts +underneath a lot of things you won't tell me. You're secretive. You hide +a lot from me." + +She laughed, a little uneasily. + +"You are a babe for wisdom," she retorted; "but you're not to be +enlightened in a day--nor by me. I'll give you a year. You shall tell me +then which of us two is the older. Now you must be at your packing. Can +you be ready by Monday?" + +"Monday? and I'd been wondering what would be the name of the day. So +it's merely Monday? How many Mondays there have been, how many, many +Mondays, that were like any other day! And now this Monday steals +up--yes, I'll be ready." + +"I see you are past reason----" + +"Say above it----" + +"Anyway, get on with your packing. So much is true." He would have +ridden back with her, but she demurred. + +"It's so far," he urged. + +"It isn't half far enough," she mocked him, "I have so much thinking to +do!" + +"Monday, Monday, Monday, then!" he chanted, as he went out to lift her +into the saddle. But when he had done this he suddenly bowed his head to +kiss her hand, as he had seen his father long ago kiss his mother's +hand. + +"You are all the world, just now, all I know of it," he said. + +She looked back to where he stood, straight and buoyant, his head thrown +back in joyous challenge. + +"And you are youth--dear, dear youth!" she cried; but this he could not +hear. + +A little farther on she breathed softly, "Poor dead Kitty--don't be +afraid!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE JOURNEY WONDER + + +During those last days Ewing brushed only the airy slopes of illusion, +strive as he would to keep his feet to earth. Many were the tricks he +used to this end: vain tricks to forget the miracle of his going, of +going so soon, of going with her. + +Ben Crider would not help him forget. When snatches of warning from +"Traps and Pitfalls" grew stale, Ben coined advice of a large and +general character. + +"Want to be an artist, hey? Ask me? Go down to Durango--let that +professor learn you in ten lessons. Make yer five t' eight dollars a day +canvassin' fur enlargements. Gold frame throwed in. Yes, sir! Ask me? +Durango's fur enough. New York's too gosha-mighty fur!" + +It was not possible to forget under the droppings of this counsel. +Wherefore his spirit tossed in tumult. + +When Ben called him on the morning of the start it was still dark. He +lay a moment, his nerves tightening. This was the last time he would lie +in that bed--for how long? Well, on some unmarked night in the pregnant +future, lying there again, he would look back to this moment and tell +himself all the wonderful things that had come to him--tell his +ignorant, puzzled, excited self, who would, somehow, be waiting and +wondering there. + +Juggling this conceit, he groped for matches and a candle. He could +hear the singing of the kettle in the outer room. Through the window he +saw a lantern swinging, and knew that Ben would be bringing around the +horses. It was a time to be cool, a time to gird himself. + +He had breakfast on the table when Ben came in, and they ate by the +light of a smoky lamp, tacitly pretending that no miracle was afoot. +Saving the early hour, it was a scene they enacted whenever they drove +to Pagosa for supplies, up to the point when, the meal finished, they +carried two trunks from the studio out to the wagon. But they managed +this carelessly enough, with only a casual, indignant word or two about +the excessive weight of full trunks. + +Only the faintest hint of light showed in the east as the chilled horses +stumbled awkwardly down the hill. A half hour they rode in a silence +broken but once, and then only by Ben's hoarse threat to "learn" the off +horse something needful but unspecified which it appeared not to know. + +The light glowed from gray to rose and day was opened by the bark of a +frantic squirrel that ran half-way down a tree trunk, threatening +attack, in alarm for its store of spruce cones at the foot of the tree. +A crested jay at the same moment mocked them harshly from a higher +branch of the tree. + +Ewing exhaled with gusto a breath of the warming, pine-spiced air. + +"It's sunning up, Ben." Ben grunted unamiably. + +A little distance ahead of them a doe and a half-grown fawn bounded +across the road. + +"She seemed to be in a hurry," Ewing again ventured. + +"She wanted t' git that child away from here, 'fore some one stuffed +its head full o' fool talk about goin' off to New York. Can't tell what +notions a young deer _might_ git." With this laborious surmise he shut +his jaws together with repellent grimness. + +Their road now wound down a hill and out of the woods to join the valley +road. + +"Yender's Beulah Pierce!" Ben snapped this out savagely. The wagon was +half a mile ahead. Pierce was driving, and in the rear seat were two +figures whom they knew to be Mrs. Laithe and her brother. As Ben had +pointedly ignored these Ewing did not refer to them. + +They came to a gate in a wire fence that stretched interminably away on +either side, over brown, low-rolling hills. Pierce had left the gate +open for them, and Ewing got out to close it after they had passed +through. + +"Larabie is building a lot of fence," he said, as they drove on. "At +this rate he'll have every school section in Hinsdale County wired in +pretty soon." + +On this impersonal ground Ben seemed willing to meet him. + +"Me? Know what I'm going to do if Wes' Larabie cuts off any more o' this +road with his barb wire? Stick a pair o' wire clippers in the whip +socket an' drive through. _That's_ all! You'd think he owned all +America, the way he makes people sidle along that fence till he gits +good an' ready to make a gate. Me? Make my own gates. Yes, sir! Wire +clippers!" + +With this he was sufficiently cheered to insult vivaciously a couple of +dull, incurious Mexicans whom they presently passed, plodding behind a +laden burro train. To his opprobrious burst of weirdly entangled +Spanish and English he added the taunting bleat of a sheep and a +merrily malign gesture eloquent of throats to be slit--the throats of +unspeakable sheep herders. He observed with deep disgust that neither of +the threatened ones gave any sign of interest in their portended fate. +They passed with scarce a lift of their heads. + +"They're takin' supplies up to that sheep outfit o' Rankin's," grumbled +Ben. "Pierce an' some o' the others is talkin' about gettin' in a car +load o' saltpeter an' dopin' the range if Rankin lets his herd work down +any closeter--have it billed in as hardware or pianos, an' unload the +car at night. Serve him right fur bein' a sheep man. An' yet I knowed +Nels Rankin, five, six years ago, when there wa'n't a more respectable +cuss in the hull San Juan." + +In passing the Pulcifer ranch they made talk about the hay-cutting, for +a reaper sent its locustlike click from a brown stretch of bottom land. +Pulcifer had a good stand of hay, they agreed, and probably he wouldn't +have such a big winter kill this year if he didn't act the fool and sell +off too much of it. You couldn't expect to bring cattle through fat on +cottonwood browse. + +So they lamely gossiped the miles away in strained avoidance of the big +event. Only once did Ewing look back, while Ben was occupied with the +horses at a ford. The rocky wall at the verge of their lake was +intimately near, despite the miles they had come, and below it, through +a notch in the hills, he could see a spot of yellow--the new shake roof +on a shed they had built that summer near the cabin. Then his eyes were +ahead to where Pierce's wagon crawled up a hill. + +Ben whipped up the horses and burst into song: + + "One evening I was strolling through the city of the dead; + I viewed where all around me their peaceful forms were spread." + +He took the thing at a quick, rollicking tempo, as one resolved to be +gay under difficulties. + +When they drew up to the station platform at Pagosa, Ewing hurried to +greet Mrs. Laithe and her brother. Pierce busied himself with the +trunks, cautiously watching the man check them. + +Ben Crider, after a long, fervent look at Ewing's back, caught his +breath, sniffled, strangled this, and stepped quickly into his wagon. +Pulling the horses quietly away from the platform he whipped them into a +sharp trot toward the town. Ewing ran back, shouting. Ben would not +turn, but he thrust one arm back and upward with a careless wave. + +Ewing stared hard at the bent head, the eloquent back, longing for a +further sign, but none came. He was at the gateway of the world, a mist +before his eyes. + +A moment later their little train rattled into a narrow canyon where its +shrill whistle, battered from wall to wall, made the place alive with +shrieking demons. + +Having seen his charge to a seat in the one squalid car, Ewing went out +to brace himself on the rear platform. She who was doing this thing had +seemed a strange lady again; in her manner, as in her dress, more +formal. The dark-blue, close-fitting gown, the small toque of blue +velvet, the secretive veil, the newish gloves, instead of the old, worn +riding gauntlets, the glossy-toed black boots so different from those of +scarred tan he knew, all marked a change that heightened the pangs of +homesickness he already suffered. + +With burning eyes and tightened throat he saw the floor of the canyon +rush away from him, and watched old Baldy's snow hood flashing +momentarily as the train twisted, now sinking below a quick-rushing wall +of rock, now showing over a clump of cedars. It was as if the old peak +had become sprightly at his going, and sought to bob curtsies to him. + +At intervals the train came to a jangling halt. The little locomotive +would leave it and ramble inconsequently off into the big pine woods, to +return with screeches of triumph, dragging a car load of new-sawn boards +from the mill. Or it would puff away to a siding and come back +importantly with a car of excited sheep. At these halts Ewing would leap +to the ground to feel the San Juan earth under his feet. + +At the junction where they were to take the through train he reflected +that nothing had really happened yet. He could turn back and be out of +the dream. The little train would return up the canyon presently. The +conductor would be indifferent to his presence. To the brakeman, whom he +knew, he could say, "Yes, I thought some of going to New York this +morning, but I changed my mind." He would be back at Pagosa by five and +find Ben at the post office or the "Happy Days" saloon. Then there would +be no more of that curious sickness--a kind of sickish wanting. Yet, +when the through train drew in, he hurried aboard. + +He stood on the rear platform and watched a horseman jogging over the +sandy plain to the west, picturing his ride from the junction to some +lonely ranch on a distant river bottom. He would have the week's mail in +a bag back of the saddle, and a stock of tobacco. He would reach the +place after dark, perhaps, from sheer _ennui_, shooting at a coyote or +two along the way. He knew that rider's life, the days of it and the +nights, and all of good or ill that might ever betake him. It was well, +he thought, to dare a bigger life, though he waved a friendly greeting +to the unconscious horseman, jogging at the head of his train of dust. +He flung a tender glance at the diminished junction, now a low, dull +blur on the level horizon, and went into the car. + +For the moment the Pullman had no other occupant but himself and Mrs. +Laithe, and she was sleeping, he thought; but her eyes opened as he +would have passed her seat. She had replaced the toque with a brown cap +he knew, and as she smiled up at him she seemed again almost the +familiar godmother of his fairy tale. He passed on, however, after a +meaningless word or two and, sprawling in another section, surrendered +himself to the troubled pretentiousness of the Pullman school of +decoration. + +He had left the lady grateful for his going. She was in no mood for that +artless lyric chant of youth in which he was so adept. Her brother that +morning had accused her of waning enthusiasm for her protege. + +"I believe you're funking, Nell," he had said shrewdly. "You're +discovering that mountain slumming is different from the city kind." + +But she had protested that no discerning person of ordinary humanity +could have done less for the prisoned youth. "Of course"--and she had +sighed--"he's a mere bundle of untried eagerness, and we're responsible, +in a way, for Heaven knows what, but we had to do it, didn't we?" + +"Not 'we' had to! _You_ had to. It's all yours, Nell--the credit and the +glory and all the rest. I prefer to get up my own responsibilities, if +you don't mind." + +"But you agreed with me--you _did_--you advised when I asked you--it's +perfectly plain--you said, 'Of course!'"--But the train moved off in the +midst of his laugh at this, and he had doffed his hat to her with a +mocking gesture of freehanded relinquishment. + +Now, as she closed her eyes again, her memory dived for some fairy tale +or fragment of mythology in which an unsuspecting humanitarian rescued +an insignificant woods thing, only to have it change on the instant into +a creature troublesome in more ways than one. She was certain some +primitive fabulist had foreseen this complication, but her mind was +weary and shadowed, and the historic solution evaded her. "Mountain +slumming" was truly more exigent than the town sort. + +But this reflection aroused a defensive sympathy. The vision of +Ewing as he had passed glowed before her shut eyes, the active, +square-shouldered, slender figure, garbed in a decently fitting +suit of gray (she was glad to remember that), the quick eyes, ardent +for life, the thinned, brown face, the usual buoyance held down to an +easy self-possession that was new to her, the wild, reliant expectancy +of a boy tempered all at once by some heritage of insight. Outwardly, +at least, he would fit his new life. So reflecting, she dozed on the +look of the man in his eyes, and dreamed that she feared this and fled. +But after mad flight through the windings of an interminable corridor +she awoke to look squarely into his eyes, to cower instinctively under +his touch on her arm. Her waking thought took the thread of the dream, +her flight had been vain: he was there, and his voice throbbed fatefully +within a secret chamber of her mind, even though his words rang little +of portent. + +"We are coming to the supper station." + +She hastened to freshen herself with cold water, and they were presently +eating a hasty meal at a crowded table. Then they were out side by side +to pace the platform briskly. + +There was green about the station, where water had taught the desert to +relent, but beyond this oasis the sand sea stretched far and flat to +murky foothills. Above these they could see a range of sharp-peaked +mountains that still caught the sunlight, some crystal white with snow, +others muffled by clouds turned to iris-hued scarfs of filmiest gauze. + +"El Dorado is beyond those hills," said the youth fervently. + +"It looks accessible from here," she answered, "but----" + +"You're warning me again. You're afraid I'll be discouraged by the +hills." + +"Not discouraged, but there are resting places on the way. They hold the +bulk of the pilgrims, I fear." + +"I shall go on; not even you could stop me." + +She caught a glint in his fierce young eyes that she thought he must be +unconscious of. + +"I? Oh, I shall spur you--if you need spurring." + +"I know; I'm only beginning to realize how much I owe you; I mean to +repay you, though." + +There was an intimation of remoteness in his tone, as if he saw himself +removed from her, mounting solitary to his dream city, a free-necked, +well-weaponed pilgrim, sufficient unto himself. It was as if he had put +distance between them the moment he crossed the threshold of the world. +She drew a full breath. It came to her, as the upflashing of some +submerged memory, that all his frank adoration of her had been quite +impersonal. He had regarded her as a bit of line and color. It was +amazing to remember that he had made no effort to know her, save with +his eyes. She divined that she had stopped short of being human to him, +while he to her had been, more than anything else, a human creature of +freshness and surprises. Whatever difficulties might be in the way of an +easy friendliness between them, they would not be of his own making. She +was sure she felt a great relief. + +Ewing awoke in the night at some jolting halt of the train, to feel an +exciting thrill of luxury as he stretched in his berth. Here was no +stumbling about in the dark to search for a lost trail; nor must he rise +in the chill dawn to worry a blaze from overnight embers, cook a +discouraging breakfast, catch horses, and lade unwilling beasts with +packs. Things would be done for him; and the trail was wide and level as +befits the approach to the world. He dozed royally off feeling that he +had bitten into the heart of his wonder at last. + +The following day they sped through a land whose kind he knew, but after +another night he awoke to find their train breasting the brown waves of +a sea that rolled lazily to far horizons. No longer was there one of his +beloved mountain peaks to be a landmark: only an endless, curving +lowness, as of land that had once tried to lash itself into the fury of +mountain and crag, and then ceased all effort--to lie forever impotent +and sad. + +He thought of Ben amid this disconsolate welter. Ben had beheld this +sight years ago, and had described it with aversion, as one relating a +topographical scandal. Ewing favored his companion with heartfelt +dispraise of this landscape, applauding the suggestion of a woman she +laughingly quoted that "there should be a tuck taken in the continent." +He was sure nothing would be lost by it. + +The lady beguiled him over the inadequacies of Kansas by promising a +better land farther on. He gladly turned from the car window to watch +the pretty play of her mouth as she talked. + +But the next day--they steamed out of St. Louis in the morning--he +scanned several hundred square miles of excellent farming land with +sheer dismay. From morning till night they ran through what, to Ewing, +was a dead, depressing flatness, a vast and clumsy jest of a +checkerboard, with cornfields for squares. The tiny groves of oak at +long intervals seemed only to satirize the monotony. The rolling plains +of the day before had been vivacious beside this flatness, and there had +been a certain mournful dignity in their solitude. But this endless +level lacked even solitude. To Ewing, indeed, the mystery of it lay in +its well-peopled towns. He wondered how men kept sane there. Mrs. Laithe +insisted that it was an important stretch of our country, that it fed +thousands and made useful objects in its tall-chimneyed factories +(things like wagons and watches and boots, she believed), and that it +ought not to be discountenanced. But he could feel nothing for it, save +an unconfessed pity that it would sleep that night in ignorance of his +glorious transit. He had never suspected there could be so many +thousands of people who took the world as a tame affair and slept +indifferent to young men with great things before them. + +"If New York is like this," he said, with a flash of his old boyish +excitement, "what can I ever do without you?" + +"But it isn't at all like this, and you'll do big things without me--or +with me, if I can help you." + +"You will have to help me. Now that I've seen the beginning of the +world, I'm depending on you more than I thought I should when we +started." + +"You will lose that." + +"Will I? But it will be queer to see you as part of the world--no longer +the whole of it; to see how you stand out from the others. Perhaps the +rest of the world will be only a dingy background for you--you are all +color and life." + +"You've made me feel like a lay figure," she laughed. Then, in a flash +of womanish curiosity, she ventured, "Have you ever thought me anything +but a shell of color?" + +He stammered, blushing painfully. + +"Oh, a real person--of course, certainly! A woman, yes--but when I think +of you as a woman, I'm scared, like those first times I saw you. I can't +help it. You may not believe it," he concluded with a burst of candor, +"but the truth is, I don't know women." + +He was again embarrassed when she retorted, with her laugh: + +"O youth! May you always know so much!" + +"Well, to-morrow afternoon we shall be in New York," he said briskly, +when she had shut the deeps of her eyes from him. He had felt the need +to show that there were matters upon which he could speak with +understanding. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A DINNER AT SEVEN-THIRTY + + +By five o'clock the next afternoon Ewing had ended his journey in an +upper room of the Stuyvesant Hotel. This hostelry flaunts an outworn +magnificence. Its hangings are dingy, its plenteous gilt is tarnished; +and it seems to live on memories of a past when fashion splendidly +thronged its corridors. But peace lies beyond the gloom of its portals, +and Ewing was glad to be housed from the dazing tumult outside. Nothing +reached him now but the muted rhythm of horses' feet on the asphalt +below, and this but recalled agreeably to him that his solitude was an +artificial thing of four walls. He had no wish to forget that the world +waited beyond his door. + +He fell back on the sofa, a once lordly thing of yellow satin, now +frayed and faded, to eye the upper reaches of the room. The high, +blue-tinted ceiling was scarred and cracked. Depending from its center a +huge chandelier dangled glittering prisms of glass. An immense mirror in +a gilt frame, lavishly rococo, rested on the mantel of carved white +marble. Heavy lace curtains, shrouding the two broad windows, made a +restful half light. + +He had awakened to hills that morning, wooded hills and well towned. +Then had come veritable cities, rich to him with all romance under their +angular, smoky ugliness. And at last had come the real city--the end of +the world and its center. He discovered it beyond a stretch of +white-flecked water alive with strange craft. Its clean, straight, +myriad-windowed towers glowed under a slanting sun in an air as crystal +clear as that of his own hills. A vista of heart-shaking surprises +unfolded ahead of the great boat they boarded, a boat with a heart +strongly beating in tune with his own. Too soon it nosed its way, with a +sort of clumsy finesse, into a pile-walled pocket. There followed the +keen, quick rattling of a cogged wheel and a rush of people who seemed +insufficiently impressed by the magnitude of the event. Then they +entered a cab, to be driven from a throng of other cabs and jostling +pedestrians through the maze of a dream come true. He tried not to +ignore his companion for glimpses of that strange life through the cab +window. + +Very casually she had said at parting, "Thank you so much for all your +care of me--and dine with us at seven-thirty, won't you? I shall try to +have a friend here that I think may help you." + +A long time he lay, reviewing that chaotic first hour in the world. +Everything throbbed here, it seemed. One lived more quickly. And how +long could the body endure it? Suddenly he felt his own pulses beating +at a rate to terrify. He caught his breath and listened. He could hear +the monstrous beats--they were actually shaking the sofa on which he +lay. He thought of heart disease. He might be dying there--and they +would wait dinner for him. He sprang up desperately. The sinister +beating ceased. He put his hand to his heart, listened tensely, and +heard again that which had alarmed him, the pulsing beat of a steam pump +somewhere far below. In his relief he laughed aloud. + +As he set about opening his trunks he was marveling at clothes lines he +had seen stretched high between the rear walls of houses. How did people +ever hang clothes on lines fifty feet from the ground? Truly it was a +city of wonders. + +He took out a suit of evening clothes that had been his father's. He had +found that the suit fitted him, and he and Ben had assured themselves by +reference to the pictured heroes in magazine advertisements that its cut +was nearly enough in the prevailing mode. Ewing had also found some +cards of his father's which would convey his own name to all who might +care to read it. + +As he sauntered out at the dinner hour he wished that Ben could be +watching him. The Bartell house was in Ninth Street, less than a long +block from his hotel, a broad, plain-fronted, three-story house of red +brick trimmed with white marble. Caught in a little eddy from the stream +heading in Washington Square and sweeping north, it had kept an old-time +air of dignity and comfort. Ewing observed a cheering glow through the +muslin curtains at the windows as he ascended the three marble steps. +The old white door, crowned with a fanlight and retaining its brass +knocker, had suffered the indignity of an electric bell, but this was +obscurely placed at the side, and he lifted the knocker's lion head. As +no bell rang, he dropped it, and was dismayed by its metallic clamor. He +swiftly meditated flight, thinking to return for a seemlier +demonstration. But the door swung back and a person in evening dress +stood aside to bow him in. + +"Ah, good evening!" exclaimed Ewing cordially. Then, embarrassed, he +felt for a card, recalling that he was in a land where, probably, one +could not be cordial to persons who opened doors. + +"For Mrs. Laithe," he said, in grave tones, eying the man's bluntly cut +features with a severity meant to dispel any wrong impression. The +person received the card on a tiny silver plate, relieved him of hat and +coat with what seemed to Ewing an uncanny deftness, bowed him to the +gloom of a large apartment on the left, and vanished. An instant later +he reappeared, drew portieres aside, revealing another warmly lighted +room, and Ewing beheld a white vision of his hostess. + +"I'm glad to have a word with you," she began. "Sit here. You're to meet +a friend, Ned Piersoll, who will tell you a lot of things. I telephoned +him directly I came in, and he found he could come, though he must run +when he's eaten--some affair with his mother. But he'll have found out +about you." + +"I'm much obliged to you," he stammered, having caught little of her +speech. + +"Ned will tell you what to do. He knows everybody. He's on the staff of +the Knickerbocker magazine, and he had a novel out last spring, 'The +Promotion of Fools,' that you must have seen advertised everywhere, like +a medicine." + +"Yes, I've read that book." + +"You must tell him if you liked it--they all care to hear that--and +he'll see that you meet men of your own kind." For looking at her he had +been able to give her words little attention. She had revealed herself +anew in the dull white of a gown that brought out the elusive glow of +her face. Her eyes were deep wells, shaded but luminous, under the +lusterless dark of her hair, and her smile flashed a girlish benignity +upon him. Acutely alive was he to the line of neck and shoulder and +arm, a slender, supple neck, set on shoulders superbly but lightly +modeled, the small collarbone exquisitely muffled but not lost, and the +little hollow at the base of her throat prettily definite. And all was +white and lusterless save the warning dusk of her eyes and the flash +from her parting lips. + +With such cold passion for line did his artist's eye wreak its joy upon +her that, as she talked, she found herself thinking him curiously dull +to the prospect she opened. It was the impersonal look she had come to +know; and his replies were languid, as if he thought of other matters. +It might have passed for the bored ease of a man of the world had she +not known him to be amid novel surroundings. + +Feeling a slight discomfort under his look, she at length diverted his +eyes to the room in which they sat. + +"It's the room I like best in all the house," she said. "That big +drawing room you came through is inhuman. It terrified me as a child, +and still refuses to make friends with me, but this library--don't you +feel that I've humanized it?" + +He became aware that he had felt its easing charm of dark-toned wood and +dull-red walls. There were low book-shelves, low seats that invited, a +broad table with its array of magazines, and a lazy fire in the open +grate. + +"It's a fine room to be in," he said, bringing his eyes back to her. + +"There's not a chair in it," she continued, "that wasn't meant to be sat +in--most chairs nowadays are mere spectacles, you know--and no glass +doors before the books. Nothing enrages me like having to open a door +to get at books." + +"It's the room you need," he replied. "You draw all the light to +yourself. It gives you color, turns your hair to black, and makes your +eyes look like----" + +"Mr. Piersoll!" announced the man. + +His look still engaged her as she floated forward to greet the tall, +pleasant-faced, alert young man with tumbled yellow hair who now +entered. Not until he heard his own name did he relinquish her to +acknowledge the word of introduction. + +A moment later the father of Mrs. Laithe strolled in and Ewing was again +introduced, this time to a stoutish man with a placid, pink face, scanty +hair going from yellow to white--arranged over his brow with scrupulous +economy--and a closely cut mustache of the same ambiguous hue. He was a +man who gracefully confessed fifty years to all but the better informed. +Ewing felt himself under the scrutiny of a pair of very light gray eyes +as Bartell took his hand, tentatively at first, then with a grip of +entire cordiality. One may suspect that this gentleman had looked +forward with mild apprehension to a dinner meeting with the latest +protege of his impulsive daughter. The youth's demeanor, however, so +quickly caused his barbaric past to be forgotten that, by the time they +were at table, his host had said to him, prefacing one of his best +anecdotes, "Of course you know that corner table on the Cafe de la Paix +terrace...." + +Ewing floated dreamily on the stream of talk; laughing, chatty talk, +spiced with suggestive strange names; blithe gossip of random +happenings. He was content to feel its flow beneath him and rather +resented the efforts to involve him in it, preferring to listen and to +look. But he was courteously groped for by the others and compelled to +response as the dinner progressed. + +Piersoll mentioned his drawings pleasantly and engaged him for dinner at +a club the following evening. "I'll call for you at the Stuyvesant about +six," he said, when Ewing had accepted. "I must have a look at your +stuff. Don't dress; we dine in our working clothes at the Monastery." + +The father of Mrs. Laithe warned Ewing to beware of worry in his new +surroundings. + +"Let life carry you, my boy. That's my physiology in a nutshell. Don't +try to lug the world about. The people who tell you that life in New +York is a strain haven't learned rational living. Worry kills, but I +never worry, and I find town idyllic. Clarence was born to worry: +result, dyspepsia and nervous breakdown. My daughter worries. She goes +into side streets looking for trouble, and when she finds it she keeps +it. That's wrong. Life is whatever we see it to be. Eleanor sees too +much of the black side, poverty, starvation, hard luck--all kinds of +deviltry, and it reacts on her. I look only on the cheerful side, and +that reacts on me. A good dinner, a glass of burgundy--there's an answer +to all that socialistic pessimism." + +"Suppose one hasn't the answer at hand?" his daughter broke in. + +"Keep smiling, my dear," retorted her father with Spartan grimness. +"Skipping a dinner or two can't overturn real philosophy. Down on the +Chesapeake last fall, duck shooting one day, we lost the luncheon hamper +overboard, and hadn't so much as a biscuit from four in the morning till +after nine at night, shooting from a chilly, wet blind all day. _There_ +was a test! But I give you my word I never worried. I took it as so much +discipline. My dear, if I had fretted over tenement houses the way you +have, I should be a broken man. Thank the gods that be, I've had the wit +to let my agent do all that!" + +His daughter received this with a shrug of despair. "But confess, +daddy--you _have_ a worry." + +"'Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!'" quoted Piersoll, +divining her mark. + +"I admit, my dear, that legitimate worry has its uses. I only warn +against the too common abuse of it. I maintain," he went on, turning to +Ewing, "that a man with the feelings of a boy should, if there's any +moral balance in the world, retain the waistline of a boy; yet I've not +done it. I go to doctors--they all talk the same ballyrot about exercise +or they harangue you about diet. Why, I've heard them gibber of things +one mustn't eat till I writhed in anguish. Some day I know I shall chuck +it all and let Nature take her course." He glared defiantly about the +table. + +"She's not waiting for you to let her, dear," observed his daughter +maliciously. + +"It's my temperament, I suppose"--he sighed ruefully into his plate of +sweet stuff--"just as it's Randy Teevan's temperament to keep slender, +though I suspect Randy of stays." + +Mrs. Laithe had glanced swiftly toward Ewing at the mention of this +name. She again looked at him alertly a moment later when the man +announced "Mr. Teevan and Mr. Alden Teevan." + +"Alden told me this afternoon at the club, my dear, that he and his +father might stop for a moment on their way up town, just to say +'How-de-do.' We can have coffee in the library." + +His daughter received this with a meditative under lip. Then she +brightened. + +"I'm sure you men would rather sit here and smoke while I run in and see +them. They'll stay only a minute." + +"Nonsense, child! I can't lose sight of you so soon again. We can smoke +in there as well." + +"Coffee in the library, Harris." She gave the order with a submissive +shrug and led the way out. + +Ewing saw two men come to greet her, alike enough of feature to reveal +their relationship at first glance. He detected, however, a curious +contrast they presented. The father, slight and short of stature, was a +very young-looking old man, while the son was an old-looking young man. +The father was dapper, effusive, sprightly, quick with smiling gestures; +the son restrained, deliberate, low-toned with a slow, half-cynical +smile of waiting. He gave the effect of subduing what his father almost +elfishly expressed. + +Father and son greeted the men over the shoulders of Mrs. Laithe, and +Ewing was presented. There was an inclination of the son's head, and a +careless glance of his waiting eyes; from the father, a jerky, absent +"How-d'you do--How-d'you do!" + +They moved by chatting stages to the library. The elder Teevan, +carefully pointing the ends of his small, dark mustache, stood with his +back to the dying fire, a coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette in the +other, twittering gallantly of a town's desolation wrought by the going +away of Mrs. Laithe; and of a town renewed by her great-hearted return. +"A preciously timed relenting," he called it, with a challenging sigh +toward the lady, as he gracefully flicked back a ringlet of the lustrous +brown hair that had fallen low on his brow. Ewing thought it wonderful +hair on a man whose face, though ruddy in hue, showed signs of age. +There were deep lines at the corners of those gallantly flashing eyes, +and their under lids drooped. The skin was shrunk tightly over the high, +thin nose, the cheeks were less than plump, and the neck revealed some +unhappy wrinkles. Sadly, too, his voice failed at supreme moments. It +was tragic, Ewing thought, to listen to a sentence valiantly begun, only +to hear the voice crack on a crucial word. + +Mrs. Laithe received the little man's tribute with a practiced +indifference, chatting absently, meanwhile, with the son. Presently she +led Ewing and the younger Teevan to the drawing room to admire a huge +jar of roses for which she thanked Teevan. + +Back in the library Piersoll was listening to a salmon-fishing story of +Bartell's. The elder Teevan genially overlooked the scene, humming +lightly to himself the catch air from a late musical comedy. He turned +to study a bit of Japanese bronze on the mantel behind him, screwing a +single glass into an eye. When he had scanned the bronze with a fine +little air of appreciation he replaced it, resumed his jaunty humming, +and idly picked up a card that had been thrown beside it. Carelessly +under the still fixed monocle he brought the words "Mr. Gilbert Denham +Ewing." A moment he held it so in fingers that suddenly trembled. His +head went sharply back, the glass dropped from his eye, dangling on its +silken ribbon, and his little song died. He glanced about him, observing +the two groups to be still inattentive. Placing a supporting hand on +the mantel he set the glass firmly again and studied the card a second +time. Another glance through the rooms, and he resumed his song, +crumpling the card in his hand. Then, turning, he stood once more before +the fire, his hands comfortably at his back. One of them tossed the card +into the grate, and his song again ceased. + +Bartell looked up, having, after incredible finesse, slain and weighed +his giant salmon. Piersoll, recalling that the anecdotist had killed +other salmon in his time, made a hasty adieu and went to his hostess, +who lingered in the drawing room with the younger men. Teevan, before +the fire, breathed in smoke, emitted it from pursed lips, studied the +ash at the end of his cigarette from under raised, speculative brows, +and flashed search-light eyes upon his host. + +"Who's the young chap, Chris?" + +Bartell took up a liqueur glass and turned to his questioner. + +"Name's Ewing, I believe. Some chap Eleanor picked up in the far West. +Painter, I believe, or means to be." + +"Painter, yes, to be sure--quite right; painter...." He waited +pointedly. + +"Paints cowboys and Indians, I fancy--the usual thing. Seems a decent +sort; rather a gentleman. You're looking a bit off. Randy." + +"Am I, though? Queer! Never felt fitter. Walked to Fifty-ninth Street +and back to-day. Might have overdone a bit. That chap staying in town +long?" + +"Have to ask Eleanor. It's her affair. By Jove, old boy, you _are_ a +wonder. I wish I could keep it off around here the way you do." + +The little man drew himself up, expanded his chest, and bravely +flourished a smile of acknowledgment. This faded into a look of hostile +curiosity, discreetly veiled, as Mrs. Laithe and the two young men came +in from the drawing room. + +"Time to be moving on, Governor," young Teevan remarked. + +"I'm not going, my boy," the little man answered in crisp tones, with +the hint of a side look at Ewing and Mrs. Laithe. "Run on like a good +chap and make my excuses to the dear grandmother. Needn't lie, you +know. Say I chucked her theater party at the last moment because the +places are stuffy. Say that I loathe plush and those crumpy little +boxes where one sees nothing but the gas fellow in a gingham jumper +yawning in the wings. Say I'm whimsical, capricious, fickle as April +zephyrs--in all but my love for her. If you're quite honest she'll +disbelieve you and guess that I'd a reason for stopping away. Run, +like a good lad, while I quench a craving for tales of adventure from +the most charming of her sex and from our young friend here--will you +pardon my oversight--Ewing?--Ah, to be sure, from Mr. Ewing---Ewing. I +must remember that. I'm a silly ass about names." + +But when his son had gone the little man appeared to forget the craving +that had prompted his stay. From his stand on the hearth rug he jauntily +usurped the talk, winging his way down the world stream of gossip from +capital to capital. Circuitous, indeed, was his approach to art; an +anecdote of studio life in Paris; a criticism of Rodin, "Whitman in +marble;" the vigor of our native art impulse, only now learning to +withdraw a slavish deference from the French schools. "And you--Mr.--Ah, +yes--Ewing, to be sure--our amiable and rotund host tells me that you +are to be a warrior in this fray of brush and chisel. Bravo! You shall +show me work." + +Ewing had listened to his recondite discourse chiefly with a morbid +expectancy of that recurrent break in the voice, straining until it came +and relaxing until it quavered back to the hazardous masculine level. +Finding himself thus noticed he stammered, "Oh, I--I've done some work +in black and white. I hope--Mrs. Laithe has encouraged me." + +"A charming modesty, yours; by no means the besetting sin of your craft, +but is Mrs. Laithe an ideal promoter of genius? I fancy you'll need a +sterner guide, one to be harsh as well as kind. Women can't be that, +least of all the charming specimen who has honored you with her +patronage. I shall be proud to supplement her deficiencies as +critic--her glorious, her fascinating deficiencies. Women, audacious +souls, are recklessly kind. They incur perils to chill the blood of +brave enough men, meaning monstrously well all the time"--his narrowed +eyes sought to read the face of Mrs. Laithe--"but I've yet to see one +worth a second look who had divined that there exists a certain +arbitrary relation between cause and effect. Need I word the +inference?... No?..." Relieved by his scrutiny of her face he broke off, +his heart leaping to the thought, "She doesn't know--doesn't know ... +the _fool_!" + +"I'll be glad to show you what I have," Ewing answered, rejoicing at +this solicitude in a critic so obviously eminent. "I've been afraid all +along that Mrs. Laithe might be too kind." + +"Kinder than she knew--kindness is no word for her excess. Women lack +fiber where their sympathies are involved. They'll not inflict pain +within scope of their imaginations--beyond that rather narrow field of +course they're merciless, bless them! But trust me to score your work if +it deserves that, and trust me to praise if it merits praise. You shall +exhibit to me. By the way"--he consulted a small enameled watch--"I've a +bit of time to spare. If you're stepping along I'll not mind looking at +your things this evening." + +Ewing arose, glowing with pleasure. He felt drawn to this wonderful +little man who knew everything, and who was visibly kind--just, at any +rate--under that fantastic cloak of severity. + +"You're very good," he said. "I'm staying close by, at the Stuyvesant." + +"Drop in often, Ewing," urged Bartell as they shook hands. "And don't +let Teevan put you down. I dare say you'll come on, you know, if you +chuck worry." + +As he parted from Mrs. Laithe he was aware of a new look in her eyes. He +had learned to read them. They sought now to tell him ... what? There +was a warning in them, and her glance seemed to enfold him almost +protectingly. But her words were not more than those of formal parting, +with a suggestion that he drop in for tea some afternoon soon. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE WAY OF THE LITTLE MAN + + +They walked briskly to the Stuyvesant in silence, for Ewing could think +of nothing to say, and his companion seemed preoccupied. He showed, +indeed, the stress of some excitement, for Ewing once heard him mutter +heatedly. Suspecting this to be meant for himself, he evoked by inquiry +only an impatient "Not here--not here!" He believed that his +distinguished companion must be engrossed for the moment with something +profounder than the drawings of a novice. + +At the hotel they ascended to Ewing's room. Indicating a chair to Teevan +he went to the mantel for matches. When he had set the room to sudden +light he stepped quickly back, for the little man, standing there, +glared at him in a panic of fear and disgust. + +In the shock of his embarrassment Ewing fumbled at his overcoat and +slowly drew it off. Teevan's eyes now blazed rage upon him. His small, +withered, blue-veined hands were tightly clenched at his sides. His +attitude was almost a crouch. Ewing felt a furtive amusement above his +dismay, at sight of the dapper little figure in this incongruous battle +pose. + +A moment they stood so, then the upper lip of Teevan lifted slowly to a +snarl. Seeing that he was about to speak, there ran with Ewing's +amazement an absurd apprehension of that break in the voice. + +"What do you mean by it?" The swiftness, the intensity of the utterance +held the voice level thus far, but the break came with the next words, +and the speech ended in a wail. + +"What do you think to gain by coming here--by hounding me--by hounding +_me_?" + +Ewing constrained himself to quiet, with an impulse to soothe this +inexplicable fury. + +"Please sit down, won't you? You were going to criticise my drawings, +you know. You suggested it a moment ago, and I thought--" He took up a +portfolio of sketches from one of the open trunks. + +"Your trash! What's that to me? Do you think to pass this off? You've +learned effrontery in a fine school. Come to the point. What can you +make by this indecency--this----" + +Ewing's look checked him--something genuine in his bewilderment. + +"Come," began Teevan again, "is it possible you're no one, after all, +instead of being less than no one? You know me, don't you?" + +"Of course I know you; Mrs. Laithe introduced us." + +"Oh, don't juggle. You can't swagger it off with me. You shall not hound +me or mine." + +"Hound?" Ewing sought for light, still trying to subdue this absurd +assailant. + +"Hound, I said, you smug brat! You know me--you've not forgotten my name +so soon." + +"Teevan, I believe. Really, Mr. Teevan--I----" + +"Randall Gordon Teevan! The name meant something to you, didn't it?" + +"No; it didn't mean anything to me." + +"Ah! say that again!" He came toward the younger man to peer up into +his face with a grinning, incredulous scowl. "Say it again!" + +Ewing drew back from his scrutiny with a slight impatience. + +"Why say it again? Isn't once enough? You hear well, don't you? What +should your name mean to me?" + +"You still try to carry _that_ off? Your game isn't ready to play?" + +Ewing resumed his patient search. + +"See here, Mr. Teevan, let's be very quiet and get at this. I never +heard your name until an hour ago. Perhaps it ought to mean something to +me, but it doesn't. I'm not well acquainted in New York; I only came +here to-day. Now"--his voice became cajoling--"suppose you sit down +there quietly and tell me all about yourself." + +"Your name is Ewing, isn't it?" + +"Of course!" + +"What's your full name?" + +"Gilbert Denham Ewing." + +"Damn him!" + +"Damn him? You are speaking of me?" + +"Not you--you cub!" + +"Another Ewing?" + +"Another Gilbert Denham Ewing!" + +"I never knew any other but my father. And you wouldn't be damning him." + +He said this with a confident smile, and the peering little man at last +read him accurately. An impalpable veil seemed to screen his scowling +face. Erect from his peering stoop he passed a small hand dazedly across +his brow, and his face had become pleasantly ingenuous, alive with a +half-comprehending regret. With a rueful laugh he put out a hand to +Ewing, who took it, to say the least, doubtfully. + +"A thousand pardons, my boy! I fear I've suffered an attack of nervous +aberration to which I am unhappily subject. It's most distressing. I'm +chagrined beyond measure by the annoyance I must have caused you, I give +no end of worry to my specialist by these seizures. My speech wandered +provokingly, I dare say. It always does. You'd not credit some of the +things I've said to my dearest friends at such times. But you can fancy +the mortification it is to me. You'll pardon me, I trust--youth's +charity for the failings of age. The horrid truth is that I'm a bit +oldish--not aged, not outworn, mind you--my years have come and gone +lightly--but at times like these I'm obliged to admit the count. Come, +you'll forget?" + +Ewing delightedly pressed his hand. He could believe the little man's +tale of his years. The hair that he had remarked for its young look had +been uncannily twisted on the head of its wearer during the flurry of +his transport. An area of luminous scalp now showed above one ear. + +He stammered awkward but heartfelt words of assurance. + +"Doubtless it quite bowled you over," Teevan pursued--"though I never +can recall what I've said; but let us forget, and, if you'd not mind, +let us say nothing of it to anyone--to Mrs. Laithe, for example. If it +came to the ears of my son--he's over-anxious about me already." + +"Certainly, I'll not speak of it, and I'm sorry, very sorry. Lay your +gloves on the mantel there and find a seat." He turned to his trunk, +hoping the little man would sight his head in the mirror. When he again +looked up the hair was in perfect adjustment, and Teevan beamed on him +from an armchair. + +"Your father," he began, "I seem to recall your saying it--was a +painter. Doubtless he taught you much." + +"I studied with him there in the mountains till he died. I've nothing +left of his but this portrait of my mother." + +He took the unframed canvas from the tray of the trunk and held it +before his guest. + +"Do you get the right light there?" + +It had been a bad quarter of an hour for Ewing, and, as he adjusted the +picture, he felt a moment's satisfaction in having weathered it so +plausibly. And now that the curious little gentleman seemed restored, it +was pleasant to anticipate his cultured appreciation of that work of art +which was the boy's chief treasure. + +"There isn't any shine across it now, is there?" he asked, and looked up +with a shy, proud, waiting smile. + +But the agitations that had gone before were as nothing to what now +passed in front of his dismayed eyes. One moment his guest hung staring +at the canvas with a goblin horror; then, uttering a kind of sob, he +shot incontinently out of the door. + +The harried Ewing dropped the picture and rushed in pursuit. He came up +with the little man at the head of the stairs. He was trembling, and his +face was ashen gray; but after a few deep breaths he smiled and waved a +hand jauntily to indicate humorous despair. It seemed to say, "I am +frequently like this--it's annoying past words." He spoke of needing a +restorative and suggested an advisable haste in the direction of the +cafe. + +"They've some choice old cognac downstairs. Suppose we chat over a bit +of it. I'm rather done up. These absurd attacks of mine react on the +heart. A noggin of brandy will fetch me about. You'll come?" + +They were presently at a table in the hotel cafe. + +"We've the room to ourselves," said Teevan genially. "Delightful old +place, this; restful, reminiscent, mellow--and generally empty. I detest +the cheap glitter of those uptown places with their rowdy throngs. They +make me feel like a fish in a fiddle box, as our French cousins say. +You'll have soda with yours?" + +Teevan drank his own brandy neat, and at once refilled his glass. + +"Now for a chat about yourself, my young friend--for surely only a +friend could have borne with me as tenderly as you have this evening. +You're a fellow of promise--the future clamors for you--your drawings +enchant me." + +Ewing reflected that his drawings had not been exposed, but the +intention was kind, and he was grateful for that. Teevan drank more +brandy with a dainty relish, and begged to hear of his young friend's +adventures in the far hills. + +Ewing expanded in the warmth of this kindly concern. He told, little by +little, under adroit prompting, what he had to tell. Teevan displayed a +gratifying interest, especially in what he recounted of his mother's +death. But at intervals during this recital the young man became +conscious, with astonishment, that there was an inexplicable look on the +other's face, a look which he suddenly discovered to be an unbelievable +veiled pleasure. + +He fell back with a quick, blind repulsion, and the two stared at each +other, the elder man dissolving with difficulty a monstrous smile. He +appeared to recover himself with an effort, finding the lines about his +mouth refractory, but his embarrassment was so poignant that Ewing felt +sorry for him. + +"You _must_ forgive me, old fellow! These damned treacherous nerves of +mine! I shall see that specialist chap of mine directly in the morning. +I'm so weak that the sadness of that poor lady's death set me off into +something like hysteria." + +It was one o'clock when they parted, and then only at a hint that the +place would close its old-fashioned doors for the night. Ewing rejoiced +to feel that he had made a desirable friend. He liked the little man +well. Teevan had said at the last. "You should move on to Paris, my boy. +You'll need the touch they give only in that blessed rendezvous of the +masters." Ewing went to his room realizing that the world of his dreams +did actually abound in adventure. His first day had been memorable. + +Teevan walked through Ninth Street to his own home, a few doors beyond +the Bartell house. It was a place of much the same old-fashioned lines, +that had withstood the north-setting current. + +He let himself in and went to the dining room at the rear. Here he +lighted a gas jet, took a decanter from the sideboard, and brought a +glass and a bottle of soda from the butler's pantry. He sipped the drink +and lighted a cigarette. His musings, as first reflected in his face, +were agreeable. His mouth twitched pleasantly, his eyes glistened. At +intervals he chuckled and muttered. With an increase of brandy in the +glass he became more serious. + +When Alden Teevan entered an hour later he found his father in a mood +astonishingly savage. At sight of his son the little man became vocal +with meaningless abuse. It was as if the presence of a listener incited +him to continue aloud some tirade that he had pursued in silence. But +the younger Teevan, lounging in the doorway, only stared with polite +concern as he was greeted with these emotional phrases: + +"--a damned milk-and-water Narcissus--a pretentious cub with the airs of +a cheap manikin of the world--a squeaking parasite--a toadlike, damned +obscenity----" + +An easy smile came to the son's face as he noted the fallen tide in the +decanter. + +"Night-night, my quaint, amiable father--and cheery dreams!" + +They studied each other a moment. The elder man seemed to meditate some +disclosure, but stopped on the verge of it. + +"That's all, my boy!" + +The young man laughed again. + +"It's enough, I fancy--but don't overdo it, Randy. You know one mustn't +at your age." + +"I'm taking care, taking care of everything, my boy--never you fear----" + +The other passed on, but stopped at the stairway and called back: + +"I say, Randy!" + +"Yes--yes----" + +"Get to bed, you absurd little rat, you!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A NIGHT AT THE MONASTERY + + +Ewing awoke late the next morning, rejoicing that he need not cook his +breakfast. After feeding his hill-born hunger with novel and exciting +foods he sauntered out to become a wave on the tide that flooded those +strange, heart-shaking streets. He mentally blazed his trail as he went. +His soul marched to the swift and cheerful stepping of the life about +him. He remembered Ben's warnings and wished that expert in urban evil +could see how little menacing was this splendid procession. That the +Saturday throng of shoppers and pleasure seekers was unaware of the +greatness of the moment to him lent a zest of secrecy to his scouting. + +Back and forth he wandered on Broadway, the moving crowds, volatile as +quicksilver, holding him with a hypnotic power. Often he stopped before +some shop, hotel, or theater that he had come to know in print. Not +until five o'clock did he find that he was leg weary. Then he took his +bearings and, in his own phrase, "made back to camp." + +A boy brought him Piersoll's card at six, and Piersoll followed. He came +with that alert self-possession which Ewing had come to consider typical +of these dwellers in a crowd where each is the inconsiderable part of a +great organic body, and must yet preserve his unique oneship. + +"Bully old place, this," Piersoll began. "My mother came to balls here +thirty years ago. Show me your stuff." + +He dropped into one of the armchairs and lighted a cigarette. + +Ewing opened a portfolio and placed drawings along the wall. Piersoll +slid his chair closer and studied them. + +"They're only little things I've seen," murmured Ewing. "I haven't had a +chance to see much." + +Piersoll blew out smoke and arose to put one of the drawings in a better +light. He gazed at this closely, swept his eye again over the others, +and exclaimed, "All right! Bully! Good drawing, and the real thing. +That's the point--you've drawn only what you've seen. They're not all +equally interesting, but they're all true. You'll do." + +"I'm glad you like them. I never knew if they were good." + +"They're better than I expected, from Mrs. Laithe's talk. She was so +keen about them, I made allowances." + +"Mrs. Laithe seemed to think I might sell them." + +"Some of those you can sell, undoubtedly. The others show what you can +do. They'll get your orders. The magazines are using a lot of Western +stuff. That ranchman's wife there in her poor little flower garden, +surrounded by a million miles of sage and cactus--fine! It's a story +picture, and the story's good. The Knickerbocker might use that. They +might want a series from you--six drawings or so--'Scenes of Ranch +Life.'" + +"It sounds too good." + +"It's not, and you'll get stories to illustrate. Can you draw a pretty +cowboy?" + +"Pretty?" + +"The kind in the magazine story. Harvard man, half-back, old New York +family, named Van-Something or other; unhappy love affair; tries ranch +life; fearless rider, dead shot 'six feet of clean-limbed, virile young +manhood,' is the approved phrase for him. He's a beautiful thing--his +man keeps his chaps pressed, and he never is seen needing a shave----" + +Ewing grinned appreciatively. + +"Girl comes out from New York," continued Piersoll--"_the_ girl, with +her fierce aunt--home on north side of Washington Square. I'm going to +do an article on the story people who've had fine old homes on the north +side of Washington Square--thousands! That one block would have to be +ten miles long to hold 'em. Girl in tea gown, fierce aunt with +lorgnon--threatened with death--flood, fire, Apaches, stage-robbers, +vicious bull, rattler--anything! Rescued by cool, daring, clean-limbed +Van-Soforth, who says 'By Jove!' as he risks his life. That is, if it's +in one of the respectable magazines. If it's only a young ten-center he +says 'Damn!' right out in print. Then, love scene on mesa, faithful cow +pony and mountains in background, and return to New York by next train, +with clean-limbed Harold in one of our gent's nobby sack suits that sets +off the unconscious grace of his slight but muscular figure--oh, you +know the story." + +"I have read it somewhere--something like it." + +"You'll go on reading it. But you'll have to pretty your cowboys if you +make the pictures for it. Hulston usually illustrates it. He can draw a +cowboy that would make a bunch of violets look coarse." + +"I'm afraid I couldn't----" + +"Of course you couldn't. But you'll find work. Some of the magazines +are becoming reckless and printing stories of cowboys that are almost +real. Come along to the club. You'll meet some fellows there. The chap +that printed my book is dining with me, but he'll slip off early and we +can have the evening together." + +"I liked your book," Ewing ventured, when they were in the street. + +"Well, that's comforting. I dare say it was easier to read than it was +to write. But about this club you're going to--it's a little place we've +started lately--illustrators, newspaper men, book writers and that ilk. +You must join. I believe I'll be safe in putting you up." + +"I never joined a club," Ewing confessed. "Are there conditions?" + +"Rigid ones--you must have ten dollars for the entrance-fee, and not be +a leper." + +"Well"--Ewing debated--"I have the money----" + +"That's all _you_ need think about. The other part is ours. We have you +in to dine and look you over. Lots of men go there with an idea that +they must be witty. One fellow was turned down last week for springing +'made' jokes at the table. I believe he spoke of 'quail on trust' as we +were served with that bird--and in the hearing of three members of the +board of Abbots. That settled him, of course. They didn't need his +imitations of a German dialect comedian, which he sought to convulse +them with later. Another man was turned down lately for saying, 'Oh, how +quaintly bohemian!' after he'd looked about the grill room. Another was +ejected for playing 'chopsticks' on the piano with the edges of his +hands. They didn't even let _him_ get to the table. That's the sort of +thing--and we're strict, even though we need the money. I'm bursar and +I know. There are weird jests about my decamping with the club funds, +but I've never had enough surplus yet to take me beyond Rahway." + +They ascended the steps of a dingy-fronted brick house in Clinton Place, +a little out of the Broadway rush. Passing through a bare, echoing hall, +they entered one of the two dining rooms of the club, connected by +immense sliding doors, now thrown open. They were broad, lofty rooms +with stained floors, mantels of gray marble, and rich old doors of +polished mahogany framed in white casements--the drawing rooms of some +staid family of a bygone generation, before the trade army had invaded +this once quiet neighborhood. + +Ewing at once noticed the walls. They had been covered with a +grayish-brown cartridge paper, and on this the members of the Monastery +had plied their charcoal in fancies more or less attuned to the spirit +of the organization. There were monks in most of the pictures, monks +combating or, alas! overborne by one or another of that meretricious +trinity which ever conspires against godly living. Over the mantel in +the first room a pink-fleshed nymph in simple garb of chef's cap allured +an all but yielding St. Anthony with one of the club's dinner _menus_ +held before his hunger-lit eyes. On a panel to the right of this a +befuddled lay brother, having emptied a flagon of wine, perched on the +arm of a chair and angled fatuously in a jar of mocking goldfish, to the +refrain: + + "For to-morrow will be Friday, and + We've caught no fish to-day!" + +To the left, Brother Hilarius furtively ignored his breviary as he +passed a gay _affiche_, from which a silken-limbed dancer beguiled him +with nimble, worldly caperings, and smiles of the flesh and the devil. + +"There's a vacant panel or two in the other room," said Piersoll. "We'll +save one for you. Come down to the grill room--it's early yet." + +They went out through the hall and down a narrow stairway. They heard +the lively hum of voices, and Ewing found himself in a low, wainscoted +room, finished in dull gray, where a dozen or so men talked loungingly +in corners, awaiting the dinner hour. + +Piersoll presented him to several of these in so quick a succession that +their names became a many-syllabled murmur in his ears. They found seats +on a red-cushioned corner bench of churchly pattern, and Piersoll +ordered cocktails. + +Ewing tried to follow the talk running about him. A boyish-looking +reporter for a morning paper was telling at a nearby table how he had +been the first to reach the scene of a railroad wreck in Pennsylvania +late the night before by fording a swollen river. At another table a +successful playwright obligingly expounded the laws of dramatic +construction to a respectful novice, who seemed puzzled by their +simplicity. At their own table a youth of yellow melancholy confided to +Piersoll that the afternoon had witnessed an important transaction in +verse--the sale of his ballade, "She Was a Belle in the Days of +Daguerre." "The editor of 'Quips' took it and paid on acceptance--let's +have another," he added with deep significance. + +The atmosphere of the place was unthinkingly democratic. The cub +reporter here met his city editor as man to man. Piersoll identified +various members of the gathering--the dramatic critic of an evening +paper in busy talk with the Wall Street man of the same sheet; a +promising young composer cornered by the star reporter of a morning +paper, a grizzled knight of the world of war, crime, flood, fire, and +all mischance of any news value, a man who had attained the dignity of +signing his "stuff." Old men and young, they were compacted of nerves, +vividly alive, even those in whom the desk stoop could be detected. + +The movable feast of the cocktail waned and the groups drifted upstairs. +The publisher for whom Piersoll waited came at last, a bland but +keen-eyed gentleman of early middle age, introduced to Ewing as Mr. +Layton, of Layton & Company. They followed the others up to the dining +room, and Piersoll found a table for three under the drawing of the +earnest but miscalculating angler. + +Ewing nervously apprehended talk of an abstruse literary character from +which he would be debarred. The talk assuredly became abstruse, but it +dealt in literary values solely as related to public taste in the novel +of commerce, and to the devices of Layton & Company for divining and +stimulating that variable quantity. + +Instead of descanting on Shakespeare, as Ewing had supposed a publisher +would do, Layton, with the soup, plunged into a racy narrative of how he +had "boomed" sales of "The Mask of Malcolm" the year before. That had +been a success compounded of trifles. Witness Layton's chance view from +a car window of a "Mask of Malcolm" poster on a watering cart that +toiled through the dusty main street of a remote Western village. He had +written to the postmaster of that town for the name of the cart's +driver, sent him a copy of the novel inscribed by the author, and +enough more posters to cover his cart. Result: a sale in the aroused +village and surrounding country of two hundred and eighty "Masks," where +otherwise not more than half a dozen would have been sold. Further +result: the watering carts of the great mid-West were now cunningly +blazoned with incitements to purchase Layton & Company's fiction. + +Ewing still feared Shakespeare or Chaucer, or George Eliot, at the +least; but the publisher clung to earth, launching into his plans for +Piersoll's next book. "The Promotion of Fools" was in its hundredth +thousand. The next book must go beyond this. + +"You want a smashing good love scene at the end," urged the sapient +Layton, "and plenty of good, plain, honest heart feeling all through it. +Make a quaintly humorous character, simple-minded, trusting, but still +shrewd, and win the reader's sympathy for him by giving him some sort of +hard luck--a crippled child that dies isn't bad, if the father has been +harsh to him some time, not meaning to be, you know. And not too much +dialect; enough to contrast well with the Fifth Avenue people. Then, +with the kind of hero you know how to draw--swell family, handsome, +refined, a real gentleman, and all that sort of thing, with an English +valet--you'll have a story that will _go_. You can write a winner, +Piersoll, if you'll listen to your publisher. We keep our fingers on the +public pulse; we know the taste better than you can know it, shut up in +your office. And have a good, catchy dedication--people are interested +in your personality. Couldn't you have in the next book something like +'To my Mother in Heaven, whose Memory----'" + +"Our people are all Unitarians," suggested Piersoll. + +"What difference does _that_ make----" + +"And my mother has been graciously spared to us----" + +"Well, then, 'To my Gray-haired Mother, whose Loving Counsel has ever--' +_you_ know the sort of thing, short and snappy, but full of feeling. It +helps, let me tell you, with the people who pick up a book on the +stands." + +Ewing lost the run of this talk for a time, entertaining himself with a +study of the other diners. The rooms had rapidly filled, and two waiters +scurried among the tables. His attention focused on a long table in the +center of the room, whose occupants made savage and audible comment on +diners at other tables, and confided to one another, in loud, free +tones, their frank impressions of late comers. + +The door opened upon a goodly youth in evening dress. Seven pairs of +eyes from the big table fixed him coldly as he removed his overcoat. + +A voice, affectedly mincing: "As I live--handsome Harold Armytage!" + +Another voice, hoarse with rage: "Curse ye, devil that ye are, with yer +oily tongue and city ways! where's me daughter Letty, me little lass, +that ye took up to the big city and threatened to make a lady of?" + +A voice, hushed and slow: "They--say--the--child--is--in--London." + +The newcomer, flicking the ash from his cigarette, glowered at the last +speaker and hissed: "As for you, Black Bart, alias Jasper Vinton, +remember that one word from me would set all Scotland Yard on your +trail!" + +A new voice from the table: "Stand back, Hector Walsingham! I would +rather be the poor working girl I am than the gilded toy your wealth +would make me--and besides, you wear made ties! I'll have to speak to +the stage manager about that," continued the speaker in less dramatic +tones. "Look, it's one of those horrible made things that fasten at the +back of his neck with a harness buckle--see his hand go up to it!" + +The newcomer emitted a mocking laugh, but judiciously sought a seat in +the next room. + +"Say--new idea for a melodrama," came another voice from the long table. +"The old thing with an Ibsen twist. Stern father ready to drive erring +daughter from his door in a snowstorm, but _it won't snow_! Of course he +can't send her off in pleasant weather. It clouds up every few days, and +the old man hopefully gets his speech ready--'Curse ye, ye are no longer +a daughter of mine!' but the sun comes out again. Girl gets nervous. +Young squire gets nervous, too, though he's married the girl in secret. +He begs the old man to put her out and have it over with, even if the +weather is pleasant. Old man won't hear of such a thing. Got to have a +howling snowstorm. His mind fails; he sits in the chimney corner +driveling about the horrible winters they used to have when you could +curse a daughter out almost any day in the week. Everybody disgusted at +the way things are dragging. Young people quarrel. Divorce! Young squire +sails for Labrador to try it again, where you can count on the winters. +Girl watches ship out of sight, and _it snows_! Snows hard. But too +late--ah, God, too late! She rushes back home to find the old man +delirious with joy. He starts in to do his speech at last, but she +slowly strangles him with her muscular young hands. Rather good +curtain, that--yes?" He looked around the table appealingly, but the +others had turned from him to another newcomer, a young man of dark and +sinister aspect, whom they greeted as Simon Legree. Ewing heard Eliza's +despairing cry, "Merciful Heavens, the river is choked with ice!" above +the deep baying of bloodhounds that issued from half a dozen able +throats. The newcomer was obliging enough to scowl and demand fiercely, +"Tom, you black rascal, ain't you mine, body and soul?" + +A fair-haired youth at the table, with the face of an overfed Cupid, +responded pleadingly: "No--no, Massa! Mah body may b'long to yo' but mah +soul to de good Lawd who made it!" + +"Crack! Crack! Crack! Take that, you black hound, and that, and that!" +Uncle Tom cringed under the blows of an imaginary lash, and Legree +seated himself at the long table. A bearded man at the head promptly +became little Eva, with a piping voice. "Uncle Tom, dear Uncle Tom, I +fear I am going to die in the last act." + +The faithful slave gulped at his claret and water and replied tearfully, +"Dar, dar, Miss Eba, yo' bre'k dis pore ole man's heart!" + +"And, dear Uncle Tom, remember that the colored quartet will slink in +and sing 'Rock of Ages' while I am dying on a camp bed in the parlor. +Think of that, you black hound!" + +"Indeed, that is what I am apprehending, Miss St. Clair," returned Uncle +Tom, this time in polished accents and with marked urbanity. "And you +are doubtless aware that I shall have to be present and listen to it. +Come, then, little one! If you must die, come with me into the back yard +where the quartet can't find us, and I will feed you to the nice hungry +bloodhounds. They've had nothing since tea." + +Ewing listened, aghast. He had once gone with Ben in Durango to see +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and both of them had wept at its heartrending +crisis. It embarrassed him now to hear its pathos blasphemed, +embarrassed him because he felt a sort of shamed mirth. He was glad that +Ben was not by. + +Piersoll and his publisher still discussed literature. Layton was now +setting forth the superior state of the latter-day author over those of +the past. + +"Those old fellows had no market--publishers were a sleepy lot. Think +what could have been done with 'Paradise Lost,' illustrated by Hulston +with about fifty half tones and marginal decorations, and an elegant +binding, properly advertised with testimonials from clergymen and +leading actresses and senators and prominent college presidents. I tell +you, gentlemen," he concluded, earnestly, "this is the golden age of +letters!" + +This phrase unhappily reaching the big table in a moment of quiet, made +an instant sensation. + +"The golden age of letters!" was echoed in concert by eight men who +arose solemnly and bowed to the embarrassed Layton. He tried to smile +tolerantly, as if he knew a joke when he saw one. They sat down and +turned to stare at him with extravagant awe, catching his eye when they +could and drinking to the golden age. Piersoll grinned cheerfully at +them. Ewing was puzzled. + +"I like this place for its literary atmosphere," said one loudly, gazing +over the head of Layton. "Don't you all just love literature?" "Oh, I +simply adore it!" answered the next man. "I really can't say what I +should do without books. I think they improve the mind." + +Now they hitched their chairs about so that they could regard Layton +more easily, though they affected to be unconscious of his presence. + +"It _does_ seem to me that literature is good to read," ventured another +conservatively, "but then, _I_ love music and flowers and the little +birds." + +"I should die without literature," insisted another--"it's so good and +excellent. Oh, why do not more people read literature and be decent!" + +"Now you take Henry James," began another, judicially, "he's a bright +writer, but he can't touch the great throbbing heart of the public like +Hall Caine can." + +"What _is_ a Hall Caine can?" demanded the whiskered person bluntly. "I +thought they kept 'em in jars." + +Layton rose, genially bidding his host and Ewing good night. The men at +the long table rose with him, bowed ceremoniously, and chanted "the +golden age of letters" as he passed--all but one, who sobbed bitterly +because poor Shakespeare had not lived to see it. + +Ewing was still dazed, but he had slowly been growing cheerful. He felt +that he could almost understand this strange fooling. He would have been +glad to observe it still from a distance, but Piersoll took him to the +long table when Layton had gone. The others made room for them, and +Ewing responded somewhat timidly to the introductions that Piersoll +performed. He was a little anxious lest he be made a part or target of +their sport and show himself awkward under the ordeal. For the moment, +however, there were remarks about the undesirability of "tradesmen" as +guests of the club. + +"I know a lovely delicatessen merchant," said one brightly, "a most +interesting person. He says this is the golden age of cooked provisions. +I must have him round the next time Layton is brought in." + +"I can get a plumber from over on Eighth Avenue," volunteered another. +"We might have a 'trade' night, if Layton will come. Of course they'll +talk about nothing but how to sell their wares, but they'll have a good +time together." + +Presently they forsook this theme, and Ewing found himself talking to +Chalmers, an illustrator with whose work he had long been familiar. +Though Chalmers drew Western subjects, Ewing was amazed at his +confession that he had never been west of Jersey City. Chalmers, on the +other hand, was delighted to learn that Ewing had so long been a part of +that life which he had portrayed from afar, and was at once profuse with +offers of help when Ewing explained his situation. He was eager to see +his work, and would install him in a studio. + +"I know the place for you," he exclaimed, after a moment's reflection. +"There's a vacant studio in our building on Forty-second Street. Billy +Glynn told me to sublet it and sell the stuff the first chance I had. +You can move in right off if you like it." + +Ewing thanked him warmly. It was pleasant to find that the recent Simon +Legree had his human side. Two of the other men at the table had studios +in the same building: Crandall, who made pictures for a comic weekly, +and Baldwin, who was a magazine illustrator. They became, like Chalmers, +solicitous to oblige the newcomer, and were attentive to Piersoll when +he praised, with a quick word or two, the drawings of Ewing. He felt +immensely drawn to these men who had dropped their bantering to be kind +to him. + +The crowd of diners had thinned out until only a few lingered over their +coffee. From one or another of these scattered groups would come a burst +of laughter at the climax of a story, or a bar of song from one who had +reached his playtime of the day, and recked not if he advertised this. +It was an hour of ease in the Monastery, when its inmates expanded in +the knowledge that Sunday lay before them. To some, at least, this could +be a day of rest. + +A musical member came from the rear room to the piano near the long +table to play a Liszt rhapsody. When this performer had gone back to his +seat one of the men from the big table--he who had lately enacted Little +Eva, and whose title of "The Brushwood Boy" Ewing at once related to his +beard--seated himself at the instrument. + +"Heard a great song over on Third Avenue last night," he began. "Wish I +could remember--something like this--" His fingers searched for the +melody. Ewing caught a transient strain of it and thrilled to recognize +Ben's favorite, a thing he might be singing to his guitar in the far-off +lonely cabin at that very moment. + +"'The Fatal Wedding,'" he ventured to the performer. + +"Sure--that's it! 'The Fatal Wedding.' Wish you fellows could have heard +it--rich! How did it go, now?" + +Ewing recklessly hummed the opening bars. + +"Go ahead, if you know it!" This came from several of the men. He +protested. He would have liked to sing it, yet feared to do so before an +audience whose ridicule he had learned to dread. He considered the song +to be irreproachable and could understand the apparent enthusiasm about +it, but he doubted his worth as a vocalist. + +"I don't believe I'd better try it," he began; "I know the words--it's +the favorite song of an old-time cowboy I've lived with, and he does it +right. I couldn't give anything more than a poor imitation of him." + +The inciting calls were renewed. + +"Go on! Do your worst! Show us how your friend does it! Silence in the +back of the hall!" + +Piersoll smiled encouragingly and the accompanist struck the opening +chords, having at last recalled the air. Ewing diffidently took his +place at the end of the piano, with apologetic protests. "I'll do my +best, but you should hear Ben Crider sing this." + +The little audience listened with unfeigned delight as he sang of the +handsome stranger who wooed the village beauty, only to desert her for +"a lady proud and haughty" who had "houses, jewels, land, and gold at +her command." The words moved his hearers. Had he not promised them to +render the song in his friend's manner? They felt he was achieving this +with rare art. Almost unconsciously, indeed, he sang the song in Ben's +best manner, with a sob in the voice and even with Ben's strained, sad +face as he reached the pitiful climax: + + "While they were honeymooning in a mansion on the hill, + Kind friends were laying Nellie out behind the mill." + +He moved quickly back to his chair almost before the first shouts of +laughter dismayed him. He blushed and glanced appealingly from face to +face as the applause was swelled by the groups in the rear room. He and +Ben had considered this no song to be laughed at. It was too sad. Yet he +saw that the applause was a friendly tribute to his performance. +Piersoll was pounding him joyously between the shoulders and Chalmers +was urging him to do Ben Crider singing the "Fatal Wedding" at their +next club smoker. Baldwin demanded the last verse again, and Ewing sang +it, from his chair this time, redoubling his efforts to bring out its +pathos. + +In the new applause that deafened him he felt reassured. At least they +were not laughing at _him_. He joined weakly in the merriment. The gods +had blessed him with a gift for silence at critical moments. He asked no +questions. + +As the mirth subsided voices were heard unctuously rehearsing choice +lines from the song. A passion for the ballad pathetic had been aroused. +Some one called on Chalmers. + +"Chalmers has written a song himself--give it to us, Chalmers--the one +you sang up at Needham's the other night." Chalmers took his place and +bowed low as the accompanist poised eager hands above the key-board. + +"Gentlemen, with your kind attention, I'll give you a little thing +called 'Nothing but Mother'--words and music by a party that doesn't +want his real name known because the folks back home might hear of it. +Let her go, Professor!" + +In a twangy, nasal voice, not unlike Ben's, enunciating his words with +the fastidious and strained precision of the music-hall balladist, he +began: + + "The courtroom, it was crowded, + All the witnesses was there; + The Judge he sat a-frowning + In his highly cushioned chair. + They was trying a old lady + For the stealing of a horse; + They had hauled her to the station, + _They_ had dragged her there by force!" + +The last line had been achieved with intense, passionate emphasis. +Ewing, listening intently, felt the pricking of a nameless suspicion. +The song seemed right enough, and yet some queer, ulterior emotion +stirred within him. The air continued in a stirring minor, adapted to +the dramatic action: + + "Then uprose a handsome lawyer, + But would not give his name; + He defended this old lady + And well he done the same. + The verdict was "Not guilty!" + _Tears_ stood in the jury's eyes; + When the unknown lawyer heard it, + Then says he to their surprise:" + +With secret consternation Ewing waited, trying to laugh with the others, +who had exploded at "_tears_," wrenched out in a high minor wail. The +air now took a graceful swinging waltz movement, and the puzzled youth +suffered an illumining flash: + + "She was my mother once + In days of long ago; + I'll not forsake her now, + Her lots has fell so low. + I have other mothers now + To take me by the hand, + But I'll not desert this one + Just because I'm rich and grand." + +Enlightened at last, Ewing joined in the applause, amid which Chalmers +resumed his seat. Instantly perceiving why they had laughed at his own +song, he burned at recalling how chance alone had saved him from +betraying a simple-hearted faith in the virtues of that gem. Now it was +funny, even to him. Other songs of Ben's rang in his ears; they were +_all_ funny--though he must never let Ben know that. He had unwittingly +betrayed Ben to a ribald crew, but he had learned a thing it was well to +know. He had learned of the world; he had aged in a leap. + +They sat late at table, drinking beer from stone mugs, smoking +long-stemmed pipes and trifling with song. They blended their voices in +melting harmony at the climax of "Nelly's" woe and in the acuter parts +of "Nothing but Mother." + +As they drifted out at midnight Chalmers made an appointment with Ewing +to inspect the vacant studio and make himself, if he liked, one of the +colony of not too serious workers housed by the Rookery. + +Half a dozen men strolled with him to the Stuyvesant, and in the shadow +of its sober doors, as a parting testimonial to his worth, they sang +once more in blended pathos: + + "She was my moth-e-r-r once + In days so long a-g-o-o-o!" + +He watched them up the street a block, pouring out their hearts in song +to a watchful and cynical policeman. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE NEW MEMBER + + +When Ewing, a few days later, moved into the vacant studio on the top +floor of the Rookery, the men there made an affair of it, flocking from +their studios to receive him. They showed him the view from his windows, +a far stretch of dull-red roofs, with murky water butts stuck aloft like +giant cockades against the gray sky. They showed him where he would +sleep, in a little closet-like alcove screened from the big room by a +gay curtain. They exhibited the alcohol lamp left by Glynn, over which +water would be boiled for the morning coffee. And they superintended, +from their wider experience, the arrangement of his belongings. + +He felt aloof from the friendly turmoil, unable to believe that the +place would be his own. The thing was too vast for his experience. It +would surely be for another that Baldwin spread the Navajo blankets on +the floor and couch; for some one else that Chalmers, of the beard--him +they called the Brushwood Boy or eke "the human ambush"--removed piles +of old magazines from the cot in the alcove; for some one else that +Dallas tucked brushes into a ginger jar; and for some one else that +Griggs tested water taps and the radiator. + +When they had cheerfully discovered that no one could think of anything +further to do they trooped down Broadway to celebrate Ewing's advent in +a dinner at the Monastery. When this was over and the crowd had thinned +to a few late sitters they had him do a picture. The others watched him +as he worked, standing on a bare table drawn to the wall. Brother +Hilarius grew before their eyes, insecurely astride a bucking broncho, +narrowly observed by two figures in the background--a dismayed brother +of his order in gown of frieze and hempen girdle, and Red Phinney, +contorting himself in ribald glee. + +The watchers applauded as the picture grew. They had not supposed that +the quiet, almost timid, boy, who betrayed his unsophistication by +countless little mannerisms, could have attained the sureness of line +his strokes revealed. + +The heated air of the room rushed up to make a torrid zone of the region +about the worker's head, and from time to time one of the watchers +handed him a mug of creaming ale with which he washed the dust of the +charcoal from his throat. He lost himself in the work at last. The +voices, laughter, songs, strains of the piano, came but faintly to him, +and were as the echoes of street life that sounded in his ears each +night before he slept. It was after one o'clock when he stepped down +from the table to survey the finished drawing. + +He knew he had done well, but he was glad to be told so by others. It +was clearly their opinion that the club had in no way descended from its +high standards of mural decoration. Baldwin brought a bottle of fixative +and sprayed the drawing through a blowpipe. Then they drained a final +bumper to the artist and the work and went out into the mild September +night, making the empty street, sleeping in shadow, resound to their +noisy talk. + +The light of a car crept ghostlike toward them and they stood to board +it. As it moved on through Broadway Ewing thought of an empty creek bed +at the bottom of some ravine at home. This was the dry time, but with +earliest dawn would come the freshet, flooding the canyon, surging over +its rocky bed to some outlet as mysterious as its source. The image +brought him a sudden pang of homesickness. Despite the jovial +friendliness of the crowd he was still a detached spectator. There was +no intimacy for him, no real contact. He was glad to remember the bed +that awaited him and confessed this to Chalmers. + +"Bed!" echoed Chalmers in righteous amazement. "What's the use of going +to bed? You only fall asleep!" + +"He's right, old man," put in Baldwin warningly. "I've tried it." + +Dallas turned a reproachful gaze on Ewing. "God has given you a +beautiful life and you sleep it away! Come, come, man!" + +"We'll have a bite to eat, anyway," broke in Griggs. "Come on, here's +Clayton's." + +They were presently about a table far back in a restaurant where +lingered many sitters-up of nights. They ordered Welsh rabbits and ale. +Ewing refused the ale and drank water. + +Dallas put on an air of wishing to defend this choice of beverage. "Of +course, it's the stuff that made Noah famous," he submitted. + +"Yes--and it made all that trouble at Johnstown, too," broke in Chalmers +with deep hostility in his look at Ewing's glass. "I can't forget that. +Water has never been the same to me since." + +They fell to the food when it came. They smoked, they drank more ale, +they sang in tones enough subdued to avert public disfavor, and they +flung jests about to spice the endless gossip of their craft. + +Ewing listened, yet with eager eyes for the people at other tables +about them. These men and women captivated him by their suggestions +of mystery--characters in the play he was forever beholding-- +curious-looking men whose faces suggested lives of dramatic tension; +beautiful women, splendidly arrayed, with much of mystery and something +of daring in their animation. He scanned them all furtively as the talk +at his own table flowed on. + +It was chiefly of their work that they talked. Chalmers related matters +exposing the inefficiency of an art editor to whose mercies fate now and +then betrayed him. Chalmers bitterly thought that this person should be +driving an ice wagon or helping about in a shipyard, or something of the +sort--not telling artists how to draw their pictures. + +Baldwin sympathized. He had his own art editor. It came out that no man +present had ever even heard of a competent art editor. It stood to +reason that there could be none. A man of capacity to be an art editor +would have too much self-respect. He would starve in the gutter first. +But it took time and talk and replenished mugs to reduce this truth to +its beautiful, naked simplicity, and Ewing at last saw that day had +come. The lights inside were paling to an unwholesome yellow. He +mentioned the circumstance insinuatingly, for he was tired. + +Baldwin scowled at his watch, then dropped it into his fresh mug of ale, +and glanced triumphantly about the table. + +"A degenerate race," muttered Chalmers. "At the first sign of daylight +we scamper off to bed like scared rabbits. For me--thank God--there's +nothing like the glorious sunrise, the crisp air, the healthy glow. +There's magic in it--Nature's choicest gift. Yes, sir, the splendors of +dawn for me! D'you s'pose I'd miss _this_?" He glared about the room and +ecstatically sniffed the thick, smoky air. "What does that clod know of +beauty?" He indicated a waiter, dozing against the wall with practiced +equilibrium. + +"Well, well," exclaimed Baldwin, "if I haven't gone and forgotten to eat +breakfast! How shiftless!" He aroused the waiter with snapping fingers. +"I hope we're not keeping you up, Claude, but bacon and eggs, please, +and coffee." + +An hour later they went out to find the street already alive with early +workers. Baldwin appeared to consider that these, also, were night-long +revelers. + +"'Stonishing how they can keep it up, night after night," he remarked, +frowning in wonder at the early procession. "You'd think they'd _have_ +to sleep some time." + +"It'll tell on their nerves sooner or later, you mark my words," said +Griggs sententiously. + +Chalmers stared intently into the window of a florist adjoining the +restaurant. He turned to them with purpose in his fair face and spoke +again of his art editor. + +"Only trouble with him--he's passed away, poor fellow, and doesn't know +it. He ought to be told--but not brutally. I see something here for +him." + +He came out of the florist's presently with a sizable emblem of +mortality--a floral pillow with "Rest" worked on it in immortelles. + +"Come on!" + +At the corner they crowded into hansoms. It was a long ride, and Ewing +was asleep when they reached Park Row, but they aroused him to help +escort Chalmers and his offering to the elevator of a mighty building. +While they awaited his return Baldwin bethought him of his own art +editor. He seemed to believe that something fitting might be done. After +deep reflection he crossed the narrow street to a district messenger +office, to emerge a moment later followed by eight grinning messenger +boys. These he led to the elevator of another building near by. + +Chalmers returned from his own mission, wiping his eyes. + +"Poor fellow, he knows he's dead now. But I broke down and sobbed like a +child when I gave it to him--I'm all heart. It's over now, all but the +life insurance. And yet he didn't thank me. On the contrary he spoke +language I should blush to repeat." + +The others put on looks of chastened gloom and were speaking in hushed +tones of the sad event when Baldwin returned. He dismissed his uniformed +attendants with largesse. + +"Thing that needed to be done for his own good," he explained. "Max +believes he's an art editor, but nobody else does--nobody else ever +believed it in this whole wide, beautiful world. So I lined those +trusting little boys up in front of his door and said, 'Boys, look in +there and you will see a real art editor.' They looked in at old Max and +then at me. 'You believe it, don't you, boys?' I asked them, and they +all said, 'Yes, sir!' So I made them bow to him and say in concert, 'We +_do_ believe you are an art editor, no matter what other people say,' +and then we left. We had to. I'm ashamed to tell you--but old Max seemed +to forget that he was a gentleman. He'll thank me when he comes to his +senses, all the same. He can lay his head on his pillow to-night knowing +that there are others in the world besides himself who believe he's an +art editor. Oh, I love to do good!" he concluded with a benevolent +smirk. + +Once more they were in the hansoms and Ewing slept again, to the strains +of "I have other mothers now," sung by Baldwin, who sat in his lap. + +As they climbed the stairs of the Rookery Baldwin found the moment +suited for sage counsel to Chalmers. + +"'T won't do, my boy--'t won't do! Can't burn candles both ends. Your +face this minute looks like one of those cheap apple pies in a +restaurant window." + +Ewing mounted to his own floor and found himself in the curious +stillness of the big room. It had seemed to wait there for him, mutely, +but with desire. He stood a moment in the silence, his ears ringing with +after sounds of the night. He fell on the couch, too tired to go +formally to bed, and felt himself falling into sleep as into a +beneficent and welcoming abyss. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SEARCHING THE WILDERNESS + + +He awoke from a dream noisy with laughter and the ring of shod hoofs on +a stone roadway; a phantasma in which faces were gray and distorted +through smoke and people did wild things in sane ways. He lay long +enough to separate the fiction of this dream from the actual but not +more credible performances of the night before. Then he rose, yawning +away the last of his drowsiness, and looked out over the roofs. He saw +that it was late afternoon, for the shadows of the water butts ran well +to the east. The mute solitude of the scene gave his loneliness a new +pang. He felt more solitary in the multitude than he had ever felt in +his unpeopled hills. Yet the place still lured him, not less than in +days when he had hungered for it, a starved lover of life in the desert. +If only he could find some one to come near, some one to whom he could +be his unguarded self. Such a one must exist. + +His eyes swept the reticent roofs, and his mind searched beneath them: +what felicitous possibilities did they not conceal? People doubtless +fasting like himself, longing for the friendly cry, eating their hearts +out in loneliness--men and women he might know or never know. He lifted +each roof as he gazed; under any one of them might be the companion; +under all were charms of adventurous search. + +In this moment of homesick longing his mind caught at Mrs. Laithe. She +had told him to come soon. Did that mean in one day, or in ten? She was +his one link with an old life that had filled if it did not satisfy. And +sometimes she had met him. Chiefly she had been a woman for the eyes, +but there had been fleeting times when they touched in ways that brought +him a deeper satisfaction--times when invisible antennae from each seemed +to be in communicative contact. These moments brought back the palsy of +shyness that had stricken him at his first glimpses of her; yet they +brought, too, some potent, strange essence that sustained him. He +resolved to go to her now. She mystified, she dismayed him, but her +kindness was dependable. + +It was the memory of this that moved him to throw off his stale, +smoke-saturated garments, to bathe, to dress himself afresh, and to walk +briskly through the tonic sharpness of a September afternoon. + +As he rang the bell a vague, delightful home-coming warmth rushed over +him. + +"In a moment I shall see her," he said within himself. As the door swung +back he heard the din of many voices and caught a rush of heated air, +sweetish with the odor, as it seemed, of tired and fainting flowers. At +the entrance to the drawing room he faltered, for the place was thronged +with terrifying strange people who held teacups and talked explosively. + +Longing to flee, he saw Mrs. Laithe across the room, turning somewhat +wearily, he thought, away from three or four voluble women, as if to +snatch at a moment of rest from her perfunctory smile. Almost instantly +her eyes swung to his, and he became aware, as she started toward him, +of some sudden flurry leaping behind their black-fringed curtains, a +quick play of lights that stirred and confused him. She gave him her +hand with half-formal phrases of greeting under which he detected a +rising nervousness. + +"So good of you to come, and on my day! They're tiresome at best. You +are well? You shall have tea and know some people." She went to a table +between the two rooms, where a girl in white drew tea from a samovar +into many little cups. Ewing began to watch this girl, a slight but +rounded creature with yellowish hair curving down either side of her +tanned face. He caught a greenish light in her eyes, as she bent to her +task with a somewhat anxious concentration. + +Mrs. Laithe brought him the tea, which he helplessly took, and presented +him to a vivid-hued young matron, who made room for him beside her. His +part in the talk that followed was confined to mutterings of agreement, +tinged now and then with a discreet sympathy. He heard the latest golf +and yachting news and sprightly chat of the lady's newest motor car. He +caught a blurred view of the Austrian Tyrol, and absorbed technical data +on the operation of smuggling silk stockings from Paris. He gleaned that +Airedales were difficult to raise; that Caruso would return; that all +coachmen were but hirelings of the sales stables, when you got at the +root of the trouble. He learned that Newport had been deadly, Bar Harbor +impossible, Tuxedo not half bad for a week end; and that New York would +be empty for another fortnight. + +Upon none of these difficult matters had he anything of moment to offer. +The assertion that New York was empty bereft him, indeed, of even his +slender power of assent. The lady would have considered him stupid but +for the look with which he met her quick eyes from time to time. She +decided that he was merely bored--a thing not to be particularly +remarked. It was common enough in the men she met. + +In one of the roving looks he permitted himself under his companion's +discourse his glance rested on two people far back in the library. One +was Mrs. Laithe's father. He stood, cup in hand, talking down to a +smartly attired, whitehaired woman who sat forward in her chair and +stared at Ewing. Her gown was black, and one white-gloved hand rested on +Bartell's arm. Her eyes did not waver as Ewing met them. He saw that +Bartell seemed to identify him in the throng and speak a few words to +the lady. Ewing turned to his companion, discomfort under that steady +survey. A moment later he was drawn to look again and saw Bartell coming +toward him. + +"Ah, young man!" His greeting oozed cordiality, the soothing +friendliness of a man fitted to find only the pleasantness of life. + +"And come with me, if Mrs. Dudley will let you off--" the lady smiled a +pretty but unreserved assent--"an old friend, Mrs. Lowndes, wants to +know you. She's a dear soul, always jolly. Tell her about cowboys and +things, won't you--something pleasant." + +They stood before the woman in the chair, and Bartell uttered a few +words which Ewing did not hear, for at the moment he had glanced up to +see Mrs. Laithe watching him with eyes of such genuine dismay that +confusion overtook him. He wondered what wrong thing he could have done, +but recovered in time to bow and murmur a phrase of acknowledgment. His +new acquaintance indicated a seat beside her, but did not look at him. + +"Thank you, Chris. Mr. Ewing will entertain me. Run off to someone as +young as yourself." + +Bartell smiled himself back into the more crowded room, and Ewing +waited, apprehending talk like that he had lately undergone. But he +found that this woman who had stared at him so curiously was not +voluble. For a long time she remained silent. Once he glanced up to +observe that her eyes were closed, and seized the moment to study her +face. He thought she was very old--sixty at least. Yet the face showed +strength in its frailness. The cheeks, looking brown under the plenteous +white hair, were lined but not withered, and the curve from brow to chin +revealed more than a suggestion of self-will. A dainty but imperious old +lady he thought her. He might have believed himself forgotten but for an +intimation of waiting thrown out by her manner, a suggestion of leaning +toward him, breathless, one of the gloved hands poising as if to alight +on his arm. He found this less tiring than the compulsion he had lately +been under to agree with a livelier woman about matters strange to him. +And yet he was relieved when she opened her eyes as if to speak. He +regarded her with puzzled but kind expectancy. At last she said, and he +understood that her voice was unnaturally tight and hard: + +"Mr. Bartell tells me that you are a painter, Mr. Ewing." + +"I'm trying to be--they are very kind here." + +"Your father was Gilbert Ewing--a painter?" + +"Oh, you _knew_ him?" He thrilled at the thought, but was disappointed. + +"Mr. Bartell mentioned his name--and yours." + +"He was a painter, yes; he died out there in Colorado." + +She seemed to shudder ever so slightly and her eyes closed again. + +"And your--your mother?" The words were hardly more than a whisper. + +"My mother died when I was very small." + +Again she seemed to wince under a sting. But now she fell away from that +waiting tenseness with which she had held him. The hand that had hovered +over his arm fell limply into her lap, and she leaned back in her chair. + +"I'm afraid you aren't very well," he ventured. "The rooms are close." + +She opened her eyes, with no sign of having heard. Sitting forward in +her chair she gazed ahead with narrowed eyes. + +"I am an old woman and dull, Mr. Ewing, but I should like to have you +come and see me." + +"I'll be glad to come," he answered promptly enough, though he could not +keep surprise from his voice. + +"Come to-morrow, if you will, and pardon an old woman's whim in asking +you with so little ceremony." + +"I will come, of course." He wondered if she felt a city loneliness like +his own. + +"Thank you. I shall be in after four." She gave him a card from a small +silver case at her belt. "The room _is_ close. You may fetch me tea." + +He was certain her eyes were sharply on him as he went, and when he +returned, her full gaze swept him with a look in which he curiously read +incredulity, with something beside that might have been fear or +repulsion--he could not determine. She took the tea, but set it down +untasted. A very queer old lady he thought her. He stood by in +embarrassment, not knowing what to say. Glancing about for inspiration +he was relieved to see Bartell bearing down upon him from the side of +Mrs. Laithe. He came up jovially. + +"I've been ordered to separate you two, Kitty. Young men aren't +plentiful at this time, and Eleanor wants one." + +"Thank you for bringing him, Chris." She gave Ewing a little nod, which +he construed as his release, and he turned to meet Mrs. Laithe. + +She sought his eyes with that swift look of apprehension which had +before puzzled him, and threw another glance toward Mrs. Lowndes, who +now chatted smilingly with Bartell. She seemed to be reassured. + +"I do hope you've not been bored. No? I was afraid. Come and meet my +sister," and she momentarily swept away his memories of the queer old +lady by leading him to the girl in white who poured tea. + +"Virgie, this is Mr. Ewing." + +The girl looked up with that hint of shyness he had before observed in +her. The eyes instantly recalled his own mountain lake when the light +showed it to far, green depths. But they fell at once, for she inclined +her head toward him, seized a cup and demanded sternly, "Cream or +lemon--I mean I'm very glad to know you. Do you take sugar?" + +In his own embarrassment he would have told her, but Mrs. Laithe broke +in with her low laugh. + +"He doesn't want tea, child, he only wants----" + +The girl interrupted defensively, with a flutter of eyelids toward +Ewing: "I can't remember _what_ they like when they come back the second +time. It's too much to expect." + +"Your martyrdom is over, dear. No one wants more tea, and most of them +are escaping. Talk to Mr. Ewing while I speed them." + +The girl sank wearily into a chair, with a rueful glance at the table's +disarray of cups and plates. + +"I'll dream about tea to-night." Her hands met disconsolately in her +lap. + +"I suppose there was a lot of it," Ewing replied sympathetically. + +"Why do they do so many insane things here?" demanded the girl. "They're +always at something. Town is tiresome." + +"But don't you live here?" + +"Dear no! I went to live with mamma's sister up in New Hampshire when I +was small, after mamma died. There was no one here to raise me. And now +that I'm raised they want me back, but I shy at things so--dad says I'm +not city broke. I shall hold off another year before I get into this +sort of thing--" She waved an ably disparaging hand toward the backs of +several unsuspecting people who lingered. Then she looked up to meet his +laugh and laughed prettily with him. The two had found common ground by +some freemasonry of the shy. + +"Does it seem like a play to you, too?" he asked; "everyone playing a +part and making you wonder how it's coming out?" + +"Well"--she debated--"I used to have that, when I was at school and came +here for holiday times. I was always expecting great things to happen +then. But they never did. You'll be disappointed if you expect them. +Everybody rides down Broadway in the morning and back again at night, +and they make such a fuss about it that you think something worth while +is coming off, but it doesn't. _I_ know." She achieved this with an air +of mellowed cynicism that almost won his respect. + +"But things _must_ happen where there's so much life," he insisted. + +"You're very young, aren't you?" she retorted. "Quite a boy, I should +think. Sister said so. You'll see, though. It isn't one bit more a +happening life than ours up at Kensington. Yours must have been the +happening life, there in the West. Tell me about Clarence. Is he a real +cowboy yet? He says he's a real one, but I couldn't believe it. Those I +saw in the Wild West show looked as if they'd had to study it a long +time. Can Clarence lasso a wild cow yet?" She leaned toward him with +friendly curiosity. They were amazed half an hour later when they looked +up to find Mrs. Laithe standing by them, the only other occupant of the +room. + +"You must come oftener," urged Mrs. Laithe. Her sister gave him her hand +with a grip that made him wonder at its force. + +He pushed through the evening crowd of Broadway, pleasantly reviewing +his talk with the girl. At Forty-second Street it occurred to him that +this was the first time he had walked the street unconscious of its +throng. He had been self-occupied, like most of its members. + +But the girl, he reflected, would go away. The friend, the near one, to +take and give, man or woman, was still to be found. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE TRICK OF COLOR + + +The men of the Rookery toiled, in the season of toil, with that blithe +singleness of purpose they brought to their play. Ewing learned this the +following morning when, after an hour in his own place, correcting some +of those hasty first arrangements, he began an idling tour of the other +studios. These occupied the two upper floors of the building, those +beneath flaunting signs of trade on the ground-glass doors one passed in +the long climb from the street. + +From Baldwin's studio--Baldwin was sketching in from the model a +kneeling Filipino prisoner with head thrown back and hands bound behind +him--Ewing descended to Chalmers's place to find its owner finishing, +with many swift pen strokes, the filmy gown of a debutante who underwent +with downcast eyes the appraisal of an elderly beau. This absorbed and +serious Chalmers was so unlike the frivolous night bird who reviled his +art editor that Ewing forbore to distract him. + +Griggs, in the studio back of Chalmers, was soberly work-bent over the +wash-drawing of a sword fight, an illustration for what he confided to +Ewing was the latest "high boots and hardware novel." + +"One lovely thing," explained the artist, "they all take the same +pictures--the plighted troth in the chateau garden; the lone hero +spitting eight low-browed mercenaries of the scoundrelly duke at the +end of the blind passage; 'nother fight on the main stairway of the +palace, girl in view back of the hero, who's still acting the village +cut-up with his little rapier; and the last picture, reward of hero in +front parlor of the chateau, my Lord the Cardinal standing by to bless +the happy pair, and the wicked Duke Bazazas being dragged out by loyal +serving men to be finished off in the woodshed. The caption for that one +always is, 'At Last, My Darling!' I just glance along the proofs until I +light on those scenes. It saves a lot of reading, and I think of getting +a set of rubber stamps to do the pictures with." + +"You seem to be all black-and-white men here," remarked Ewing. "Aren't +any of you painters? I've thought I'd like to work in color--to learn +the trick of it." + +Griggs glanced up at him, then smiled largely. + +"The trick of color, eh? Sure! There's a boy upstairs next door to +you--old Pop Sydenham. I'll take you up now, but don't let him hear you +call it 'the trick of color.' Pop has been at that trick for over a +century now--I believe he's a hundred and nineteen years old to-morrow. +He's got a darned refined sense of color, too. I guess he's seen every +color in the world, except some of those he puts on his own canvases. +Some of those I don't believe he ever saw anywhere else. But Pop's worth +knowing if you're keen to paint. He's a whole Art Students' League in +himself. Come on, he'll be proud to have you notice him." + +Wiping his hands neatly on his jacket--plainly a long-established custom +with him--Griggs led the way to a room across the hall from Ewing's. He +opened the door in answer to a call and pushed Ewing in before him. +Sydenham leaned back on his stool to peer at them around the corner of +his easel. + +He was an old man, as Griggs had said. White hair fell in sparse locks +over his ears, and his short, roughly pointed beard was scant enough to +reveal sunken cheeks. But the face was tanned to a wholesome brown, and +the eyes that glanced over his gold-rimmed spectacles were full of fresh +good-humor. He nodded to Griggs and clambered down from his stool to +greet Ewing. + +"He's a line man now," announced Griggs after the introduction, "but +some busybody has gone and told him that there's such a thing as real +color. Of course I don't pretend to know myself, but I told him you did. +He's your neighbor on this floor. Run in often and make yourselves at +home with each other," he concluded cordially. "I must hurry back and +finish a fight." + +"May I look?" asked Ewing, his eyes running about the room to the many +canvases. + +"My summer's work is there--Look? yes; but I can't promise what you'll +see. You bring your own eyes. I can't make eyes, too. If I only could--" +He spoke with a slow, soft gentleness, his blue eyes half shut and +dreamily distant. As Ewing turned to study a landscape leaning against +the wall on a table near by, the painter climbed to his stool and twined +his thin legs confusingly among its supports. Then facing his canvas and +working a brush into the color on his palette he continued: + +"Line is a fact. Color is only a sensation. Anyone can prove line, but +to know color you must have imagination. If you lack that and do have a +gift for humorous abuse you can be an art critic and make quite a bit +of money, I'm told." He had begun to paint as he talked. He spoke with +the same slow gentleness, even when a hint of seasoned bitterness +betrayed itself. + +One close look at the sketches about him had made Ewing rejoice that his +own paintings were safe with Ben Crider. He studied the canvases before +him with pleasure and dismay: wooded hills, grassy meadows, a park slope +with a single birch; mist rising over a marsh; a country road narrowing +into a blaze of sumach. They showed plainly enough, he thought, that +color must be conveyed rather by implication than by blunt directness, +and there, he felt, had been his own great blunder. He had been brutally +direct. + +Some of the pictures before him left him wanting a sharper definition of +line, a more explicit modeling of surface, a treatment less timid, and +the color itself, though it never failed to interest him, often puzzled +or even irritated. He sought for words to disclose what he felt, his +admiration for some of the sketches, his doubt or his rank disbelief as +to others. But the old man suddenly swept the half-formed sentences from +his mind. + +A crash of falling furniture had resounded from the room of Dallas, +forward on their own floor. From the studios below came other crashes, +the noise of falling bodies, and a ringing, metallic clangor. Sydenham +had paused at the first crash, then skipped nimbly from his stool, +shouting gleefully, "There goes Griggs's suit of armor!" Then, to +Ewing's amazement, he twitched the end of a cord that led to a high +mahogany sideboard, causing a cigar box, a copper kettle, and a heavy +volume of prints to fall with resoundings that must have carried to the +farthest studio. The old man faced him with the ecstatically deafened +look of a child amid exploding firecrackers. Then, as he discerned +Ewing's startled look, he explained: + +"It's only a way the boys have every day at one o'clock. That Baldwin +boy started it by upsetting a musket and a brace of cavalry sabers. Then +Griggs followed with his armor. Then they all got to joining in. The +Chalmers boy pulls over his easel, and I understand there's been a +complaint from the people below; but it leaves us feeling rather +friendly, you know, and we're sure it's time to eat." He looked at Ewing +as if seeking to justify his complicity in so childish a performance. +And Ewing, reading the look, helped him to reload his sideboard for the +next day's disturbance. The copper kettle, book and cigar box--the +latter containing half a dozen lumps of coal--were replaced on a thin +board to which the string was attached. + +Sydenham had meantime taken food from a curtained cabinet and was +munching before his easel. He waved the freedom of his larder to Ewing. +"There's bread and half a chicken, and pickles. There used to be ham, +but I forget if it's there yet. Anyway, it wasn't the most expensive +ham. I can't lose daylight by running out. The light changes while I +eat. I'm no Joshua. What did Griggs say of you--crazy boy, that Griggs. +Doing black and white, eh? Show me." + +Ewing had helped himself to the bread and meat, and the two, eating +casually, crossed the hall to his own room. His drawings were at hand +and Sydenham looked at them as he munched, pausing critically now and +then, a bit of bread midway to his mouth. + +"Not bad, not bad! If you can do that well you ought to do better. But +too many of you boys quit when you've learned to do something you can +sell. It's respectable, of course, but shoemakers do as much, and you've +no right to call yourselves artists for it. I'm afraid there isn't +anything made in the world that some one won't buy. And people _know_ if +their boots fit them, or if their bread is good, but they buy pictures +in the dark. There wouldn't be so many men calling themselves painters +if the public wasn't a better judge of sawed lumber or iron castings +than it is of pictures. Where did you study?" + +"My father taught me drawing. He warned me to learn that first." + +"Father, eh? Well--" His eyes rose from the drawings, ranged along the +top of the couch, to the portrait of Ewing's mother, hung between the +two windows, and the speech died on his lips. He stepped back, bit into +a reserve slice of bread and waved an inquiring chicken bone toward the +picture. + +"My mother," explained Ewing. "My father painted it." + +Sydenham's jaw fell, and looking again at the portrait he muttered some +low, swift phrase of bewilderment. Ewing waited for him to speak, but +the old man only stared. + +"It has good color, don't you think?" he ventured at last, but even the +mention of color could not move Sydenham to speech. He absently consumed +the remainder of his food and flicked crumbs from his frayed jacket. + +"You look like her," he said at last, with so much the air of speaking +to himself that Ewing made no answer. He moved toward the door with +bowed head. At the threshold he looked back at Ewing a brief moment, +then went out, closing the door softly behind him. + +Ewing decided that his neighbor was a curious old man. Recalling other +curious people he had met in this strange new world, he was reminded of +the lady who had urged him to call on her. He was still ready to believe +that anyone might wish to talk to him, or to hear him talk. But in spite +of this, the old lady had been queer. From the table he picked up the +card she had given him, studying the name and wondering what they might +talk about. + +He was still feeling this mild wonder when he rang the lady's bell at +five o'clock. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FLESH OF HER FLESH + + +Two persons had waited for Ewing. Mrs. Lowndes was one of them, sitting +forward in her chair and braced on its arms, though her head dropped now +and then in forgetfulness. The other was a big, shambling old man, a +dark man gone gray, his face needing the kindly, yellowish-brown eyes to +save it from sternness. His thickets of eyebrows were joined in a +half-humorous scowl of perplexity. + +"I had to send for you, Fred. You and Herbert Sydenham are the only two +left who were close to me then, and Herbert Sydenham--well--" she +laughed a laugh of exquisitely humorous pain--"Herbert would have +forgotten me any time these twenty years for a striking color scheme, a +streak of unpaintable moonshine. It was you, Fred, or no one, and it +hurt me so! All last night I was on the rocks being ground to bits. I +knew you would say the wise thing." + +The big man had risen to walk the floor, his thick shoulders heaving as +if to throw off invisible burdens, his head shaking doggedly. + +"Yes, Kitty, yes--" His voice was big but low, the voice of his whole +being bent to soothe. He came to her side and reached down to take one +of the frail, blue-veined hands between his own two, huge and hairy. +They closed upon hers with a kind of awkward effectiveness. + +"Of course you had to come to me, but I'm afraid all I can do is to +brace you." + +"I wanted you to be with me. I couldn't have borne it alone, Fred--his +being here--Kitty's child." + +"And you say he doesn't know?" + +"I'm certain of it, and Eleanor Laithe doesn't know; but those are +little things when I know." + +"We'll see, Kitty--we'll see. Perhaps I can help. But I suspect it's one +of those matters where you must be your own guide. You'll act as you +feel; not as I think--not even as you think." + +"Ellen is going to the door," she whispered, almost fiercely, bracing +herself in the chair. + +As the maid held back the curtain at the doorway, Ewing advanced +uncertainly, an embarrassed smile on his lips, the look of one who would +be agreeable if he knew how. He saw Mrs. Lowndes stiffly fixed in her +chair, her white-crowned head thrown back, and he would have taken her +hand but she diverted him from this. + +"Mr. Ewing, my old friend, Dr. Birley." + +Her voice was no longer halting and shallow, as it had been the moment +before when her barriers were down. Ewing swiftly confirmed his +impression of the previous day: this was a lady of immeasurable pride, a +one-time beauty who perhaps treasured the authority her charms had once +conferred upon her, wielding it with little old-fashioned graces. She +seemed to him at the moment to be an almost excessively mannered person, +interesting, but unapproachable. + +He stopped on his way to her chair and shook hands with the big man, who +had come forward. This person was quite as formidable as the curious old +lady, but he was eminently kind of look. + +"Sit here, Mr. Ewing." He indicated a chair. + +"I asked you to come and see me--" The old lady had begun in low, even +tones, but paused, and Ewing was again struck by this seeming of +agitation which had made him remark her the day before. + +"Mrs. Lowndes was interested to hear of your life in the West," said the +big man easily, "and she was good enough to ask me to meet you also. We +were both interested in knowing of you from the Bartells." + +"There is so much we do not understand here in New York," put in Mrs. +Lowndes, rather vaguely, Ewing thought. He looked from one to the other. +The lady puzzled him, but the big man drew him from his embarrassment, +helping him to an ease which he could hardly have achieved with his +hostess alone. + +Without knowing quite how he began he was presently talking. +Unconsciously he directed his speech to the man, who kept kind eyes on +him and led him by questions when he paused. He was aware that the woman +listened and that her eyes searched his face, but he divined, without +meeting them, that they were more curious than kind, and several times, +as she moved in her chair, he seemed to feel sharp little points of +hostility radiating toward him. + +But the big man drew him more and more from the consciousness of her +presence, so that he all but forgot her. It seemed entirely natural to +him that he should be telling this friendly inquirer of his early life, +the first memories of his father and mother, and of the queer, shifting +home they had known. As he told of the death of his mother--both +listeners had seemed strangely alert for that--he was startled by a +sound from the lady--a catching of breath and a gasp of pain. He turned +quickly, but observed only a stiffly courteous gesture bidding him +continue. + +He stopped in confusion, feeling that a strange quiet had come upon the +room. The questions from the big man had ceased, and the woman drooped +in her chair until he could no longer distinguish her outline through +the deepening dusk. Nor was there any sound when his own voice ceased. +Neither figure stirred. He was oppressed by the awkwardness of it. + +"I should have pulled up," he said, with an uneasy laugh. "I forgot I +wasn't on a lone road." + +There was still no sign from the woman, shrunk far into her chair, but +the doctor rose at his speech with a half-muttered, "We're obliged to +you." Ewing rose at the same time, with an impulse to break some strain +that he felt himself sharing. The doctor reached out in the dusk and +turned on an electric light that hung above the table, looking quickly +at Mrs. Lowndes as he did so, for there had come from her a murmur of +protest at the light. Ewing also looked at her from where he stood on +the hearth rug. The lighting of the room had intensified some electrical +current that pulsed from each to each. The woman returned Ewing's gaze +with the absorption of one moved beyond all arts of convention. Her eyes +glistened, ominous of tears, and her small, lean chin trembled as her +lips parted. Ewing turned from her distress, appealing by look to the +big man, who watched them both, but his gaze was at once drawn back to +the woman. She rose from her chair with weak effort and faced him with +something like wild impulse rather than intention, a look, a waiting +poise, that shook him with fear of the unknown. + +Slowly she brought her hands to a wringing clasp at her breast. Her +eyes were frankly wet now as she leaned and peered at him, holding him +immovable. Twice her lips parted with dry little gasps, her hands +working as if to ring the words from her choked throat. + +"My boy!" It was so low that without the look of her lips as they shaped +the words he could not have been sure. + +"My boy--oh, my boy!" This time they were sharper though no louder, and +Ewing's nerves tingled an alarm that ran to the roots of his hair. She +came a half step toward him, and he felt that he was drawing her, +divined that in another moment she would be throwing herself upon him in +surrender to some emotional torrent that raged within her. He was +powerless under this sudden, strange assault. Dumbly he watched her, +closer now by another step, the clasped hands, fighting blindly toward +him, with little retreats to her breast, her dry lips again shaping the +words, "My boy--my boy!" + +And then, even as his own arms were half extended with an instinctive +saving movement--for the woman seemed about to totter--the stillness was +broken by quick steps along the hall, the rattle of curtain rings along +a rod, and the voice of the maid: + +"Mr. Teevan, ma'am!" + +There had been an instinctive wrenching asunder of the three at the +first sound of steps. Yet traces of the stress under which they had +labored were still evident to Randall Teevan as he entered. Mrs. Lowndes +had turned to search among the magazines on the table--not before the +little man had swept her with a comprehending eye flash. + +Ewing, pleasantly delivered from a situation that had grown irksome, a +situation rising from what he considered the too-ready sympathy of an +emotional old woman, allowed his relief full play in the heartiness of +his response to Teevan's greeting. The doctor had squared his shoulders +to another pacing of the room. + +Teevan, missing no item of the drama he had interrupted, chose for +himself the role of blind unconsciousness. So well did he enact this +that Mrs. Lowndes was convinced, and the belief aided her to recover a +proper equanimity. The doctor surveyed the new actor with a skeptic +keenness not so readily to be overcome. + +One glance at Ewing's perturbed but mystified face assured Teevan that +the climax of exposure had not been reached. He bustled amiably about +the room, kissing the hand of Mrs. Lowndes, shaking the hand of the +doctor, straightening a picture on the wall, and, at last, lighting a +cigarette as he faced the room from his favorite post on the hearth rug. + +"I ran in for a moment to see how my lady prospered," with a graceful +wave of the expiring match toward Mrs. Lowndes, "and all is well. I find +her holding court to youth and age, to wit and wisdom, all of which she +combines graciously in her own person. She is looking weary, perhaps, +but rejoiced. Gentlemen, you have served her well. Doubtless our young +friend here, Mr.--Ah, yes, Mr. Ewing--has talked enchantingly. I've had +an art evening with him myself." He bestowed a glance of benevolent +approval on Ewing, who smiled in return. + +"By the way, my lady, I've sent you a brace of birds that lived their +little span of woods life between last spring and yesterday. Ah, but +they came to a fluent richness of body, brown and plump and tender as +first love, and tanged with autumn spices--so blessed be the piece that +brought them low. Doctor, you'd dissect them for their nerve centers or +the intricacies of their bone structure, but I find them admirable in +all aspects. They rejoice my scientific soul even as they lure my carnal +man. Isn't it Duceps, the falconer, friend of old Izaak, who speaks of +birds that both feed and refresh man--'feed him with their choice +bodies, and refresh him with their heavenly voices'? There was a normal +person, now--not one-sided." + +The atmosphere cleared of its cloud wrack as his speech flowed, marked +by pointings of the small, crisp mustache and gracious little pauses of +appeal to each of the listeners in turn. + +From edible songsters he progressed to the cooking of these, and thence +to speech on the art of cooking at large. There were pessimists, it +seemed, to bemoan the day when a _maitre d'hotel_ would die rather than +outlive the dishonor of his master's table, as when Vatel stabbed +himself because the fish for one of Conde's dinners failed to arrive on +time--proving, as Savarin observed, that the fanaticism of honor could +exist in the kitchen as well as in the camp. But in the opinion of the +speaker these were pinchbeck heroics. Vatel would have been the truer +Frenchman, certainly the better _chef_, if, instead of wreaking a messy +violence on himself in his master's kitchen, he had contrived an +_entree_ to replace the missing fish. And we should remember, too, that +the French, good cooks as they are, have but elaborated an art for the +germinal principals of which they are indebted to Italian genius. Italy +first saw the revival of cookery as she first saw the revival of +learning. The land of Savarin lay in darkness until light was brought by +those incomparable artists in the train of Catharine de Medicis. One +might recall how Montaigne was captivated in the land of Horace by the +weighty manner of the _chef_ of Cardinal Caraffa in discoursing upon the +occultisms of his art. The Italians even then held the thing hardly +second to theology. + +The little man here permitted a pause in which he discarded his +cigarette and readjusted the carnation in his lapel, with a sniff at its +spiciness. Then he turned graciously to Ewing. + +"But I must be off--time races so in this little nook! If you're +stepping on, Mr.--Ah, yes--Ewing, to be sure--if you're leaving, I shall +be glad to join you as far as the avenue. My dutiful love, lady, and to +you, doctor, that virtue which superstition ascribes to your pellets. +The word 'health' could never have been coined by the healthy, could it? +I dislike to use the word baldly." + +Ewing rose, glad of the exit thus provided. It was kind of people to +concern themselves about his affairs, but he wished they could be less +peculiar. He bowed to Mrs. Lowndes and shook hands with the doctor. He, +at least, was understandable. + +When they had gone the old lady faced her friend with a calmness that +surprised him. + +"Fred, what sorry, what terrible things can make us young again! I feel +now as I felt that other night--just at this hour so many years +ago--when I knew she'd gone--knew she'd gone." + +"He's Kitty's boy." The big man fronted her as if for a feat of +persuasion. + +"Don't, Fred! I've just weathered that point. I was weak, but +Randall--Randall saved me. He's dreadful, Fred, unnatural, +impossible--oh, terribly impossible!" She faced him dauntlessly, her +cheeks glowing with faint spots of color. + +"I liked him, Kitty. He seems----" + +"You're a physician, accustomed to monstrosities. He's something we +don't speak of, my friend. And see--you _must_ see--what he would suffer +if he knew." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +TEEVAN AS SPECIAL PROVIDENCE + + +Ewing was delighted by an invitation from the little man to dine. They +had reached the avenue after walking in silence through a side street. +Such moments were rare with Teevan. Not often did he fail of speech, +even in his periods of calculation. But this was a moment requiring nice +adjustments. The suggestion about dinner came as they paused at the +corner. + +"If you'd like to have me I'd be mighty glad," responded Ewing. + +They turned toward Ninth Street, and Ewing told of his hour at Mrs. +Lowndes', scarce conscious of Teevan's questioning, for the little man +probed with an air of discreet condolence that would have won a far more +reticent talker. Ewing was gratified by this attention from a man who +knew the world of cities, and whose mind must usually be occupied with +affairs of importance. He felt himself drawn to Teevan by bonds of +sympathy that tightened momentarily. + +"My dear mother-in-law is a sentimental thing," the little man confessed +with a delicate intimation of apology. "She makes any sad tale her own. +The theater affects her, the woes of stage creatures, quite as you tell +me your own very human little story did. My arrival must have saved you +from one of her rather absurd manifestations. She's a dear old soul, +with quantities of temperament, but she recovers with amazing facility, +I'm bound to say. If you met her to-morrow she'd likely freeze you with +a nod." + +Ewing was not sorry to hear this, though he thought it hardly polite to +say so. + +When they reached the house in Ninth Street Teevan ushered in his guest +with a charming hospitality. + +"Come to the library. The man will bring you an _aperitif_ while I +escape from this accursed frock coat. Not a word about your own dress! I +took you as you were--but a jacket for me, if you'll pardon it." A +servant entered in answer to his ring. + +"Sherry and bitters, Farrish, and Mr. Ewing will dine with us. Is my son +in?" + +"Mr. Alden is dining out, sir." + +"All the better, my boy. We shall be the chummier for Alden's absence. +Make the house yours while I change. There are the evening papers; or +perhaps you'll be interested by those cabinet bits--jades and scarabs +and junk of that sort; a few fairish pieces of Greek glass--that Tanagra +isn't bad, nor those Limoges enamels. The netsukes and sword guards are +rather good Japanese bits, and there are one or two exquisite etchings +on ivory--_un instant, n'est-ce pas?_" + +Ewing lay back in his chair and sipped the sherry when it came. His +enjoyment of the room's ensemble was too nearly satisfying to require +examination of it by detail. It was a room of discreet and mellowed +luxury, with an air of jaunty ripeness that distinguished its composer. +The chairs solicited, the walls soothed, the broken light illumined +perfectly without dazzling. He was thrilling agreeably to his host's +evident interest in him when the latter returned, beaming with a smile +of rare good-fellowship. + +They were presently at table in a dining room whose plain old mahogany +and thin silver produced, like the library, an impression of finished +luxury without flaunt. The dinner itself possessed an atmosphere of +sophistication, a temperament, even. It sated the exigent appetite of +Ewing--his luncheon with Sydenham had been a mere adventure in +meagerness--and sated without cloying, but it was more than food to him. +As he ate, and drank of a burgundy whose merit he was ill qualified to +appraise, he was conscious of a real fascination growing within him for +the man who favored him with so distinguished a notice; who talked, +seemingly, with the same nice care to please him that he would have +exercised for a tableful of more difficult guests. + +Nor did Teevan lack the parts of a listener. Ewing found himself talking +much and enjoyably. With so tactful a listener, so good a friend, it was +no longer necessary to remember that he was new in this land and +unknowing of its smaller ways. It occurred to him, indeed, as he +reviewed this memorable evening, that he had talked more than his host. +But he was spared the youthful blush at this by remembering that he had +been questioned persistently--"toled," as Ben would have said, with +baits of inquiry. Incredible as it seemed, Teevan wished him to talk and +had neatly made him do so. He felt that the little man must know him +through and through. He had been, of course, a book in large print and +short words, but he was flattered to believe that Teevan had found him +worth opening. + +And now he was certain he had discovered the longed-for friend; one soul +had come from the oblivious throng to touch his own, to call him out and +speak him fair. He was companioned by one as likable as he was learned, +by one who meant, it was intimated, to seek every opportunity to +befriend him. + +And the need of such a friend became more and more apparent to Ewing as +they sat in the library after dinner over coffee and liqueurs. It was +brought upon him that he had never known his own rashness in braving so +difficult a world with so modest an equipment. The tragedy of failure +was a commonplace in the little man's experience. So many young dreamers +like his guest were rejected after bitter trials. It was an +inconsequential world, whose denizens chased butterflies and too often +permitted sober worth to perish by the wayside. + +At times during the evening Ewing had feared a return of that +distressing malady to which his host was subject, but this he was +happily spared. + +When he took a reluctant leave it was with two emotions: a fervent +liking for the wise man who had so generously befriended him, and doubt +of himself, the first he had known. It came like an icy blast out of +summer warmth and shine. + +Teevan listened for the door to close on his guest. When he heard this +he sank into his chair and chuckled gaspingly. Presently he drank a +glass of brandy, smiled in remembering pleasure, lighted a cigarette, +and took his post on the hearth rug, his eyes dancing elfishly, his lips +moving. + +His son found him so an hour later, for the little man was tireless even +when, lacking an audience, he merely dramatized his own reflections. +Seeing him to be familiarly engaged, Alden Teevan would have withdrawn +with a careless, half-contemptuous nod, but his father detained him with +a gesture, and a sudden setting of his face into purposeful hardness. + +"Sit down." He looked into the hall, then closed the door and faced his +son. The latter regarded him with coolly impertinent interest. + +"You'd make a ripping conspirator in a melodrama, Randy. What you going +to do now--steal the will?" + +Teevan laughed grimly. He crossed back to the hearth rug and took a +fresh cigarette, which he lighted with studious deliberation. His words +followed swiftly upon the first exhalation of smoke, and his eyes +fastened venomously on his son's. + +"I'll give you a morsel to jest with--conspirator, indeed!--yes, and a +will. See if that facile wit of yours is up to it, my bonny stripling." +He played with his moment, drawing on the cigarette with leisurely +relish, and gazing into the smoke with eyes of an absorbed visionary. + +"Well?" The young man yawned ostentatiously. + +"You missed dining with your brother this evening. He was good enough to +break bread at my table." + +The young man took a cigarette from the lacquered bowl at his side and +lighted it with the same deliberation his father had shown. + +"Really? I didn't know you had another son." + +"Thank God I haven't--but your mother had, and that precious sniveling +grandmother of yours has another grandson. You might recall that when +you chatter of melodrama--and wills. I believe her estate is not one +you'd care to divide." + +"What rot are you gibbering with those monkey airs of yours?" + +"Delicate as ever in your raillery! Perhaps you think I'm drunk. Perhaps +I am. But I dropped in on your grandmother this afternoon in time to +prevent her clasping that nameless whelp to her breast. A lovely bit I +spoiled, my merry-andrew!--tears and fondlings to-night, a codicil +to-morrow. I'm none too sure there'd have been a codicil, though. +Likelier a new will--'give, devise, and bequeath the sum of one dollar +to my grandson Alden Teevan, who has already wheedled me out of more +than was good for him, and the residue of my estate, both real and +personal, to my beloved grandson, Gilbert Denham Ewing----'" + +"Ewing! That chap Nell Laithe brought back with her--that rustic +lout----" + +"Have I won your attention, lad? Another item I chance to recall--permit +me, since you've mentioned the lady's name--have you caught the look of +her eye as it rests upon the creature--how it follows him, runs to him, +hangs upon him with sweet tenacity? Have you felt the glow in her voice +as she speaks to him? A woman of the world, young, tender, romantic, +stormed by this Galahad of the hills, who first wins her solicitude by +his helplessness, and then, before the lady quite knows it, coerces her +whole being by sheer masculine dominance. Ah, you haven't read +that--only enough of it to puzzle you, perhaps enrage you. You haven't +your father's eyes. I read it all in three glances: one at him and two +at her. Decidedly, you've not your father's eyes." + +"Nor his love of many words. So that's the son of my mother, of the +woman who failed to adore you after a brief but heroic effort?" + +"Likewise, I dare say, the lover of a woman who will henceforth fail to +appraise you at anything like your extraordinary worth. Such blind +things they are, eh, my boy? She regards the two of you superficially, +_bien entendu_, and hence to your prejudice. There's a likeness between +you, the same cast of face, even a likeness of voice, and your noses are +identical--the nose of that woman--but the differences are all in his +favor. You have grace of a drawing-room sort, a certain boudoir polish +of manner, but his face is fresher, kinder, quicker of sympathy, more +compelling, and there's that out-of-doors look in his eye, the look of +readiness and power. You know what that sort of strength means with the +pretty animals." + +"You speak bitterly--but then, you've competed with that sort." + +"My unhappy infant! You'd at least have found a barren sort of dignity +in actual competition. As it is----" + +"You got her by a trick, I've heard, from the man who took her away from +you when she'd found you out." + +"Tell that to your grandmother--it may help you out of some money." + +"Stop it, governor! I'll quit if you will. Come!" He spoke with a drop +of the voice, and lifted a hand in appeal. + +"When you like--I've wasted no words." + +"It's true, all you've said? Grandmother knows?" + +"Thirty seconds later and I'd have had to bless the pair." + +"And now?" + +"It's safe for the present. She forgot. She'll remember to-morrow. I'd +trust him back there then. She'd see only an obscene excrescence." + +"It's a pleasant situation!" + +"It's hellish! Can you imagine _my_ feelings? You've touched on them +with your graceful, filial banter." + +"What will you do?" + +"'What will you do?'" He mimicked the other with a snarl. "Well, I begin +by having him to dine. I study him, I win him. I have him now. He will +dine with me other times. I'm not so sure he won't come to reverence me. +Oh, it's an ideal situation! Damn it! How they fall! _We_ couldn't +contrive them half so cunningly. The fool hath said in his heart 'There +is no God'--a fool, indeed! There is a God, and He has a devil in Him, +or He couldn't have given me this to play out. I have him, I tell you, +her son and his son, think of it--her lover's son that they both +loved--served up to me!" + +"What can you do with him?" + +"_Do_ with him?" The elder man eyed his son for a long minute, then +dropped into a chair, and for an interval the young man pursued his +rather uncomfortable reflections in silence. At last he broke this with +another query. As there was no response, and his father's face was +turned away, he rose and sauntered in front of him. The eyes met his +musingly, and he saw that the mouth was fixed in a rather hideous +smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +AN ELUSIVE VENUS + + +The days that followed were marked for Ewing with a puzzling +discouragement; puzzling, because there had been no failure. A failure +would have left him reliant, however battered, but nothing good had been +disproved. He was fighting some black doubt of himself, insidiously +nursed, he knew not how. + +His friend, Randall Teevan, almost an intimate since the night they +dined together, daily predicted great works of him. Where the careless +picture makers of the Rookery were content with assurances that he could +turn out marketable "stuff," Teevan showed him far and lofty eminences +that he might scale, had he a spirit for the feat. + +Undoubtedly there were obstacles that would daunt a less spirited +novice, or one with less than the supreme powers of his young friend, +but he, the intrepid, the enduring one, could surmount them. The danger +in this time of 'prenticeship, Teevan suggested, was sluggish content +with a cheap facility. The tyro learns to do a thing that sells, and +remains commercially solvent but, spiritually, an example of arrested +development--artistically dead. + +He left Ewing at these times with a sense of his present futility, but +also with a genial pity for the men who were doing things to sell--and +selling them; all unconscious of the remote, the vacant summits, of +true art. A little while before he would have rejoiced that his work +could appear beside the work of these men. That would have been a +triumph glorious enough. But he could no longer desire so mean a +success. He must strive for the higher things, if for no other reason, +because this fastidious critic expected him to accomplish them. He could +not affront that captious taste with things done for a dollar. Teevan, +it seemed, had found life wearing on his dearest illusions. Contact with +the world had left him little to believe in. Yet he confessed to believe +in Ewing; confessed it with a shamed, humorous _naivetee_, and with +pleasant half doubts, as a man of tried unbelief laying a bed to fall +back on at his next undeceiving. + +Ewing was fired to high resolve by this witty, this tender betrayal of +confidence in his powers. He could not bear to think that his friend +should one day find him, too, a bit of specious insincerity. He +consecrated himself to guard this last illusion. It was a pleasure, a +duty, and an ambition whose rewards would magnify them both. + +The hill boy no longer yearned solitary in the crowd for a day with Ben +Crider, or perhaps an evening with him of little easy silences. Teevan +filled his needs. In some sort the little man became his idol; a +constant presence before which every act of his days must be judged. +Teevan was a smiling but inexorable arbiter of his destiny: a judge +humane but incorruptible, a man experienced in the obliquities of human +nature, but never tolerant of these. + +Teevan showed him pictures, the work of masters, piloting him through +galleries with instructive comment. Ewing instinctively felt the +accuracy of his taste, and divined the soundness of his technical +knowledge. Often he overlooked a blemish of bad drawing till Teevan +pointed it out. Often Teevan defined to his eye some masterly bit of +lining in a picture otherwise hopeless. And of color, that splendid +mystery, thing of trick and passion, the little man discoursed with rare +sanity. + +After these provings of his expertness, Ewing was humble when Teevan +chose to point out the more striking deficiencies of his own work. If +Teevan made him feel that he must unlearn the vicious little he knew, he +performed the duty with a tact that left the youth as large with +gratitude as with discouragement. It was by Teevan's counsel that he +went to the school. The men of the Rookery tried to dissuade him from +that. + +"They can't give you anything you haven't got," warned Baldwin. "And if +you don't act stubborn they may spoil what you have. You've learned your +A B C's, and they'll only tell you at the school to learn them another +way. They'll make you feel like a clumsy ass. Stay away." + +Well-meant advice, but superficial, as Teevan observed when he heard of +it. + +"Your friend confirms what I suspected," he went on, with a pleasant +glint in his eyes. "Those chaps would have you become a decent hack on +the pitiful facility you've already acquired. Pitiful, mark me, as +compared with your capacity. But I've learned to expect little in this +world of weak purpose. I dare say you won't endure it long at the +school. I grant you a fortnight there; then you'll tell me you give up." + +He began his lessons at the League next day, fired with intent to +please his friend. He would fail, yes--fail seventy times seven, but he +would stand up. + +He went, however, a little weighed down by the memory of his various +advisers. From the entrance he was directed above by an official-looking +person who yawned. Then he found himself in one of many cramped, +stall-like compartments, facing a plaster woman who crouched on one +knee. His position was between two youths who were annoyed by his +nearness. When he edged from the glowering of one the other nudged his +drawing board with an indignant elbow. There was no retreat, for the +students were packed closely about him. The one behind him made +disparaging remarks about the dimensions of his back, which seemed +unkind, considering that he did not hesitate to use the back from time +to time as an easel. + +The air was hot and thick with charcoal dust. The crowded disorder +confused him. He tried to think only of the cast. He began at the head, +as was his custom, and felt a moment's exhilaration in studying the +delicate shadows beneath the filleted curls. + +He was aroused by sounds of derision from behind, and ominous prophecies +of what "Old Velvet" would do to him when he caught sight of that +pompadour. He observed then that the other men were not working at the +head first, but mapping out the entire figure at once with long, raking, +angular lines that blocked the shadows in square masses. He half rose +and looked about. They were all working alike, with their drawing boards +far out, and with blunt charcoal. He had spent half an hour sharpening +his, and had hugged his drawing board. + +He sat down again, impelled by protests from behind and drew the entire +figure, but he could not bring himself to do it in those rude angles. He +drew it with a single line--down the curving flank, about the gracious +knees, skirting the feet, and up once more to round the farther shoulder +that drooped above the nestling breast. Although he did not know it, +this was a feat; the swing of the body was almost perfect, yet he had +not skirmished a moment. + +The youth behind him was now peering through spectacles above his +shoulder. + +"You're a queer duck!" he said; "but he'll make you do it his way. What +do you mean by drawing like that?" + +"Why?" asked Ewing, confused. "Let's see yours." + +The other exhibited. There was no outline, there were no gracious +curves, only a suggestion of angular shadows, scratched across with +brutal straightness. Yet, when Ewing squinted his eyes a bit the thing +stood out. + +"Wait till I get _my_ shadows in," he said. + +"Cart before the horse!" rejoined the critic. "I see your finish with +the old man." + +Ewing started to lay in his shadows as the other had done, but it seemed +as if that delicate body appealed for gentler treatment. He rubbed out +the vandal lines and began swinging around the figure in the curving +strokes habitual with him, strokes that nursed each lovely rondure like +caresses. Then, until the closing hour, he polished, picking out the +precious little reflected lights that saved her treasures from shadow. + +"Red ruin for you, my boy!" exclaimed the spectacled one behind him. +"Ravage and slaughter! Old Velvet will scalp you." + +Ewing stood up, released by his neighbors, who now rose in a clatter of +toppled stools. + +"What's the matter with it?" he asked. + +"Finicky! You've _fussed_ it to death. Velvet will slay you for those +reflected lights alone--and your nice curly lines--oh, Lord!" + +"But they're there, those lights," protested Ewing. "And it's the way +I've always drawn. I suppose there are different methods." + +"There's only one way with Velvet, and that's Velvet's way." Then with a +damnatory waving-away of the offensive drawing he sauntered off to put +his stuff in his locker. + +Ewing dined alone that night. He was in no mood for Teevan. + +Back in his place next day, still incredulous of defeat so swift, he +waited for the master. He watched him going the rounds of the other +students, the light playing on the purple velvet of the garment that +gave him his title. His beard was a rich growth, his mustaches curled +upward at the ends, his large, heavy eyelids drooped in a perpetual +_ennui_. His usual criticism was a weary "Rub it out!" + +When at last he stood beside Ewing's work he gave an effect of +collapsing, as if his whole being cried out: "This is too much!" He took +the drawing from the board and stuck it to the wall with two thumb +tacks. Then, picking up a bit of charcoal, he wrote across it, "A +perfect example of how not to do it." + +He did not return to Ewing, but, after examining a few other drawings, +he turned to leave the room. As he passed, Ewing reached across two +neighbors--who protested--and caught the velvet jacket. + +"Perhaps you can give me an idea," he said. The other looked at him as +if he had not seen him before. + +"Use intelligence! Good God--use intelligence!" he almost wailed, and +made his escape. + +Ewing mechanically placed a fresh sheet before him and began again, but +he rubbed out as fast as he drew. The next morning he found the paper +foul from many erasures, and started afresh. He could see now that his +first drawing, posted in irredeemable ignominy, was not all that it +should be. It lacked the freedom of work he had done in his solitude. He +tried to conjure back that old free feeling, but the days passed and it +drew farther away. Some of the students changed places and began on +other casts. The better men went every other week into the life class. +But Ewing stayed desperately by his crouching woman. He studied her +until he loved and loathed her. The master came and went. Sometimes he +ignored Ewing. When he did notice him it was always with a fresh blow on +the sunk heart of the boy. Once he sat in his place and ran some of his +own brusque, effective lines along the figure, the lines that every +other youth in the room punctiliously imitated. They mingled with +Ewing's strokes as a driving rain mingles with a bed of flowers. + +"If you'd only give up your damned little way," he complained. + +"I wish you'd explain a bit," pleaded the boy. + +"Old Velvet" turned to the spectacled young man. "Give him your study. +There, do it like that." + +Then came the beginning of the end. He lost himself in a crawling +blindness of imitation. The old power that had made him draw without +knowing how he did it gathered its splendid garments and withdrew as +mysteriously as it had once come to possess him. He drew, but he would +no longer have recognized what he did as the work of his own hand. He +thought of Griggs, who had said, "Style?--I'd know a scrap of your stuff +if I found it in an ash barrel in Timbuctoo!" + +The thought of those friendly men knowing his degradation was another +stone on the grave of his self-esteem. It was this that made him wait +when the others had gone one night, to take down that first crucified +drawing from the wall where it had remained, torn and hanging by one +tack. + +"Will you give it to me?" said a voice, and, as he did not care one way +or the other, the spectacled young man put it in his portfolio. +Afterwards Ewing thought of asking him why he wanted it, but he did not +come back again. He had been advanced to the life class. + +The master did not speak to Ewing again. He made, at intervals as he +passed, the pantomime of rubbing out. And Ewing obeyed, beginning each +time the task that grew day by day more hatefully useless. In the +beginning he had felt that if he could get that plaster woman off by +himself he could draw her. The long habit of solitude had left him +confounded by the crowd. There had been something almost shameful to him +about drawing publicly, and he had the impulse to curl an arm about his +sketch to hide it a little as he worked. He felt sick with the hot, dry +air and the breathing of the stallful of men. When the door was opened +the odor of turpentine came from the room where they were painting. It +had for him a familiar, happy smell. + +"I wish I could go in there," he said once to a fat youth beside him. + +"That's what the dubs always say," was the reply. "It's so much easier +to paint." + +He spent a day going around, looking at the better students' work, +asking them how they had learned to draw as "Old Velvet" wanted them to. +They had a great many things to say that sounded technical, but he heard +nothing that opened a way to him. + +He hated the school; he hated the street that led to it, with a quiet +ground swell of hatred. But, deepest of all, he hated his own despair. +He felt that his shattered courage would never heal. He was like a +dishonored soldier whose sword has been publicly broken. He remembered +the fine things he had said to Teevan about his ambition, and the blush +that suffused him ached. At the thought of Mrs. Laithe bringing him from +his wild beast's hole, as if he had been worth her splendid faith, his +heart withered within him. At intervals he started as if he suddenly +awoke, saying to himself, "And to think it could have ended like this!" + +At the end of a fortnight he sat for three days without doing anything, +a stick of charcoal in his hand. He did not come again, and his fat +neighbor used up his charcoal paper, after putting fine mustaches on all +his crouching Venuses. + +He had shunned his acquaintances during this time of travail. But twice +had he seen Teevan since his first day at the League. He had tried to be +cheerful at those meetings, still hoping the lines would come right, but +he felt each time that Teevan saw straight to his wretched heart of +doubt; and he would not risk another meeting until he could report an +overwhelming victory--or defeat, if it must be so. + +That he did not for a day forget his good friend, there was ample +testimony; though this was of a nature that Teevan must remain oblivious +to. On the night of the day that saw his first buffeting he walked the +streets until late, rejoicing mournfully that there were still so many +people who did not know his shame. Half unwittingly he wandered into +Ninth Street, and stood a long time opposite Teevan's house, finding a +solace in his friend's possible nearness. Then, as the days of defeat +followed with so deadly a sequence, this walk and vigil became his +nightly habit. Sometimes the house was darkened. Then he felt free to +gaze at it. Sometimes there were lights, and his survey was brief and +furtive. Until the very last there was always a bit of hope to spice the +melancholy of this adventure: to-morrow the thing might be done as they +all did it, the master be moved from blame to praise, and himself be +free to enter this street bravely, noisily, careless of recognition, to +tell how the big way had been opened. He had pictured the pleasure that +would light Teevan's face as he heard this tale of conquest. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MRS. LAITHE IS IN + + +On the ultimate night of defeat Ewing walked as usual into Ninth Street +for his vigil before Teevan's house. He had come to a wall that must be +scaled. He could no longer believe in any chance way round it or +gracious opening through it. Teevan would have to be told, and he was +sorry for Teevan. The little man had believed so. + +He scanned the starred strip of sky above him as if for words to renew +the faith of his friend. His eye ran along the house fronts opposite, +but they were blunt, uninspiring masses with shut doors and curtained +windows, houses turned away from him. He wished for another friend, less +exacting than Teevan, who would take defeat lightly. Then one of the +houses stood out familiarly, the Bartell house, with its generous width +and its hospitable white door. He had not cared to go there in his time +of suspense, but now he was overwhelmed with a sudden longing to see +Mrs. Laithe, to feel her friendliness and confide to her, perhaps, a +hint of his plight. At least he could look at her a little while, even +if he told her nothing. + +He crossed the street quickly, walked toward the avenue until he reached +the marble steps, and rang the bell. It occurred to him dismally while +he waited that she might not be in; still worse, that there might be +people about who would keep him from her. It had been so most of the +few times he had called. There was always friendliness in the look she +gave him across those shoreless seas of talk, but too often there had +been little beside this look. + +The man admitted him and was not sure if Mrs. Laithe was in; he would +see. Ewing strolled back to the soothing snugness of the library and +dropped on the couch. Even to be there alone was something: the room was +alive with her, and the restful quietness of it made him conscious all +at once of the long strain he had been under. Leaning his head back, he +shut his eyes in a sort of desperate surrender, letting the tragedy of +his failure swirl about him. But something from the woman he awaited +seemed to have flowed in upon him, healing his hurt with gracious little +reminders of her. He breathed a long sigh of relief, and for a moment +almost lost himself in unconscious rest. It was good to stop thinking. + +It was thus she saw him as she came softly in, with scarce a silken +rustle. Her face, as she gazed, lost its look of welcome and ready +speech, for she saw all his anguish uncovered there before her. It was +in his young face, gaunt and jaded and bleached to the city pallor; in +the closed eyes, the folded lips; and in the body wearily relaxed. So +little life he showed, it seemed to her he might be sleeping, and again, +as at the other time, she was shaken by a rush of tenderness for +him--tenderness and fear, alike terrible. + +She could not speak. She hovered a half step toward him, with a hand +instinctively up to shelter and cherish, her eyes wide with pity and a +great gladness. Poised so, she waited, breathless. + +Though she had made no sound, he thrilled suddenly to the knowledge of +her presence, and his eyes opened to hers. They stared dully an instant, +then shone with a quick light that held her exposed and defenseless, +while he came to himself--for the first time in her presence--as a man. +Helpless to stay it, she watched this consciousness unfolding within +him, traced it lucidly from its birth to the very leaping of it from his +lips in a smothered cry of want unutterable. + +So he held her with his look. Though every nerve warned her to flight, +she was powerless even when he started toward her, raising himself +slowly from the couch with his hands; her own hand even groped a little +toward him, blindly fighting its way into both his own. It turned and +nestled there, unreasoningly, warming itself, clasping and unclasping. +He towered above her--she had never felt herself so small, so frail as +now. His two hands fiercely smothered her own, and his eyes were on her +with a look she had never seen there, a look she could not face. It was +then that her tenderness was lost in fear of him, and she forced herself +to laugh. She laughed in the desperate knowledge that his rising arm +threatened her with some crushing, blinding enfoldment where no striving +would avail her--laughed with a little easy, formal grace. + +He fell back dazed, scanning her in uncomprehending dismay as they stood +apart. Then he seemed to recover himself and smiled foolishly as she +moved to a chair. + +"I'm so glad you came," she began with nervous quickness. He dropped +back on the couch, his eyes still on her--the man's eyes. + +She endured the look, but she could not suppress the color she felt +rising in her face. It seemed to her that her strength must go if the +moment lasted a little longer. She knew now that in the weeks of his +absence she had longed for this look--for the fearful joy of it--and the +realization left her overpowered. + +At last, to her relief, he muttered some conventional phrase of his own +pleasure in seeing her. But the look of the man still held her, an +implacable look. She felt that the shy, embarrassed boy in him was gone +forever. She had aged him all in a moment. There was something +splendidly ruthless in his gaze, and in place of the confusion she was +wont to wreak on him he showed a strange, dogged coolness. + +"You've changed," he continued. "You're not well." The wondrous deep +alarm of his tone warmed her through and through. She murmured a +careless disavowal, and her low laugh, like the little comprehending +chuckle of a pleased child, banished from her face for a moment its +almost haggard set. But the face was flatly white again under the dark +of her hair, and the white gown defined her frailness and drooping, as +of some pale, long-stemmed flower fainting of languor in the still heat +of late summer. + +"You are whiter than ever," he insisted, "whiter and finer. You are like +a white rose that is beginning to let its petals fall. You--you are +beyond anything now." She laughed helplessly, as people laugh at +something insupportable. + +"You're going to tell me that people don't talk that way here," he went +on, with his old fling of the head, like that of a horse about to gallop +off, "but you understand me." He sighed, remembering his trouble for the +first time. "But you understand me," he repeated, with a wistful +attenuation of the words. + +"Yes, I understand--everything," she said, seeing again the amazing +sadness in him. Her look seized all the dejection of his attitude, the +listless lean of his head, once upheld so gayly on the strong neck. She +had to exert her will not to go nearer to him. She turned away and +closed her eyes for a moment to shut him out, then opened them quickly +and began to berate him charmingly for having neglected her. "I've +thought of you so much oftener than I've seen you," she concluded. + +He floundered in the old shyness. It had come suddenly on him when he +thought of himself. + +"I've been--at work." + +"Your face shows it," she said, with a swift, unsteady look. "You have +changed, too. You actually look ill." + +He reddened slowly under her scrutiny, stammering protestations, but her +eyes were open to him. She shrugged herself together and assumed a +brisk, motherly air. + +"Is it as bad as _that_--truly? And you told me nothing of it! Come--I +want to know." There was a ring of authority in her voice as she leaned +toward him, her great eyes full of pity and succor. "Is the world +different from what you thought? Let me know--where does it hurt? That's +what they say to children." + +Challenged thus directly, he felt shame at the thought of confession +equally direct. He would come to it only by winding ways, asserting at +first that there was no trouble; then that the trouble was but a little +one; and insisting at last that, though the trouble was great, it might +have been greater. + +Her eyes beat upon him insistently while she drove him to these +admissions. Then she was eager with attention while he compelled himself +to details. He told of his two weeks' humiliation at the school, not +sparing himself, confessing his lack of power, and the pain this +discovery had cost him. When he had finished, with a self-belittling +shrug, she sat silent, bending forward, her hands loosely clasped, her +eyes fixed away from him. + +Now that it was over he felt a sudden lightening of his mood, a swift +consciousness of reliance on the woman, a foreknowledge that her words +would profit him. At last she brought her eyes upon him and cut to the +heart of his woe with a single stroke. + +"The thing is nothing in itself." He drew a long breath of relief. "It's +in the way you take it. If it weakens you, it's bad. If it strengthens +you, it's good. Call the thing 'failure' if you like--but what has it +done to you?" + +"Why, of course"--he broke off to laugh under her waiting look--"of +course I'm still in the race. I see now that I haven't really doubted +myself at all." He looked at her with sudden sharpness. "I'd be ashamed +to doubt myself before you." He sprang to his feet in the excitement of +this discovery and stood alertly before her. + +"It doesn't mean anything, does it?" he went on quickly. "You believe in +me?" + +She laughed defensively. "I believe in you now. You look so much less +like a whipped schoolboy." + +"I won't forget again. That school isn't for me. I can do things those +poor charcoal dusters won't do for years yet. I know that. Baldwin said +they'd spoil me if I wasn't stubborn, and I _was_ stubborn--I am. You +believe I'm stubborn, don't you?" + +She smiled assurance. "You have it--can you use it?" + +"You'll see!" He sat down, continuing almost apologetically, "I worried +more about the effect on others than on myself. It was that threw me +down, a fear that other people might think I was some pretentious fool +who had come here to get over big things and stumbled at the first +little one. I was deathly afraid of hurting other people." + +His eyes had been steadily upon hers with an under-current of +consciousness for what he would have called the "queerness" of her look, +a baffling look that hinted of many things--of sympathy, consternation, +rejoicing, even of embarrassment, and yet it had not distinctly been any +one of these, so quick had been the play of light in her eyes to the +moment they fell before his. + +She released her breath with a sound like a sigh, as if she had been +holding it, and there was another look in her eyes when she at last +raised them to his, one that he could not read, save that it was wholly +serious and, he felt, peculiarly a woman's look. + +"I am sure," she began, "that no one--no one you consider in this way, +could think less of you for a failure. You ought to know that. I want +you to know it." She rose from her chair and stepped to the table with a +little shrug, turning over the leaves of a magazine, her back toward +him. At last she turned her head only, looking at him over one shoulder +and speaking with a laughing, reckless impatience. + +"Oh, fail--fail--fail as often as you like--fail a hundred times and +then--fail." He felt his cheeks burning under her vehemence. She turned +about, facing him squarely. + +"Have I said enough? Do you know what I think of failures now?" + +He rose and stood before her. "You don't know what you've done for me. +You don't know--" Again came that crude impulse to take her in his arms. +It left him feeling like a criminal. As if she had discerned this she +resumed her seat, speaking quickly. + +"Go back to that studio and do things. Do them your own way. It's a +better way for you than any they can teach you, and the next time----" + +"The next time I have a hell----" + +"--a hell of doubt--don't wait--come to me." She rose from her chair. + +"You don't know all this has meant to me," he said feelingly as she gave +him her hand. + +"Good night!" And though the gray eyes were hidden from his, there was +the look in them of one who knows more than she is thought to know. + +As Ewing went out the man was admitting the younger Teevan, who asked +for Mrs. Laithe. Ewing wished it had been the father. He had much of +good to tell the little man now. + +Neither Mrs. Laithe nor Teevan spoke of Ewing after their greeting, +though each was so busy in thought of him that their talk was scant and +aimless for the first five minutes. Alden Teevan was brought back to her +at length by noticing the drawn, tired look of her face, for the sparkle +that Ewing had left there was gone. + +"Nell, you look done up. I'm no alarmist, but you really need to be +frightened. What is it you're doing to take you down so--the same old +round? Is it a visiting guild now, or the Comforters of the Worthy Poor, +or just amateur nursing of sin, sickness, and death?" + +She smiled wanly. + +"The same old round, Alden. I can't keep away from it when I am here. I +know it so well. No one could keep away who knew it well." + +"Futile, futile, futile! Are you equal to a revolution?" + +"More's the pity, no. And I've no time for one. I've a whole family of +consumptives on my hands at this moment, father, mother, two girls and a +boy." + +"And you wear yourself out over a few minor effects like that, instead +of going at the cause. You may save one or two of those people--none of +them of any value, individually; while the same energy put to the root +of the evil might save thousands--and they _are_ of value in the mass. +Think me calloused if you like, but that's mere common sense economy of +effort. You and I--our class--make them live as they do, and we grow +maudlin over it and take them a little soup and many tracts. But we +won't remit our tithes. We keep them down to breed more misery for the +exercise of our little philanthropic fads. I'm radical, you see." + +She turned her head away with a hand wave that seemed to dismiss an +argument familiar and outworn. + +"I know--but I must do what I can." + +He faced her with a sudden insistent energy. + +"Come away, Nell--come farther off. You're too close to the ugly things +now--you lose the perspective. Come away--and come with me, won't you, +Nell? Come away and live. I must say it--I must ask it--come!" + +He read the inexorable in the lift of her head. + +"I understand, Alden--and I thank you--but no." She glanced across at +him and continued more lightly, "I wasn't meant to go far off--to go +above timber line, as Mr. Ewing would say." + +He felt bitterness rising in him at her mention of the name, but he +laughed it away. + +"You'll always do the hardest thing, Nell. I know that. But I--well, one +of the old heathen--Heraclitus, wasn't it?--remarked that the ass, after +all, would have his thistles rather than much fine gold." + +She laughed. "Dad would say, the more ass he, if he wouldn't." + +"I know--we'd rather have our own particular thistles, each of us. But +to live a day or two before we die, Nell! Come with me--stop trying to +mount the whirlwind. You'll only be thrown." + +Again she shook her head, and gently shaped "No!" with her lips. It was +too unemotionally decisive to warrant of any further urging, and he +became silent, with something of pain in his face that her eye caught. + +"I'm sorry, Alden--I've never liked you better--but I'd rather you +didn't ask." + +"You wouldn't have come before, would you, Nell--three months ago?" And +she answered "No" again, very quickly. + +"I must play my little game out in my own way," she continued. "I must +stay beside some one--beside people--who still have heart for trying." + +"Someone, Nell?" + +She caught her lip. + +"Everyone who has fresh hope and stubbornness in defeat." + +"If you'd let me, Nell--" There was the note of real pleading in his +tone. + +"No, Alden." + +"Friends, though?" he queried, seeming at last convinced. + +She thought there was a trace of bitterness in his voice, but she +answered, "Friends, surely, Alden." + +"We've skirted this thing often, Nell, but you never seemed certain +before." + +"I didn't--I think I never was _quite_ so certain before, Alden--but now +I'm driven all one way." + +"I believe that." He rose and spoke in a livelier manner. "But if you +won't be wise for me, Nell, be wise for some one else. For God's sake +feel a little worry about your health. I say you look unpromising at +this moment." + +"I've always been well," she insisted brightly. + +"And, Nell, I've wanted to be so much more than a friend to you that my +feelings are a bit blurred just now--but I believe I'll always do what a +friend should." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE UNBLAZED WAY + + +Ewing was loath to sleep that night, for in sleep he must leave the +thought of her who, having been only a picture to him, had come suddenly +to life. The magic would have seemed no greater if his own mother had +issued livingly from the canvas. How it had happened he knew not, but +this woman was all at once the living spring of his life. The thought of +her was a golden mist enveloping him. He did not once call it love, but +he thought of the gracious women he had loved in books, and knew she was +all of them in one. + +And once he had been almost careless in her presence! How he marveled at +that now, when he knew that henceforth every approach to her would be an +event. He shuddered at the memory of what he had been saved from--that +swift brute impulse to hold her close against his breast. Must he feel +that always--fight it always, to be blasted if he lost? At least in his +own secret world he was free to treasure each memory of her dearness. +And he could make her glad. He could work as man had not worked before. +He could make her a little glad. + +He feverishly began a drawing for the _Knickerbocker_ the next morning. +Craig, the art editor, had said that he could use six drawings as good +as the two he was shown, and they had decided on scenes that would give +variety to the series. But that was before a Teevan had come into his +life, and now he had lost a month in the dream of satisfying that patron +critic. + +It was good to prove that he could still draw in his own way; he had +suffered so long in that rage of impotence; and he kept to the work +until dusk, making no stop for food, even when the noise of falling +bodies came to mark the luncheon hour. + +When Teevan sauntered in at six the two went to dine at a restaurant. +Ewing had no longer dreaded the meeting. He was ready to show Teevan +that there had been no true failure. But Teevan merely listened to the +bare outline of fact as they threaded a way through the evening crowd. +He made no comment, and Ewing thought this might be due to the +difficulty of conversing in a noisy street. + +But after ordering dinner with a nice deliberation, Teevan spoke +determinedly of other matters. Ewing ventured a humorous reference to +his despair when he left the school, meaning to compel the inference +that he no longer despaired. Teevan languidly mentioned a violinist he +had heard the evening before. + +"--Two Bach numbers, the suite in F minor rather exquisitely done. Bach +wrote tremendously well for the fiddle. Technical skill in the +performer, you ask? Yes, entirely adequate; indeed, he gave rather a +warm reading, really not lacking a certain elevation of style, even a +nobility of utterance. That was quite all of interest, though. The +Dvorak _humoresque_--a thing transcribed from a piano piece and made +sentimental--has one of those effective passages in double notes, +certain to win an encore from the mob; and the twenty-fourth caprice of +Paganini was merely a smart exhibition of harmonic playing--mere squibs +and firecrackers and rockets, the veriest fireworks. Ah, it's small +wonder the world has so few artists when it demands so little." And +Teevan sighed significantly. + +Ewing was chilled by this avoidance of himself, though he could not yet +believe it intentional. + +"I haven't given up," he declared, by way of reminding Teevan. "You +shall see that I'm stubborn." + +Teevan affected to study a group of diners at a neighboring table as he +replied: + +"Oh, yes, I gather that you left the school when you found it +difficult." + +"But you see----" + +"This soup is worth while, really. Soup is surprisingly difficult. Yet +the world believes perfect soups to be plentiful." He sighed again. "It +merely shows the vitality of error." + +Ewing felt his woman-given courage leaving him at this attack, or rather +at this lack of attack. He had been prepared to have his friend exhibit +doubt, disbelief, chagrin--anything that would still show an +undiminished esteem. But the intimate note had gone from Teevan's +speech. He talked at large as Ewing had heard him talk to roomfuls of +people. + +"Ah, yes, the vitality of error. Give the world a lie about soup or +souls, and you'll not soon worry that lie away. It's clutched with a +bulldog jaw. Say good soup is common--God-fearing Christians echo the +lie. Say Berkeley denies the existence of matter, and men with Berkeley +at hand repeat you. Say Locke denies all knowledge except through the +medium of the senses, and students of Locke pass on the absurdity. Bacon +was by no means the first thinker to proclaim the deficiencies of the +Aristotelian philosophy--a system already in disrepute when he wrote the +'Instauration.' Yet in our crude yearning for concreteness, for specific +idols, we laud him as the father of the inductive philosophy--as if +induction weren't an inevitable process in any mind grown beyond +primitive concepts. Gad! I had a dog once that used induction a dozen +times a day, and he'd never so much as heard of Bacon." + +Thus he wandered afield during the dinner, with airs of a bored but +conscientious host, and Ewing fell lower of heart at each of his +periods. He hoped for his chance when the coffee came, but Teevan gave +him no opening. The brandy sufficed for his text. We were not +brandy-drinkers, unhappily enough--"the wholesomest of all spirits, the +distilled essence of cognac grapes, the magic cup of Circe, 'her Orient +liquor in a crystal glass'--and we know as little how to drink a liqueur +brandy as we know how to buy it. We gulp it from these straight glasses, +when it should be taken in sips from a glass small at the top, a glass +first warmed in the palm of the hand. Only so may we capture the +bouquet, that elusive fragrance of the May-vine blossom, that wraith of +spring-perfumes." + +Ewing was still unjustified when the waiter helped them on with their +coats, and then he was dismayed to observe that Teevan apparently meant +to leave him. The little man held out his hand with "So glad to have had +your company--another time--I shall see you again, I hope." + +"Please come back with me. I'd like to talk to you--to ask your advice." +He felt himself an outcast. + +Teevan's response, a surprised but coldly polite assent, did not lighten +his dejection as they walked back to the studio in silence. + +But once there the little man no longer avoided talk of his young +friend's fiasco. He let it be seen that another illusion, one fondly +cherished, he need not say, had been shattered. He gave the impression +that he had talked of other things to forget this--an inadequate device, +he let it be inferred. + +Ewing confessed his own despondency of the night before, but told how a +woman had given him new courage. + +"Not the least injury they do us," remarked Teevan of women, somewhat +snappishly, "is to wheedle us into taking our failures lightly." That +were especially baneful to the artist, it seemed; by his very +temperament was he exposed to their blandishing sophistries. The artist +cult should be a priesthood, aloof, austere, celibate--deaf to the woman +cries of "Never mind!" and "Courage!" and "Another day!" All very well +that, but they shut their pretty eyes to real failures, or, at most, +survey them with a tender air of belittlement that leaves the defeated +one blind to their significance. Speaking largely, the society of women +should be shunned by earnest men intent on achievement. + +Ewing began to feel that possibly he had taken heart too readily. He was +willing to believe this if it would restore him to the little man's +esteem. He pointed timidly to the drawing he had begun that morning, +eager for the word of praise he believed it to merit. + +"Oh, _that_!" Teevan drawled the words, with lifted brows; then went on +to speak of Jean Francois Millet, unprosperous villager of Barbizon. He +tried--unsuccessfully--to recall an instance when that painter had +debased his art. Not once had he made a cheap picture for a magazine. He +had never put his Muse to the streets. Millet was not pigeon-livered. + +Ewing leaned forward in his chair, his head between his hands. He saw +that the mere sale of drawings would be a savorless success, if it +bereft him of this plain-speaking but just friend. More, it would leave +him small in the eyes of a woman who was now even more than Teevan. He +got up doggedly, seized the drawing and began to break the tough bristol +board, getting it into four pieces at length and flinging these into the +grate. He was unable to resist a secret fond look at the lines he had +made with such loving care. Teevan's eyes glistened now, and he held out +a hand to Ewing. + +"Ah--you give me hope. Bravo!" + +"Then you do believe in me; you think I have it in me?" + +"Power? Yes; I've seen that. I judge men rather accurately. But I saw +that you'd be tempted to rest. The more power, the greater the +temptation. It's not so hard to fast in a desert--the less gifted man is +less tempted. But to fast with plenty at hand for the reaching, and fair +women to counsel content--to refuse apples and flagons, waiting for the +ultimate jewel--that takes a _man_. It demands one--there's a certain +street saying--who can 'stand the gaff.'" + +"And you really think I can stand it? I feel more than ever that I want +to succeed." + +Teevan beamed on him almost affectionately. "I almost suspect----" + +"You shall see that I can," Ewing broke in, but what he thought was, +"_She_ will see it." + +"It's a matter of endurance," resumed Teevan genially. "Genius is no +endowment of supreme gifts. Every man of us has something latent that +would set him apart. Genius is only the capacity for expressing +that--that phase of yourself which differentiates you from all other +selves. Of course only a few succeed. Most of us succumb to the general +pressure to be alike. Yet--I almost believe in you." + +Ewing regarded him with glad eyes, touched by this stanch yet discerning +adherence. + +Returning home that night Teevan, in his library, took down a Bible and +searched for a passage he only half recalled. He found it at last, one +wherein the God of Israel thunders, not without humor, against the foes +of His chosen tribe. + +"I will send a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies; +and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as +fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth." He +chuckled delightedly as he read it, and wiped tears of mirth from his +eyes. + +So it befell that Ewing forsook the beaten road of minor achievement +that winter, and labored toward the far, high peaks. In his own phrase, +the trail was rough and blind. Preceding climbers had not been +thoughtful to "blaze" it. But he grudged no effort while he had the +little man's applause. And this was not lacking, though it was discreet +applause, promoting no slothful content. + +It was Ewing who suggested that he paint under the criticism of +Sydenham. The little man looked at him in doubt, seeming to suspect a +jesting insincerity, then burst into hearty, hand-clapping laughter, +crying, "Splendid! An inspiration, indeed! On my word, I hadn't thought +of anything half so brilliant." + +And Ewing began to paint; to paint like Sydenham, if he might--cloud +studies, bits of street perspective, stretches of river, a realistic +view of the roofs from his window, with their water butts, chimney pots, +and clothes lines. Baldwin looked in once, and carried a word below to +the men who sold things: the word "Awful!" He also ventured a friendly +remonstrance to Ewing. "If you're going to paint, for God's sake go to +some man who knows how!" + +Ewing referred to Teevan's conviction that Sydenham was the ideal master +for him, and to the attested fact that Teevan knew painting and +painters. + +"Then I don't understand Teevan," was Baldwin's puzzled response. + +"But I'm coming on--Teevan says so." + +Baldwin ventured another look at the canvas in hand and fled below. + +Teevan was watchful and permitted few chances for meddling of this sort. +He contrived to be with Ewing most of the time when Sydenham was not. +And Ewing never tired of Sydenham. If they walked the streets together +the old man would direct his eye to some unnoticed felicity of color on +the walls that shut them in, to bits of enchanting perspective, to +subtle plays of light and shade in unpromising spots. Or if they sat +alone at night the painter told of color in the world beyond the sea; +how from the top of Mont Blanc the stars are seen at midday, points of +vivid light in a dark blue-violet field; of the purple nights of the +desert, the stars but an arrowshot above; of the cold, pale silvers of +dawn in the desert, and the heated gold and scarlet of evening; of the +impossible blue of the bay of Naples. His face glowed to such +youthfulness at these times that Ewing would forget his futile years +until the sigh came. + +"But I've always seen too much. Only the fountain of Juventius could +have given me time enough. I'm like the lad in the school-reader tale +who reached into the jar of nuts and tried to withdraw his hand +full--and lost them all." + +Between Ewing and Teevan there was even a new bond. Ewing discovered +that money inevitably left one's pocket in New York, even if it vanished +under auspices less violent and less obscure than Ben had so gloomily +feared. The steady dribble was quite as effective. When he awoke to this +great fiscal truth he saw that some condescension of effort would be +required. He must sell enough drawings to sustain him modestly. He +broached this regrettable necessity to Teevan, wishing the little man to +understand that, in making a few things for money, he was guilty of no +treachery to the Teevan ideal. But Teevan, much to his embarrassment, +had extended the full hand of bestowal. + +He was hurt when Ewing demurred; then annoyed that so petty an obstacle +should retard a progress so splendid. He never dared to suspect a +decadence in the resolution of his young friend. + +Ewing was cut by his distress, stung by his doubt, and persuaded by his +logic. He accepted Teevan's money, though not without instinctive +misgiving. There were moments when he traitorously wondered if it might +not be better for him to lack a friend with ideals so rigid. And more +than once he suffered the disquieting suspicion of some unreality in and +through it all--his intimacy with Teevan, and his desertion of a trail +whose beginnings, at least, he knew. There was sometimes a faint ring of +artificiality in the whole situation. Yet Teevan's heartiness and his +certainty--the felicitous certainty of a star in its course--always +dispelled this vague unquiet, and at last it brought Ewing a new +pleasure to remember that an actual, material obligation--one increasing +at measured intervals--now existed between them. + +He had never spoken openly to Mrs. Laithe of his intimacy with Teevan. +The little man had conveyed his wish of this by indirect speech. He +would have liked to tell her of the solace and substantial benefits of +their comradeship, to dwell upon the shining merits of this whole-souled +but modest benefactor--for Teevan caused his charge to infer that a +shame of doing good openly inspired his hints--but he had, perforce, to +let the praise die unspoken. + +Nor did he speak often of Mrs. Laithe to Teevan, for the little man was +not only bitter as to woman's influence on the life artistic, but +inclined to hold the sex lightly, it seemed, in a much wider aspect. And +he spoke, Ewing was sure, out of a ripe experience. He had no difficulty +in detecting, under the little man's self-depreciating talk, that Teevan +had ever been a power among women, and was not even yet invincibly +averse to gallant adventure; not yet a man to be resisted. He was far +from bluntly confessing this, but sometimes, when the brandy was low in +the decanter, he would tacitly admit a romantic past; romantic, perhaps, +to the point of turbulence. And once, when there was no brandy left, he +spoke of specific affairs, particularly of one the breaking off of which +was giving him the devil's own worry. + +"Gad! She's bent on sacrificing everything for me!" + +Ewing innocently murmured words about marriage as an honorable estate. + +"Marriage!" said Teevan, and Ewing blushed, noting his tone and the lift +of his brows. + +"Poor, silly, romantic fools!" sighed Teevan. "One would find it +difficult to say what they see in me, I fancy." + +Ewing murmured polite protestations. But less than ever did he feel +moved to speak of Mrs. Laithe to the little man. It did not seem +fitting. "Don Juan" had been among the verse with which the lake cabin +was supplied. + +Not even when Mrs. Laithe was taken off to Florida by her father did he +speak her name, though he was filled with her good-by to him. There had +seemed to be so much between them, and yet so little of it that could +come to words. But he carried for long the last look of her eyes, and he +set to his work with a new resolve. There was incentive enough. Teevan +never let him forget that he required signs and miracles, like the +doubting ones of old. And she--she knew he would perform them. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A LADY BLUSHES + + +As the winter wore on Ewing fell into doubt and dread. Vague enough they +were, but they rested on a sickening effect of emptiness, a time blank +of achievement. He still regarded Teevan as quite all of the seven +pillars of the house of wisdom. Yet instinct was rebelling. There were +tired afternoons when he hungered to eat of the fruit of his own way. + +This feeling could not but show in his occasional letters to Mrs. +Laithe. She read through all his protestations of cheerfulness to the +real dejection beneath them, and was both troubled and mystified, raging +at his secretiveness. + +When she returned to New York on a day in April and found a note from +Mrs. Lowndes asking her to dine that evening, she accepted with a plan +in mind. Before she saw Ewing she would try to learn something about him +from Sydenham, for Sydenham would also dine with Mrs. Lowndes, and she +knew that Ewing had been painting with the old man. + +She found Birley the other guest, and that, too, was customary. Birley +and Sydenham preserved for their hostess a certain aroma of her youth. +Both had wooed her in the long ago; Sydenham in a day when Long Branch +was. On its sands in the light of a July moon she had prettily hoped +they might always be friends. Birley had heard her intone the same +becoming sentiment at Saratoga later in the season. And both rejected +ones had been present at St. Paul's on a day in the following June when +Kitty Folsom and Jack Lowndes had consented together in holy wedlock. + +The girl's hope, perfunctory enough at the time, one may fear, had seen +long years of fruition. She liked to have them at her table now. Only, +when the three were alone, they remembered too vividly and became, in +the silences, too fantastically unlike their aged selves to the misty +eyes of one another. The one-time belle found a little of that +forgetting and remembering to be salutary, so little as ensued when a +fourth guest was present. And Eleanor Laithe had often been that fourth, +a saving reminder of the present, to recall them when they had loitered +far enough back into the old marrying years. + +But she came this night with a reason beyond her wish to please. So +eager was she to ask Sydenham about Ewing that she gave scant attention +to the searching looks and queries of Birley when she entered the +drawing room. The big man rallied her on her pallor and frailness, but +with a poor spirit that hardly concealed his real misgiving. She +silenced him with impatient denials of illness, but his eyes lingered +anxiously on her face. + +She sat at table with but half an ear for their old-time gossip, the +bantering gallantries of the aged swains, and the outworn coquetries of +the one-time beauty. And when they fell silent--oftener now than was +their wont, for each was thinking of that other Kitty Lowndes, who had +taken matters into her own hands--she forgot to make talk, silent +herself for thinking on the son of that Kitty. The dinner lacked the +sparkle she had been expected to give it. + +As they were about to rise, after coffee, she playfully petitioned for a +chat with Sydenham. + +"Herbert wants to smoke, and I want to sit here with him. We need a +little talk together," she explained. And the other two left them, the +old lady leaning on the arm of Birley. + +Sydenham lighted a cigar, pushed his chair back, and faced the woman who +looked eagerly at him across the disordered table, her arms along its +edge, her head tilted to a questionable angle. She flew to her point. + +"What about Gilbert Ewing--what trouble is he having?" + +Sydenham stared vacantly. He seemed to find it necessary to translate +the question into some language of his own. + +"Trouble? Oh, all sorts--chrome and indigo, yellow ocher, burnt umber, +rose madder, Chinese white--composition, light and shade, vanishing +points. You'd have to be one of us to understand." + +"Other trouble," she insisted sharply--"personal--not about his +painting." + +Sydenham stared again, clutching his beard in a dazed search for +inspiration. He did not consider people apart from painting. It was +impossible that anyone should wish to discuss Ewing except in relation +to colors and canvas. + +"Well, he has trouble with everything--composition, tone-values, +everything." + +"But something _not_ painting." + +He looked up at the ceiling helplessly. + +"Well, I fancy Randy Teevan worries him." + +"Randall Teevan!" She was amazed and alarmed at once. + +"Sometimes I get the idea that Randy badgers him, though they're thick +as thieves. The boy wouldn't breathe if Randy said it was bad for the +lungs." + +"How long have they been friends?" + +By quick, nervous, point-blank queries she drew from him all that he +knew of this intimacy. She puzzled over it. + +"Can he know?" She had not meant him to hear this, but he caught the +words, and betrayed something like human interest. + +"Trust Randy for that! I found it out myself. He had Kitty's +portrait--Kitty to the life--stunning brush work. Randy has begged the +picture of him for a while. I fancy he didn't want it hanging there for +others to see. And he found the fellow here one afternoon. Kitty told +me. She was nearly taken off her feet by his story but Randy happened in +and cooled things down. It's queer, Randy's setting himself to win over +the chap. It's a puzzle-mix. I wonder about it sometimes when the light +goes." + +She had listened in consternation, a rage for battle rising in her. She +was sure Teevan must have some end in view hurtful to Ewing. Yet this +was cunningly hidden. She was still puzzling over this when Sydenham +recalled her. He had forgotten Ewing, and studied the red light that +fell across the table through a shade of silk. + +"What fools we are to think of painting shadows! If heaven's the place +it's said to be they'll have real shadows put in up tubes, and +then--well, _think_ of it!" + +She laughed at him, her brief laugh, with a sigh to follow. + +"We must go to the others. But, Herbert, you'll watch him as well as +you can, won't you? I feel responsible for him in a way." + +He hesitated, but the light came. "Oh, you mean Ewing? Of course I'll +watch him. I dare say he'll paint some day, after a fashion." He fumbled +for the knob and awkwardly opened the door for her. + +When the men went Mrs. Laithe asked if she might not linger a moment. + +"Dear Aunt Kitty!" she said, going to the other's chair. "_Old_ Kitty!" +she repeated meaningly. The elder woman glanced quickly at her in faint +alarm, half questioning, half defiant. + +"Oh, Aunt Kitty! I know--I _know_! and I must talk of him. I suspected +something almost from the first, and then I made sure. But I thought +that perhaps no one else would find it out. And he was worth it--he is +worth it. I couldn't have left him there, even if I'd been sure that +everyone would know. He was a man--he had the right to live." + +"My child, my child! Oh, you didn't know what you were doing! It was a +monstrous thing, an impossible thing!" + +"He's Kitty's son. You must feel for him." + +"Feel? What haven't I felt since that day he came here?" There had been +a break in her voice, but she went quietly on. "I can't make you know, +dear. You've torn me--it will hurt to the end. Can you understand that +in a terrible, an unspeakable way, my Kitty is still alive, is near me, +and yet is not to be known? But you can't understand it. You've never +had a child." + +"Ah! but I've been one. I know what he would feel." + +"Please, dear!" She put up a hand in protest. "As if I don't feel his +hurt and Kitty's as well as mine. I shall be ground between the two +every day of my life. Do you think my old arms didn't cry out to be +around the mother in him? But think if I had yielded! Picture his own +suffering--his own shame. Can you see us meeting, our eyes falling? Even +for his own sake, he must never know." + +"Isn't there a way, Aunt Kitty? Some way? He's worth finding a way for." +She leaned over to stroke the other's hand. + +"No way, my girl. Be the world a moment, be cool. He's a nameless thing. +You might know him, but nothing more. Could he make a life? Could a +woman--come, face it without prejudice--could you see your own sister +marry him?" Mrs. Laithe looked blank. + +"You see how impossible it is. You, yourself, could _you_ stand before +the world with him? Could you face the shame?" + +The younger woman dropped the hand she held and turned away. The elder +regarded her shrewdly. + +"There--you see how impossible----" + +But the other faced her suddenly, clear-eyed and defiant, her head back. + +"Eleanor!" It was a cry of consternation that was yet softened by +tenderness, an amazed but comprehending tenderness, for the face of the +younger woman was incarnadined, flagrantly, splendidly. + +A moment they held each other. But there was no mistaking the thing, +for, though the blush had quickly faded, an after glow lingered. + +The older woman rose quickly to throw her arms about the other. + +"My mad, mad child!" She stood off to search her face incredulously. + +"He's alone, Aunt Kitty, and he's so defenseless. He believes in +everyone more than in himself. He'll be cured of that some time, but +just now I'm his only defender. Others are against him or stand neutral +with talk of the 'world.' I can't blame you, dear, I think you must be +right for yourself. But when he does awaken"--she narrowed her eyes on +the other a moment in calculation--"then I shan't be ashamed to have him +know it was always safe to believe in me--whether he was boy or man or +no one at all--or less than no one. I'd never bother about names, +dear--I'd never bother about names." + +She smiled and drew the other close with little reassuring caresses. +"You see names aren't much--the directory is full of them, and dreary +enough reading they'd make. No, I'd not care for that. I'd only ask that +he believe in himself as much as I believe in him, and care as little +for names. And I warn you I mean to help him to that if I can." + +The eyes of the other sparkled now. There was in her glance the excited +admiration of a timid child who watches a reckless playmate dare some +dark passage of evil repute for goblins. + +"You mad--dear mad girl!" she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE DRAMA IN NINTH STREET + + +Ewing knew that his lady had come back. She had sent him a note the +first day: "I am dining to-night with an old friend. But come to-morrow +night." + +The next day, while he was saying, "To-night I shall see her--actually +see her...." there had come another note in her careless, scrawled +writing: "I find, after all, that I shall be engaged to-night. Can you +not come to-morrow night instead? I am eager for a talk with you." + +"Could" he come! He laughed as he put the thing tenderly away. Could he +come, indeed! Could he stay away? + +But early in the evening of that same forbidden day he walked to Ninth +Street, entering that thoroughfare furtively. He might not see her for +another day, but at least he could look fondly at the door by which she +had entered, and gaze on the stanch house that enfolded her, even on the +steps that must have felt her light, quick tread, perhaps within the +hour. + +These things would help him to believe in her actuality--she had so come +to seem but a dream lady to him. + +Thrice he passed the house on the opposite side of the street. A dim +light glowed through the curtained windows. Beyond them, he thought, she +would be talking; laughing, perhaps; perhaps even thinking of him at +that very moment as she gazed absently at some speaker who thought to +have her attention. If only she, too, could be counting the hours! But +that was too unlikely. He warned himself not to imagine that. He +recalled some of Teevan's speeches about women--"Shallow, pretty fools, +for man's amusing--the Oriental alone, my boy, has a sane theory of +women; creatures to be kept as choice cabinet bits--under lock and key." +Poor Teevan, not to have known the one woman who could have illumined +his darkness! Poor Teevan, indeed! He idly wondered if his affair--that +troublesome affair of which the little man had spoken so feelingly--had +been "broken off." + +He slowly walked once more past the Bartell house, beholding a splendid +vision of himself as he would leap up those steps the next evening. Then +he continued on past Teevan's house, regarding that, also, with great +kindness. He stopped a little beyond this, meaning to return. As he did +so the door opened and a woman came out. He thought there was something +furtive in her glance up and down the street as she paused to gather up +her skirts. Then something familiar in the feminine grace of that +movement chained him. Surely, but one person had ever done the thing in +just that way. There could be no other. He stood staring while she came +down the steps and into the light of a street lamp. It was Mrs. Laithe, +walking briskly now, toward her own home. He could not mistake that +free-swinging, level, deliberate stride, with the head so finely up. + +He almost cried out to her in his gladness. He felt as a lost child who +wildly claims its own again in some crowded street. He walked back +quickly, watching her until her own door swallowed her up. + +He felt a lively rejoicing. The unpromising evening had done well by him +after all. Thinking but to look tenderly at a house front he had +veritably seen his lady--watched her with secret, unrestrained fondness. +He had an impulse to follow now and demand her at the door. But he +remembered in time; she would be engaged and he would see her soon. That +long look was adventure enough for one night. + +But he could ring Teevan's bell. That would be a fine thing to do, for +Teevan had seen her. Teevan would speak of her, little knowing how his +words were hungered for. He was admitted and found the little man on the +hearth rug in the library, talking to himself with great animation. He +showed surprise, but his welcome was warmer than usual, Ewing thought. +He seated his guest and proffered him brandy, pouring a glass for +himself from a decanter almost empty. As he drank he beamed shrewdly on +Ewing--kindly but shrewdly. "He must have seen her--he must have seen +her ..." the little man was saying. Then a vagrant, elfish vanity smote +him. He smiled inscrutably on Ewing--Ewing, who had been waiting to say +lightly, "I happened to see Mrs. Laithe leaving...." But he did not say +this, for the little man's smile came to life in speech. + +"Gad! my boy--I'm deuced glad you came. You can make me forget a most +distressing half hour I've just gone through." + +The light in Ewing's eyes changed perceptibly. + +"Oh, these women!" grumbled Teevan pleasantly, with the fine, humorous +resignation of a persecuted gallant. + +"Women--women?" muttered Ewing, slightly aghast. Teevan's heart beat +blithely within his breast. + +"Silly, romantic fools! What _do_ they see in a man of my years?" He +flourished a gesture of magnificent deprecation. "I think I once +mentioned a very irksome affair--" How he blessed, now, that bit of +boasting, vague and aimless at the time! "The lady, I blush to say it, +becomes exigent. But I'm rightly served. Heaven knows I've seen enough +of that sort of thing to know how it ends. But come"--he rose to a +livelier manner--"I shouldn't bore you with a matter I'm half ashamed +of, man of the world as I am. You'll sound the ennui of it, all in your +own good time, when you've lost a few of those precious illusions." He +broke off to ring, and directed the man to replenish the decanter. + +Ewing gazed stupidly at him, failing of speech. The little man drank +again when the brandy came, and Ewing wondered if he could be drunk. He +feared not. The men he had known in the hills were noisy in drink--they +chiefly yelled. And Teevan was quiet. If his eyes stared vacantly at +intervals, if he clipped syllables from his words, and seemed to attack +his speech with extreme caution, those might be only the results of his +emotion. But what monstrous stuff was this he uttered! What unbelievable +stuff! In a fever of apprehension he wondered what Teevan would say +next. + +But the little man dismissed woman, dismissed her with an exquisite +shrug, to speak of his young friend's work, and of painting at large. + +"A suggestion of the true manner in that late thing of yours, my boy, +really, a hint of Dupre, and he was a colorist of the first rank. And +there are fewer colorists, genuine masters of tone, than you'd think. +Turner was one, to be sure, but Millet had a restricted sense of color. +Corot was great only within a narrow range. Rousseau was only a bit +broader, robuster. There's a wretchedly defective color sense in many of +the old masters, and in heaven knows how many of the young ones. France +must take the blame for that, I'm sure you'd agree with me. The academic +sentiment there runs to form and against color. They insist that +colorists do little work. It's not an unplausible sophism. One has only +to begin counting to see that--counting the host of little niggling, +mechanical stipplers it's responsible for. It's true, color has its +pitfalls and its gins. There's a temptation to shirk form. Many an +aspiring colorist has become at last a mushy mannerist, as vicious in +his influence as the chaps who never get beyond smart drawing and clever +grouping." The little man was "squeezing" his eyes now as if he judged a +row of paintings. He talked on and drank frequently. + +But Ewing left as soon as he could do so. Teevan pressed his hand with +rare cordiality at parting, as if Ewing were one person in the world +still worthy of belief. He wandered blindly home, awkwardly trying to +mold this new chaos into an understandable scheme of things. He fell +instinctively back on his studies of the drama. + +Many nights he had sat before the painted curtain to feast a questing +mind on the life it lifted to reveal. He had found its revelations more +intimate, more specific, than those of the life outside, and he had +seemed to learn many things. Lacking this study he would not have +divined that actual men and women might be leading lives of domestic +adventure, of romantic vicissitude, of sinister intrigue, lives crowded +with love and hate and fear and a thousand lawless complexities. + +He had studied the street crowds in the light thus thrown on their inner +motives. It had been a fine thing to detect the plotting scoundrel under +the placid, dissembling mask of some fellow who bought an evening paper +and boarded a street car with elaborate airs of innocence; to probe the +secret of the unhappy wife whose white face stared blankly from a +passing brougham; to identify the handsome but never culpable hero, +unconscious of third-act toils tightening about him; to know the +persecuted heroine, or the manly but comic chap who loved her with +exquisite restraint, divining that she could never be his. + +But, though he had stripped the masks from these mummers in the street +crowds, and read their secrets of guilt or innocence, he had not +supposed that the people he actually knew could be leading lives +complicated in that way. And if Teevan had talked, then Teevan must have +been drunk. He would see her to-morrow night, and she would speak +casually of her call at Teevan's upon some trifling errand. + +Yet, when night came again and he stood in her presence, the first +devouring look at her shocked him momentarily out of all thought of +Teevan's maunderings. She was drooping and wasted and flatly pale. He +scarcely knew her face, with the eyes burning at him from black rings. +He took her hand, nursing it gently, standing helpless and hurt before +her. + +"You are so changed," he said fearfully, "so changed! Oh, you are so +changed!" + +But she laughed with her familiar gayety, tossing her head in denial. He +still scanned her face. Some resemblance there, some sinister memory of +her look on another face, was stirring him. He could almost remember +what it meant. At last her eyes fell before his and she drew her hand +quickly away. + +"Really, I won't have any talk of myself. I hear too much of that. I'm a +bit run down, that's all. We found Florida enervating. Even dad was +affected by it and forgot his philosophy. So, an end to that. I must +hear of you, of your work." + +She sat down, drawing a white scarf about her shoulders, and leaning +toward him in the old inviting way. + +"Tell me what you have done--everything there is to tell about it." + +All at once he remembered. + +"Last night," he began uneasily--"I wanted to see you last night--" + +"You couldn't have seen me last night." She smiled in a way that brought +out all the weak, wasted look of her face. "I was busy--I was trying to +adjust something that has troubled me more than I can tell you." + +He stared at her, incredulous, believing he could not have heard. + +"... an affair that has worried me," she repeated, noticing his blank +look. + +Stupefied as he was, he felt a great pity rush over him, an instant +longing to be her knight and give battle for her--to be her squire, if +she herself must be knight. Yet, if Teevan had spoken truly must it not +be a thing in which he was powerless to help her ever so little? A +sudden sickness of rage came over him at thought of Teevan. He had +almost made a jest of her. + +He could not talk of himself after that. She could get nothing from him +of his own worries, though she could see that he had these in abundance. +At last she tired of striving against him and let him go, out of sheer +longing for the touch of his hand at parting. He had regarded her with a +moody, almost savage tenderness that made her weak. + +As he walked home he felt new to the streets again. They were strange +streets in a strange world. But one thing he was sure of; one thing +stood clearly out of the puzzle: he must not intrude, must not bother +her; must not see her often. In a drama so alien to him he could not act +without direction. He knew his own longing too well to trust himself. He +sat a long time with his arms clasped across his breast. The anguish in +it seemed physical; it was as if a beast were devouring his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A REVOLT + + +He turned furiously to his work, but, as the summer came on, he realized +that he was working with a desperation entirely heartless. He was not +only sure, now, that he had taken a wrong road, but that nameless +distress of his lady had left his desire benumbed. A fountain had gone +dry in him. + +At the beginning of the warm days he went into the country on sketching +trips with Sydenham. To vales and little rivers north of the city, to +flat, green stretches on Long Island, to the Jersey hills, they had gone +with sketch traps wherever trolley or steam car could find Nature +quickly for them. + +Ewing had looked forward to this. He had felt hampered in the studio, +where he must pass whole days in futile messing with colors, in rash +trials of this or that trick of tint, like an idling schoolboy playing +with slate and pencil. Once in the open, he had felt, there would +quickly show forth those gifts which Teevan was certain he possessed. + +But day by day these excursions with the old painter had brought him to +believe that he had lost his way. That trick of color was not to be +learned, it was clear, by rough-and-ready advances. Teevan, who was ever +watchful of him, who betrayed, indeed, a strange little jealousy of any +other influence than his own, scanned his first studies eagerly, and +turned an inscrutable face on his young friend. He did not praise +loosely; he did not condemn outright. And he talked not too specifically +of the canvases before him. He showed little consciousness of a change +in the demeanor of his disciple, though Ewing's eye rested on him with a +long, unaccountable regard. Perhaps the boy was turning a little sullen. +This amused him. Meanwhile, the youth stood aghast before the dreadful +thing he saw in his heart. Hatred of a benefactor! All the good in him +struggled against it; all his gratitude pleaded with him to be fair to +the friend he had revered so long. Teevan talked more of Corot or +Constable, Diaz or Millet than he talked of Ewing; and the young man +came at last to the amazing conclusion not only that he was on a wrong +road, but that Teevan knew it--that the little man must long have known +it. This put him again in that rage of impotence that had seized him in +those last days at the League. But he bore it longer now. He felt there +was something final about this. + +There were long days in the open to think on it, weigh it, and wring the +meaning from it. Sydenham placidly criticised his work; but Sydenham +could not feel his tragedy of defeat. A man who, at seventy, suffered +his own despairs with the poignant ecstasy of youth, could not take a +boy's failings seriously. Ewing now saw, moreover--for he was beginning +to use another pair of eyes than Teevan's--that Sydenham himself was a +hopeless mannerist, a color-mad voluptuary, painting always +subjectively, refusing all but the merest hints from his subject. + +His last day of confessed futility, his last hour of inner rebellion, +came early in June. He carried his sketch trap out that day, but did not +unpack it. He lay, instead, pondering, resolving, raging, while +Sydenham, a little distance off, delicately corrected the errors of +Nature in a vista of meadow. Ewing chewed the juicy ends of long-stemmed +grasses and made phrases of disparagement for this sketch of Sydenham's, +picturing himself with the courage to utter them. He told himself +frankly what he thought of the old man's work--his "brush doddering," he +nerved himself to call it. + +Immensely refreshed by this exercise in brutality, he rolled over on his +grassy bed to follow the shade of the oak under which he lay, and +dramatized a meeting with Teevan, in which the little man strangely +listened more than he spoke. He uttered his mind again concerning the +work of Sydenham, the master Teevan had prescribed, asserting that +unsuspecting toiler to be hopelessly "locoed" in the matter of color. He +saw Teevan's fine brows go elegantly up at this term, and he explained +it to him with a humble sort of boldness. + +From this he warmed to sheer audacity, disclosing further to his +imagined hearer that the time had come for him to go his own way--still +grateful for advice, still yearning for that friendly intimacy, but +determined to be done with dreams. He saw Teevan applauding this mild +declaration of revolt, with his fine, dark little smile, and a courteous +inclination of the head, and he thereupon amplified it. He must go back +to himself and stay there stubbornly, wheresoever that self led him. +Millet might have a restricted sense of color, Corot might have had his +faults, and Rousseau have been less than Teevan could have wished him; +but these were dead men. And Ewing was alive, determined to do those +things that permitted him to feel the little power he might have. He was +through with efforts that brought him nothing but a sense of the folly +of all effort. And it was to this conviction, he made it plain, that his +amazed but still respectful listener had led him. He worked himself into +a glow of defiant self-assertion, feeling his own respect, and Teevan's +as well, mounting with his heat. + +When the light faded he strolled over to look at Sydenham's sketch, bent +on testing his self-inspired temerity. + +"I wonder if you've gotten that sky?" he began judicially, as the old +man invited his comment. Sydenham looked up in some surprise, but +Ewing's eyes were still on the sketch. + +"Too gray above, isn't it? I thought the gray was only down near the +horizon. By the way, I wish I'd roughed in that cow for you. A cow isn't +the easiest thing in the world to draw. They look easy, but they're not. +That bit of stone wall isn't bad, and your clover effect is first rate." +He paused. He had meant only to practice speaking his own mind against +the next interview with Teevan. He did not want to hurt Sydenham. The +latter was roping his stool and easel together. He had been a little +amazed at his pupil's outburst, but he looked up with a smile entirely +placid. + +"That's the way they all say it. You've caught the trick of art +criticism, my boy, if you've caught nothing else." + +Ewing saw that he was laughed at. There was a cool little flash to his +retort. + +"I can make that into a real cow for you, if you like, after we get +home." + +But the old man only chuckled at him, making him regret that he had ever +so little curbed his criticism. He had an impulse to fight, a craving +to arouse resistance. But he saw that Sydenham was no target for him, +save in a sort of subcaliber practice. He hoped this novel combativeness +would not wither under the first glance of Teevan's sharp little eyes. + +It was dusk when they reached the city, and Ewing went to the Monastery +to dine. He had long shunned the place, for the men there talked of +things they had done or were doing, and they had made him, without +meaning to, feel "out of it," as he told himself. For he, if he talked, +could tell only of wonders he meant to do, and, lacking an audience +composed of Teevans, he was shrewd enough to see that these would sound +too wonderful and the future too distantly vague. + +He had always been glad, however, of his drawing on the east wall. They +could not believe him wholly lacking after that, nor refuse him +fellowship if he sought it. He avoided the crowd when he entered the +room--the men he knew best were at a long table on the rear veranda just +outside the open windows--and chose a small table opposite his drawing. +He had thought of it often during the afternoon while he harangued +Teevan in imagination. It had occurred to him that this was the only +thing he had really done since coming to New York, and he had been +seized with a longing to look at it again, to prove to his own eyes that +the thing which was really his own--not Corot's nor Millet's nor even +Sydenham's--was not an inconsiderable thing, not a thing he need despair +of building on. + +As he ate, his eyes eagerly retraced the lines. After the soup he had to +look down to his plate to know if his fork brought him fish or flesh. +The sketch delighted him. He was surprised that he had been able to do +it. He began to doubt his present mastery of the technique it +displayed, fearing he had wandered too long in the Teevan-prescribed +maze, dawdled too long in the little man's palace of illusions. One +thing he knew: he would not dare mount a table and try another such +drawing before them all. He had done this one as unthinkingly as he +would have saddled a horse or sighted a rifle, indifferent to observers. +It rushed upon him sickeningly that all his association with Teevan had +tended to destroy his belief in himself. The coffee found him +afraid--ragingly afraid. + +The voices from the group outside came to him murmurously, and at +intervals he would listen to the careless, bantering talk. One voice +related that its wielder had smoked opium in Cairo. He heard cries of +mock horror, and the drawl of Chalmers--"Cairo--that's where the +'streets' come from." Griggs was presently extolling some ancient and +wonderful sherry. "Great stuff! You take a sip and you don't swallow +it--it just floats off through your being like a golden mist. He only +has about a dozen bottles--out of a lot that was put down for Napoleon +or somebody in 1830." Baldwin's voice floated in: "All right, old man, +but they had to put it down a long way to reach Napoleon in 1830." + +There was a laugh at this, and it came to the lone listener as the +care-free echo of a world he had tried for and lost. Lost thus far--but +there was farther to go, other days to live, other wise men to counsel +with. He could have believed it heartily, if it were not for that +thought of Mrs. Laithe, the thought that was always like a beast +devouring his heart. Meantime, if he could only have a breathing spell, +some days of quiet. He wished his own hills were not so far away. He +was sure that a little time back in the cabin studio would give him his +old bearings. + +His thought ran to Mrs. Laithe's brother, who had come to town the week +before, bronzed and bearded and violent with enthusiasm for his Western +life. He decided that a talk with Bartell would be tonic to his mood; +the bare mention of familiar names and places would hearten him--of the +Wimmenuche and Bar-7, Old Baldy and Dry Fork. And perhaps he had seen +Ben lately; the two might even have driven down to Pagosa together. + +And it would be an excuse for seeing her. For two months he had sought +her only thus, with something he could hold in his mind as an excuse, +for he was abashed by that nameless thing that troubled her, and +troubled, as well, the little man who had meant so much to him--for +Teevan, when the brandy was low, continued to speak of women. + +He walked quickly round to the house in Ninth Street, where he asked for +Bartell. But only Mrs. Laithe was at home. This embarrassed him, great +as was his solicitude for her. She had sought his confidence more than +once of late, but he could not tell her of doubts only half defined, of +fears vague to absurdity, of anxieties that might well be baseless. He +thought that now he could have talked, finding her alone, but for once +she seemed rather curiously preoccupied. They sat together in the +library with only a half light, the two windows opened for random +breezes. Suddenly, as her face was toward him, dim though the light was, +he caught the look that had troubled him so hauntingly in the spring. He +knew that look now; it was the look he had seen on his father's face in +the last year of his life--the look of a spirit divesting itself of the +flesh. + +"You _are_ ill," he said, trying to speak lightly under his sudden +alarm. "Let me have a better look at you." He turned the light to a full +blaze. Her wonted paleness was warmed to a sinister flush about the eyes +and the upper face, and, though her eyes flashed bravely at him in +denial, the bones were sharp above her hollowed cheeks, and her once +rounded chin had become lean. She shivered as she spoke. + +"I'm a little exhausted by the heat; nothing more. Lower the light, +please. I don't care to be studied just now." + +"But I know you're not well. You ought to go off some place. Get out to +pasture at once. You've been 'over-packed,' kept too long on the trail." + +"You, too? They all say it. It's so easy to say." + +"And easy to do." + +"It's hard to do, and yet I'm afraid I must. I've felt that I ought to +be here with my charges--you have been one of them." She brightened with +a sudden inspiration. "You need rest yourself. Your face shows it. +You've been depressed a long time, you are worried now. Let us both +rest. My aunt up at Kensington has wanted me there--the aunt my sister +is with. She'd be glad to have you as well. It's a big house and she +likes young people. There! Will you go with me?" + +She rose, waiting, electrified, for his answer. Instantly he felt that +he wished this above all things. There he could find himself, fortify +his soul for any number of Teevans--perhaps fortify her own. + +"I'll go," he answered heartily. "It will be good for us both." + +She fell into her chair with a long "Ah!" then she gave the purring +little laugh, like that of a child made happy. "We shall go for two +blessed weeks and forget this place with its wretched tangles." + +"I'm your man!" he said, rising and taking her hand with his old boyish +enthusiasm. "Can we start early?" + +She kept her hand in his while she laughed again. "The train goes from +the Grand Central at one. I'll wire Aunt Joyce." + +Outside Ewing met Bartell, but he did not talk of the San Juan. + +"You must see to your sister," he said. "She looks the way my father +did. You ought to get her out of here. She's going off for two weeks, +but that won't set her right. Go look at her!" + +Bartell found his sister where Ewing had left her. + +"Well, Nell, how is it now? What did Birley say?" + +She stirred impatiently in her chair. "He wouldn't commit himself. He +told me to rest away from here for two weeks and then come back to see a +specialist he'd send me to, a man who knows--such things." + +"I just met Ewing--he spoke of how badly you look. I'm worried, Nell. +You're not going to be left here." + +"I must tell you something, dear--oh, a ghastly joke, if ever there was +one: You know that one death trap of a tenement I've had so much trouble +with----" + +"Where all those consumptives were? Yes." + +"They've died there like sheep. I had it inspected--I wanted to have the +owner compelled to build it over or something, but we always found that +the law had been cunningly met with--not the spirit of it, but the +letter. The airshafts and drains were bad enough to kill, but not bad +enough to hurt the owner. Yesterday I determined to find out who the +owner was, to make a personal appeal. I was willing to buy the place +myself." + +She stopped in a fit of coughing, a dry, hard, tearing cough that left +her exhausted. + +"Well, Sis?" + +"I went to the agents--this will make you cry or laugh; I did both--and +I found they were my agents--the house was my house." + +"Poor Sis!" + +"One of those Dick left--_mine_, you understand. I've been spending the +blood of those people, eating, wearing, amusing myself with it." + +"Yes, and going down there to get caught in the same trap. I don't see +anything funny about that." + +"Alden Teevan would. I must tell him of it--my own dungeon closing in on +me." + +"Nonsense! You're morbid, girl. Tenements have got to be dirty. Trinity +Church itself has a fine bunch of the worst kind." + +"I'm not a church, dear. This tenement is coming down. I gave orders +to-day." + +"Well, you stay away from it. You're in bad shape, my girl." + +"Two weeks at Kensington will put me right." + +"Two weeks nothing! See here, if you act up, I'll rope you and hustle +you out to the ranch and close herd you there for about six months." + +She smiled weakly at him. + +"I shall be all right, dear--but you can help me upstairs now." + +"Too tired for a roof garden?" + +"I'm afraid so." + +"Or a broiled lobster?" + +"Not to-night, dear." + +He helped her up the stairs, alternately scolding her for her weakness +and protesting that broiled lobsters were all that kept him from +forgetting the existence of Manhattan. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE LITTLE LAND + + +Ewing found Kensington like a village dropped from the clouds of +stageland, its wide, grass-bordered streets arched with giant elms and +flanked by square old houses, drowsing behind their flower gardens and +green lawns. The house to which he went was equally a stage house. Only +in that land of pretense had he seen its like: a big, square, gray +house, its drab slate roof and red chimneys all but hidden by the elms +that towered above it like mammoth feather dusters, its wide piazzas +screened from the street by a hoary hedge of lilac. The house seemed to +drowse in a comfortable lethargy, confident of the rectitude of builders +long dead who had roughhewn its beams and joined them with wooden pins +before a day of nails. In Ewing's own room, far up between the hunched +shoulders of the house, the windows gave closely on one of the elms, so +that he could hear its whispers night and morning from his canopied bed +of four posts. The other rooms were broad and low of ceiling, and there +were long, high-backed sofas, slim-legged chairs, and tables of mahogany +or rosewood, desks, cabinets, and highboys of an outlandish grace, that +charmed with hints of a mellowed past--of past overlaying past in +sleeping strata. + +The woman whose house this was seemed to Ewing to be its true spirit. +She, too, drowsed anciently, a thing of old lace and lavender, yet of a +certain gentle and antique sprightliness, of cheeks preserving a hint of +time-worn pink, mellowed like the scrap of her flowered wedding dress +shut between the leaves of an "Annual" half a century old. + +And Ewing found in the house, too, the girl who had once talked half +an hour with him by an exigent tea table. She had been a thing of shy +restraint then, showing with an almost old-fashioned simplicity +against her background of townish sophistication. Now he found her +demurely modern in this huddle of mellowed relics. She it was who +interpreted for him the antique mysteries of house and town. She +paraded before him the treasures of her aunt, from the pewter plates +and silver-gilt candelabra to camphor-scented brocades long hidden in +cedar chests in the ghostly attic. But she performed her office with +irreverence; as when, in the attic's gloom, she held the festal gown +of some departed great-grandmother before her own robust figure to +show how tiny were grandmothers in those days, for the yoke but a +little more than half spanned her breadth as she smirked above it in +scorn of its narrowness. + +In that subdued light the girl's skin was flawless, her eyes were shaded +to murkiness, and a mote-ridden shaft of sunlight struck her hair to a +radiant yellow. But out of doors these matters could be seen to another +effect. The hair was only a yellowish brown, the eyes lost their shadows +and became the lucid green of sea waves, and the face was spotted with +tiny freckles, like a bird's egg. He liked her best out of doors, +breathing as she did of wood and field and sky. Skirts she seemed to +wear under protest, as a wood nymph might humor, a little awkwardly, the +prejudice of an indoor tribe with which she chose to tarry. When she +raced over the lawn with her dog, it was not hard to see that clothing +was an ungraceful impediment, even the short-skirted gowns she wore by +day. In the longer affairs of evening, though she strove to subdue her +spirits to them, she still had an air of the open, as if she but played +at being a lady and might forget at any moment. Ewing was shyer of her +when evening brought this change of habit. At such times he found it +easier to talk to Mrs. Laithe, who sat--or, oftener, lay--with her eyes +turned from the light, speaking but little. + +"I'm glad to be away from town," she said to him, as he sat a moment +beside her one day, "and I'm glad you're away. I need to be quiet, and +you shall do as you like. Virginia will go about with you and make you +gay. Virginia always makes us gay." + +Unconsciously her hand had fallen on his sleeve, curling and fastening +there, and when he rose he was disturbed to see that he had shaken off +so tender a thing. + +"I didn't know you were holding me," he said, in apology, and lifted the +fallen hand. + +"Such foolish hands! Your sister's are tiny, too, but they look as if +they could turn a doorknob." He leisurely turned it this way and that to +see its lines, and compared the fingernails with his own to show how +absurd they were. And all the time it seemed to the woman that her hand +had a little heart in it that was beating to suffocation. + +"There, Virginia is beckoning to you from the path--perhaps you can +finish my hand another time." She laughed. "I hope you're not seriously +annoyed about it." + +"It's foolish," he insisted, and replaced it with elaborate care. Then +he ran to join his ruddy cicerone. He found the girl a good comrade, who +helped him to forget those things he wished to forget. Somehow in the +quiet air, that nameless secret thing that had been eating his heart +drew off a little. Almost he could believe it had all been some hideous +mistake. + +He tried at first to join Virginia in her sports. Tennis looked +foolishly easy, but after sending four of the balls beyond recovery he +suspected that the game might demand something more than willingness and +strength, and relinquished his racquet to watch the girl. He felt the +glow of the sport in following her swift movements, and he envied the +young men who could play with her. + +Golf looked not only easy but useless; and it was with only half a heart +that he essayed it. He splintered a driver at his first attempt, and he +did not venture a second. Still, he liked golf better than tennis, he +decided, for he could carry the bag of things she played with and hunt +lost balls, and wander over the course alone with her. He was never able +to believe that a stroke more or less in holing the ball could be a +matter of real moment, but the girl was worth watching while she +believed it. He had never seen a real girl near before, and he was +surprised to find it so fine a sight. + +In the canoe he was more successful, contriving to accomplish by sheer +strength of arm what the girl did more adroitly. They would paddle far +up the little river, to float down in the late afternoon. The river, +too, was a stage river, running between low, willow-fringed banks, or +winding among hay fields that sloped back to the upland, or lush green +meadows where cows were posed effectively. The girl became part of the +picture when they turned to float homeward, facing him from the bow, her +hair glinting yellow and her skin crystal clear against the crimson +cushion she leaned upon. + +They rode together, too--he could join her there--over the upland and +far into the little hills, between tangled hedge rows, past little farms +with orchards of ripening fruit. They passed many deserted places, +mournful in their stagnation, overgrown with wild things, the houses +forlornly dismantled, perhaps with the roof sunken, the chimney toppled, +and the weather-beaten walls in ruinous decay. He was touched by these +places. The houses must have been built with high hope, and once have +been alive with full-hearted effort. Their walls had enclosed dreams and +joyous dramas. Then discouragement had fallen and the search for another +place of beginning. He wondered what had become of all the people who +had built these homes. He hoped they had begun in another place with +undimmed resolve and had found peace. Yet there were sinister hints that +their ghosts haunted these spots of their first failures, beseeching of +the ruins something of the first freshness of impulse. + +He tried to tell Virginia Bartell that he, too, was like a deserted +farm, falling into ruin. But this only made her laugh. She could not +believe in failure, it seemed. And he laughed with her, after a little. +It was not possible, after all, to suppose that he could go on being a +ruin forever. These frustrated home makers must have succeeded at last, +and so would he. In some manner the girl herself became an assurance of +this. Her mere buoyancy uplifted him. + +These times alone with the girl were not always to be had for the +asking. There abounded other youths who prized her companionship; able, +dauntless youths and skilled with accomplishments. + +There was one of these, a tall young man, spectacled, of a high shiny +forehead, a student of a youth, who haunted the gray house like a +malignant wraith of erudition, and condescended to the girl almost as +flagrantly as he did to Ewing. His talk, whether of machinery or morals, +socialism or chemistry, was meant to instruct. Wherefore the girl slunk +from him, not always so skilfully as might have been wished--with far +less subtlety, indeed, than her aunt wished. + +"I'm almost certain you offended him this afternoon," she remarked on a +day when they had fled flagrantly to the river, "though why you should +wish to avoid him is beyond me. You know that he's from one of the very +oldest families in West Roxbury." The girl's tone was penitent as she +answered: "But I'd promised to go in the canoe with Mr. Ewing." There +was no penitence, however, in the look she flashed at Ewing over her +aunt's shoulder, daring him to prove if he were a man. He nerved himself +in the glance. + +"But you see, Mrs. Ranley, I'm from one of the very oldest families in +Hinsdale County, Colorado." The girl applauded him with her eyes, and +the incident was closed with a word of mild gratification from the old +lady. She was pleased to observe that he felt a family pride, even +though any county in Colorado was, of course, beyond consideration. + +Their favorite walk home from the golf links led them through a +churchyard, and here they often rested in the cool of the afternoon; not +in the new part where monument and mound were obtrusively recent, but +up the hill from these, where death was so ancient as to be touched +with the grace of the antique. Here, in a pleasant gloom of oak shade, +cypress and elm, they loitered among the drab stones that headed mounds +worn down and overgrown with sweetbrier, wild rose, and matted grass; +and here Mrs. Laithe sometimes joined them for the homeward stroll, +walking too much, Ewing thought, like one who had risen from the +forgotten multitude under foot. Yet, when he spoke of her health she +always responded with her gay assurances, and seemed, indeed, to be more +concerned about his welfare than her own. He had not been able to talk +to her freely. There was so much about Teevan that he felt she would not +understand. Besides, he could not speak to her about Teevan. + +At the end of the first week he had written to Teevan to say that he +must talk with him. The little man had replied from his favorite sea +place, naming a day when he would be back in town. + +The prospect depressed Ewing anew. It had been easy to lie on his back +in a field, nettled by disgust with himself, and frame speeches of +self-mastery. But reflection had brought him doubt. The speeches would +have to be made, and yet, in a way, he was Teevan's property; Teevan had +invested money in him. This added to his depression. And this was why +the girl reported him to her sister as a youth joyful in odd moments of +forgetting, but sunk in some black despair when he remembered; a young +man she could not at all understand. And Mrs. Laithe, puzzling over his +trouble, divining that Teevan would somehow be at the bottom of it, +determined on a move to aid him, a move that would take her once more to +Teevan himself. She had sought him the night after her talk with +Sydenham, but the interview had come to nothing. Teevan had been so +plausibly solicitous about Ewing's success that she had found herself +unready to tax him with a knowledge of Ewing's identity, or with motives +inimical to him. His excessive amiability, his air of unsuspecting +sincerity, had disarmed her. But this time, she determined, there would +be no more fencing. She would attack straightforwardly. + +The day they left the girl lightly bade Ewing farewell with talk of +meetings in town. He had not told her of a resolve formed the day before +when they had ridden to a hill above the village from which they could +see veritable mountains in the distance--his own delectable mountains +they had seemed, calling to him. Instantly he had determined to go back +to his own. Not in defeat, but for fresh courage. He would stay there +working as he could, until Teevan was paid. Then the Rookery would know +him again, and the men of the Monastery--know him going his own way. + +He was meditating gloomily on his retreat as the train bore him back to +town with Mrs. Laithe. And she, alive to the distress that showed in his +face, forgot everything but him, the one she had helplessly and +irrevocably taken for her own, half her entreating child, half her +master, terrible and beloved. She watched his face from half-closed +eyes, finding it unutterably sad, and, without her being able to +withhold it, her mind constantly repeated the image of an embrace, to +soothe and sustain him. Incessantly this unsubstantial enfoldment took +place in her inner sense, like some wild drama among ocean-bed things, +far below an unrippled surface. Over and over the phantom woman beat +down his enemies, encircled him from harm, consoled him against her +heart, cherished him like the dear walls of a home. And she could not +halt this phantom play. Once she divided her arms and raised them a +little, as one in a dream faintly acts his vision. Ewing thought she was +drawing her chiffon boa about her, and he replaced it on her shoulders. + +Floating about this obsession in her mind was the dismayed thought of +Teevan. She was fixed on going to him for the truth, and this disturbed +her like a coming battle. She was not used to the feeling of antagonism, +she, with her gentle woman's life, but she felt an unknown energy +welling up in her--the fierceness of the defender. She would have the +truth from Teevan. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +EWING INTERRUPTS + + +Eleanor Laithe started from a half sleep. She had begun to dream while +still conscious of the library walls, the couch on which she lay, the +curtains swelling in and out of the opened windows with a heated breeze +of late afternoon, the rattle of a wagon through the street, and the +shrilling of boys at a game. + +She turned her face from the wall, fixed the pillows more easily under +her head, and stared into the room, her eyes narrowing in calculation as +she went lucidly back for the hundredth time since she had flung herself +there, to check off the details of that half hour with the man who +healed--or did not heal. + +She had shrewdly rejected the specialist Birley had named for another +who would not know her. She wanted no mistaken kindness, no polite +reluctance or glossing, and she feared to find this in one who might +regard her as something more than a casual human body in evil case. She +had felt bound to have plain words. She would know what she faced as one +knows heat or cold. + +And she had gained the full of her wish. The man had taken her as +casually as she offered herself. His questions were few, his examination +mechanically impersonal, his diagnosis cool and informing. She had felt +herself a culprit, listening to sentence. + +"You think I have a year to live?" + +"Longer, perhaps, if you take it this way, without worry. Worry eats the +tissue even faster than those little vegetable parasites. I take it you +eliminate worry?" He drew on his gloves. + +She smiled now, with pride in her cunning. Her simulation of unconcerned +curiosity had been perfect, as if it were another's wasting body she +brought him. She had hidden all that fond love of life, her life of +action, sensation; of hope ever enlarging, of fruitions certain, +innumerable, and dear. No sign had the practiced eyes read of the inner +rage that maddened her at thought of so much life unlived--life of mirth +and tears, height and depth, grief, ecstasy and common levels. She was +avid of them all, dared them all, wished only to play the game, vaunting +a fine zest for the sport with all its hazards. + +She had found in her hour alone there that she did not fear death--only +detested it. She feared it as little as a child fears sleep; hated it as +a child, torn untimely from play, hates to go to bed. + +"Longer, perhaps, if you take it this way--eliminate worry." But she +knew she could not take it "this way;" could not give up as this judge +believed she had done. She must rebel to the last. As long as she played +she must play in the true spirit. She might be vanquished, but she would +not debase the sport. She smiled at a reminiscence of her brother's +college life, catching at a phrase. "It seems I'm not a 'quitter,'" she +thought. + +Then she halted this race of thought in sudden amusement. She felt her +evening fever rising, the sinister warmth and false glow that burned +like a red flame below the outer corners of her eyes. It had come +earlier than usual, hurried, doubtless, by the very passion of her +rebelling. The man had been right. But she would have no waiting, +half-hearted conflict, for all that. + +She sat up quickly. A certain battle was set for this day, one that +would test her gameness. She rose to look at a clock, and knew that +Teevan probably awaited Ewing. But she could be first there, and she +felt equal to the clash. The very fever would sustain her. And she would +be wary once more that day, cunning to learn what she had to oppose. +Then she would be valiant. If the fever only gave her strength, small +matter the fuel that fed it. + +She smoothed her hair, flung a scarf over her shoulders, and stepped out +into the early twilight. She felt a slight giddiness as she walked the +short distance to Teevan's door, but she had shrugged this away by the +time she rang the bell. There was a wait, and she rang again. Then, when +she began to fear that she assailed an empty house, she heard rapid +steps; the door swung back, and Teevan himself stood before her, Teevan +jaunty in summer negligee of flannels and silken shirt, who deftly +covered with his froth of gallantry whatever surprise he felt at sight +of her. + +"My dear lady! So neighborly of you, and what luck I was in! I'm off +Neville's yacht for the evening only on a bit of business. Come up to my +den. It's stifling down here." + +She followed him up the stairs, feeling a reckless strength for combat. +He took her to a room at the front of the house where there was a desk, +a few lounging chairs, and an air of mannish comfort. + +"I'll not keep you long, Randall," she said, hesitating at first to sit, +illogically fearing that weakness might seize her if she relaxed her +body. After a moment, however, she took the chair he pushed forward. + +"As long as you like, Eleanor. The breeze comes cooler through those +south windows while you're here. Let me offer you a brandy and soda. No? +You'll let me take this alone, then? Thanks! I'm feeling a bit done up +by the heat." He seated himself at the desk, sipped from his glass and +looked a question at her. She debated her beginning. + +"It's about Gilbert Ewing." + +His dark little eyes narrowed upon her with agreeable interest. + +"Ah, to be sure--Ewing." + +"You know he's been staying a fortnight with us at Kensington." + +He nodded a gracious assent, still waiting, still veiled with an effect +that aroused all her caution. + +"He came back to town yesterday." + +"He must have enjoyed the place immensely. I'm nowhere so strongly +reminded of rural England, saving the architecture, of course. Ewing +painted, doubtless?" + +"Oh, no, he did nothing. He played with my sister, chiefly. Virginia +took him about. They were inseparable. He had heart for nothing but +her--no work, nothing else." She had deliberately lengthened the speech, +wishing him not to see that she watched for an opening. Teevan seemed to +feel a leading. He searched her face as he asked: + +"They liked each other immensely, eh?" + +"Oh, yes, I couldn't tell you----" + +He felt the weariness of her tone, almost a faintness. The color burned +darkly high on her cheeks, her eyes showed an exotic and painful +splendor. He suddenly saw that she must have sustained some blow; that +her luster was a fevered glitter sad and terrible, and that she was +nerving herself to some ordeal. He sank back in his seat, all acuteness. +Had she betrayed herself in the beginning, struck open the secret for +him by her first words? A jealous woman, then--a flouted woman come to +turn on the man? It was no conclusion to leap at; rather a piquant +suspicion to verify. + +He set his glass down and picked up a slender-bladed dagger from the +desk before him, absently bending the steel. He knew they were both +veiled for the moment. His eyes challenged her to open speech of Ewing +as he held the dagger up to her and said lazily, "A beauty, +that--undoubted Toledo work. Picked it up in a shop at Newport +yesterday. They knew how to temper steel in those days. See its edge--" +He tore a bit of paper from a pad and slashed it into strips, his eyes +rising to hers at each cut, interrogatory, through the complacence of a +man exhibiting a fine property. + +"Randall, you've been friendly with him, and yet you know who he is; +you've known it a long time. And you--you _can't_ like him." + +He still toyed with his plaything, prickling its needle-like point into +the pad of paper under his hand. Then he turned on her with a sudden, +insinuating droop of the eyelids. + +"Very well--and you've been friendly with him, say until two weeks ago. +And you're no longer so. I name no reason. But you detest him now. Am I +wrong? Can I still read a woman?" He leaned toward her, peering nearer +with each query. He meant them to be like thrusts of the dagger which +he now threw on the desk. Her eyes fell in unfeigned confusion under his +look, her mind running many ways to come on the meaning beneath this +preposterous guess. She looked up to him, seeking a hint, but his eyes +were inscrutable, his mouth set in a sagacious smile, intimating, +accusing. She looked down again, suddenly feeling it wise to let him +think as he did--whatever absurd thing it might be. She sighed deeply, +relaxed in her chair and met his eyes again. Teevan beheld a woman +defenseless to his insight; one too proud to confess in words, but too +weak, too vindictive, perhaps, to attempt denial. + +"I see, my girl--don't trouble to speak." He replenished his glass from +the decanter. He was delighted with his penetration; pleased, also, to +believe that here was an ally, if one should be needed. He glanced at +her again. She sat silent and drooping. + +"You did well to come to me, Eleanor. I fancy you'll be interested to +know what our young friend is about to encounter." + +"Oh, I shall, I shall! Tell me, please." He smiled at her eagerness, so +poorly subdued, recording in a mental footnote the viperish fury of a +woman in her plight. Still, he thought she carried it off rather well. +There had been need for his keenness to read her secret. + +"I'll tell you, my girl, and I'm jolly glad to find some one who can +enjoy it with me. What am I going to do with him?" He rose and paced the +room for so long a time that she felt she could not bear it. She was +about to speak when he abruptly halted and faced her with a petrifying +burst of malignance. "What am I going to do with him?--wring him, wreck +him, choke him, fling the fool back on his dung heap to rot!" She +stared at him, panting; then, summoning all her ingenuity she smiled +slowly above the sickening fear that had rushed over her. Teevan glowed. +That smile of hers--he could detect something relentless in it--was a +tribute to his prowess no less than a confirmation of his power to read +her. + +"I don't understand," she half whispered, still with that restrained +fierceness that gave him joy. + +"Of course you don't. Am I to be read as a primer? I'm subtler, I trust, +than an earthquake, a cyclone, a deluge. You don't understand, but you +shall." He paced the floor again with a foppish air of pride. "Ah, it +has worked so beautifully. Really, I've regretted there was no one I +could let in to enjoy a work of art with me. But you, I see, will have +the taste to applaud it, Nell, now that your eyes are opened. Oh, the +thing has gone ideally! Only applause was lacking." + +"I don't understand, Randall." She could hardly manage the words. She +was afraid her heart would beat them into some wild cry of impatience. + +"You shall--you shall." He gazed meditatively at her. "Yes, and you'll +have to know it all to understand perfectly, even my--my humiliation." +He unlocked the door of a closet and brought out something she did not +recognize until he had placed it across the arms of a chair and stepped +back. It was the portrait of Ewing's mother. His face was contorted now +in a most unpleasant sneer. + +"There's the _motif_." He resumed his seat at the desk, facing the +picture. The sneer had gone, and whatever dignity of soul was in him +sounded in the next words. + +"You can't know what that meant to me when I saw it, when I knew who +had done it, when I thought of the creature who carried it about +parading his own shame and hers--and _mine_!" + +"I think I can understand that, Randall." + +"You can't, I say. No woman could. You can't begin to know the +humiliation, how it tore me, knowing this fellow walked the earth at +all, a nameless spawn, holding my shame over me--over _me_! threatening +every instant to cover me again with it. As if I'd not survived enough! +Good God! was I to go through it again, and know that this puling whelp +was the instrument--a thing to torture me, hold me up to ridicule, to +make men smile and titter and mock me in club corners? Wasn't _her_ +insult enough? Must she breed obscene things to echo it?" He groaned and +turned away with a gesture of warding off. In the mist of her besetment +the woman found herself thinking that the fine little hands in this +gesture should have been lace-beruffled at the wrist. He was the figure +of stabbed vanity, the bleeding coxcomb. He flung an arm toward the +picture with bitter vehemence. + +"Ah, my lady! my fine, loose lady, with your high talk and your low way! +I hope you've watched me with those painted eyes of yours. Did you think +I'd never strike back?" + +"But now, Randall--_how_?" He replenished his glass and turned slowly +away from the picture. + +"How, indeed? That's where you meet me at last. Not every one could have +carried it through, but it was simple for me. Difficult in a way, yes. +It's been hard to stomach the fool, with his conceit and his whining. +Oh, he fancies himself tremendously, for all his ways of a holy +innocent, his damned airs of a sugar-candy Galahad. But I've won him, I +tell you, by that very innocence of his. I'm the one soul in the world +he truly reveres. His sun rises and sets in me. And now he's where I +want him. I've worn out his hope, kept him from doing the thing he +wanted to do, kept him on the edge of despair out of respect and fear +and love of me. The beggar _has_ a certain devilish sort of genius, but +he doesn't know where it lies, and I've taken precious good care he +shouldn't find out. Oh, but I've had a rich time of it--disgusting and +rich. Nearly a year it is now that he's led me this dance, but I've +hooked him beautifully, and to-night I'll pull him in." She had been +watching the play of spite on his face, and it was with difficulty that +she moistened her lips to say: + +"But what will you do to-night--what can you say?" + +"Everything I've laid a train for saying, this year past. Tell him how I +despise him for his empty pretensions, his constant, wretched failures. +Show him to himself as a conceited dawdler and a cheat who has lived on +my bounty--oh, I saw to that--a cheat who has defrauded me of time and +money and faith in man. Never fear but I'll know the things to say. I've +told them to _her_ often enough." He thrust viciously at the portrait. +"And you'll hear it all, my Lady Disdain, with your face to the wall to +hide its belated blushes." + +Again she tried to speak but her lips were dry. At last she achieved a +few rather husky words. + +"Randall, if you please, might I have a glass of something--water, I'd +like." + +"To be sure, my child. You're certain you won't join me in a brandy and +soda? No? I'll get you something below." + +She clutched at the moment to quiet, if she could, that tumult of heart +and brain. Her mind dwelt chiefly on Ewing's dejection as she had left +him the day before. Teevan came back, bearing a carafe and a bottle of +soda water. She drank a glass of the water greedily, and murmured her +thanks as he gave her more. It refreshed her and she seemed to feel a +renewal of strength. Her fever was heating her brain to wild activity. +She felt a crazy desire to cool her head, to lean it against snow or +cold metal. She thought fleetingly of cold things she had touched, of +marble, icicles, a brass rail with frost on it. She was goading her mind +for a way to reach Teevan. She drank the second glass of water, and +again he refilled it, protesting against so poor a tipple as he took +more brandy for himself. + +She watched him narrowly as he prepared his drink. The decanter was so +low that she thought he must be feeling what he had taken, and she +wondered if it might not have softened him, released some generosity in +his poor soul. + +"You must have suffered, Randall, in all this. But won't it hurt you +still more, doing what you mean to do--when you make _him_ suffer?" + +"His suffering!" He waved a deprecating hand. "What can he suffer +compared to me? Disgust I've suffered, yes, and mortification. He could +feel nothing approaching that if I flayed him here. Why, Nell, I pulled +a rose from its bush this morning in Neville's garden, and crushed a +worm crawling on its stem. A poor, tiny green thing, yet it had lived, +and had its successes and failures after a fashion. But you can't +imagine its actual suffering in death to equal my own mere disgust at +crushing it." + +The brandy had not softened him, she thought. Could it have made him +cautious? + +"Have you never suspected, Randall, that there may be a sleeping fighter +in him?" There was a glitter in her tormented eyes, a sudden fierce wish +to behold battle between this puny insulter and Ewing aroused to his +might. + +"Bah! a fighter!" He snapped contemptuous fingers. "There's the look in +his eye sometimes, but I've disarmed him. He _can't_ fight me, his +benefactor, his best friend. Never fear; he'll wilt, wither, shrivel up. +Oh, trust me for that. And suppose the impossible, suppose the worm +turns in some fit of wormish desperation. I've the _coup_, have I not? +You know what his mother is to him, a damned romantic memory of pure +womanhood and all that rot. Suppose him capable of so much as an +eye-flash of defiance. Why, then, my child, he'll know who--he'll know +_what_--his mother was; and he'll know my right to describe her. He'll +know what _he_ is. And the words won't puzzle him: he'll need no +lexicon--crisp, Anglo-Saxon words. Do you think that will leave any +fight in him--her shame and his? By Gad! Nell, it's too good to keep +from him. He shall have it anyway, though I'd meant to keep it back for +my own sake. But that shall be the clincher. Before her face there I'll +tell him what she was." + +"Not that, Randall, surely not that!" Her veil of calmness had flown on +the wind of his hate. She knew she must reveal herself. Her words had +been so near a cry that he turned on her in amazement. + +"Listen, Randall, don't--don't do that. Let him off. I promise to take +him away. It's all true; you've handled him well, and you can break him +now--but don't. Please, please let him go. I'll take him away, I tell +you. I promise he shall never bother you again." + +He looked at her, incredulous. + +"You're asking me to consider _him_--really?" + +"No, no--to consider me. Please, please listen--please consider me." + +"But you--I thought you----" + +"Randall"--she had regained a little of her first coolness--"I'm done +for. I found that out to-day. I've a year to live, at most. A scant +year, if it's to be like this. Try to grasp it. I've wanted so much, had +so little of life. But, I must go, they tell me. Can you understand what +that means, as well as I understood what this meant to you--a sentence +of death, a few little months to snatch at happiness?" + +He stared at her uncertainly, but half comprehending. She saw that the +drink was affecting him at last. His eyes were dulled, his face had lost +its centered look. + +"Going to die, Eleanor? Die in a year? What rot! Don't talk rot. Nobody +dies in a year." He spoke carefully, with a deliberate attack on each +word, as if he mistrusted his tongue. + +"But it's true, Randall, I swear it's true. Can you understand?" + +"Understand?" he repeated, and through her tense absorption she was +astonished to see on his face an incredible look of pity. "Understand? +Why, of course! And it's too bad, my girl. Poor Eleanor! Die in a +year--why wouldn't I understand? But never mind"--he seemed to search +clumsily for words of cheer. "Death isn't anything but an incident in +the scheme of life--a precious contemptible one, I've no doubt. We live, +and that's a little thing--but death's littler. I dare say we live as +long as we need to. Who was the old chap--Plotinus, wasn't +it?--conceived the body to be a penitential mechanism for the soul? All +the better if we expiate early. Gad! I must have had a quantity of +things to atone for--though I'm really younger than you may think, Nell. +Poor girl--poor girl!" He brightened as he drained his glass to her. +"Here's to you, wherever you are. Come, be cheerful anyway. What was it +struck in my mind yesterday?--a sentence from one of Arbuthnot's letters +to Swift--just the meat for you--'A reasonable hope of going--a +reasonable hope of going to a good place and an absolute certainty of +leaving a bad one.' That's the sentiment--keep it in mind, my dear." + +She was nerving herself to new appeals, half fearing she could not hold +his attention. She seized on that unprecedented look of compassion. + +"But, Randall, you'll let him off--let him off for me--for my sake." In +her eagerness she rose and fluttered to the desk, standing before him. +He whirled his chair about, and the look of commiseration had gone. + +"No, no, no! You can't understand, Nell. I couldn't let him off if I +wanted to. It's fate, its retribution--the sins of the father--it's +scriptural, I tell you--" His eyes were gleaming again with steely +implacability. + +"But for me, Randall, for my sake, for me alone--not thinking of him?" + +"Ah, lady, set me a harder task, but one of dignity--as difficult, as +dangerous as you like, so it has some dignity. But not that. Here"--he +gracefully extended the handle of the dagger to her--"slay me an' you +will--the blade is keen--a toy, but deadly--I'll die smiling if you +wish. But don't ask for that cub's happiness. Don't rob me of my pay, +Nell, my pay for all I've endured from him, his boastings and +snivelings, and his detestable handshakes. Don't talk rot, I say, +even if you must die." + +Again she set herself to plead, desperation feeding the fire in her head +until she knew not her words. She was conscious only of a torrent of +speech, coaxing, imploring, wheedling, even threatening. But all she +evoked was the steady, smiling negative, his head shaken unwittingly to +the rhythm of her phrases. + +She stopped at last, panting, striving to keep back the passionate words +of entreaty that still formed, crushing them down in a maddened +consciousness of their impotence. She stared wildly, feeling only a +still stubborn determination. Ewing would soon come--yet it seemed that +she had no resource save appeal. She felt this and raged against it, +striding away from Teevan across the room. For the first time in her +gentle life she was feeling the sensation she thought a man must feel in +fighting. She had an impulse to strike blindly, to wound, to beat down +with her hands. Without volition she measured her antagonist and +wondered deliriously if she could throw him to the floor. He seemed so +small to her, and hateful--hateful and small enough to kill. She closed +her eyes to shut him out, but opened them again quickly, for everything +rocked in the darkness. She incessantly pictured this creature, naked in +his poverty of manhood, smiling up at Ewing, the friendly one, who stood +bowed down, blighted and broken of heart. Sometimes Ewing had his arm +over his face, and she felt that he would never take it away--move on +thus forever, like a figure in an anguished dream. + +Constantly beside her thoughts, like a little refrain, went the +remembrance that she had brought him there, torn him from his youth and +splendid dreams to give him to this--she the betrayer! The fever waxed, +the tortured blood trampled in her head like hurrying hoofs. + +But she could not strike Teevan, extinguish him with blows, and she set +herself again to play the beggar. And she could not beg across the room. +Bit by bit she crept to the entreated one, her great eyes full of flame +and fear, and laid pitiful hands on his shoulder. Still the shaken head +met her, the icy smile, the dulled eyes. + +"No good talking, Nell! No good! You mortify me, my word you do. Demand +something great, something to task a man; ask me----" + +Again he picked up the dagger with a return to that extravagant air of +the sighing gallant. + +"--here, I point it to my heart, see! A mere thrust--your beautiful hand +is still equal to it. I'd be proud of the blow. I'd give you my life +gladly--but not my self-respect. You're too stunning a woman, Nell, to +waste yourself on that cub--a woman to die for indeed. You were never +finer than at this moment." In the excess of his emotion he threw an arm +about her waist. She started back but he held her. + +"Never finer, Nell, on my soul--too fine for that damned----" + +She put out her hands in an instinctive, shuddering movement of +repulsion. Still he clung to her, muttering his insupportable phrases. +He clung and she could not release herself without doing what she had +thought was impossible--exert her unused hands in striking, thrusting, +beating off. She hesitated: she did not like to touch him. He looked +very small and low in his chair. How low he seemed from her dizzy +height! And yet he held so well. His voice came faintly, too, as if from +afar, floating up faint and hateful. So he would hold Ewing and slay him +with his voice. He was playing with the dagger again and proffering his +heart with maudlin eyes. Prisoning her still with his right arm, he took +her hand in his left and clumsily set it on the dagger's hilt. + +"It would be a sweet death, Nell. Press home!" He drew her closer, so +that she staggered on his shoulder. "Gad! your eyes are fine. What a +woman you are! Too great, Nell, for that beaten whelp, even before he +took to your sister----" + +She gave a desperate little cry and struck out to free herself. It was +hardly more than a gesture to have him away, but she was conscious, with +a lightning shock, that the blade moved under her hand. She heard +Teevan's shrill scream of fright and pain---- + +"You're killing me--you're killing me!" + +But she saw only Ewing with covered face, and pushed the harder, lost to +all but her blind sense of opposition. Then she heard a new note in +Teevan's cry. + +"Ewing! Ewing!" + +She turned quickly, while Teevan retreated round a corner of the desk, +snarling his rage--turned to see Ewing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MRS. LAITHE IS ENLIGHTENED + + +He stood just inside the door, hat in hand, regarding the scene with a +look that was troubled yet cool. She felt her way cautiously back to a +chair, afraid of fainting, and grasped it for support. Finding that her +hand still clutched the dagger, she dropped it with a shudder of +disgust. + +Ewing shrewdly noted where the dagger fell, then his eyes flashed to +Teevan. There was a stain of blood on the silken shirt, and the little +man was staring down at this, incredulous. + +"By God! she meant it!" he muttered. Then his eyes rose to meet Ewing's, +and a look of sudden malignance blazed into them. + +"So you've come!" The cry, like the look, was full of hate. "You've come +in time, you whelp! Now you'll hear something you might have heard that +first night when I had to fuddle you with tales of a seizure. Now you'll +know----" + +But the woman started toward him with a suddenness that broke his +speech. + +"If you tell him he'll kill you--" The words came with a quick, +whispering intensity, and there was a rapt, almost rejoicing look on her +face, as of one eager for the deed. + +Teevan looked scornfully to Ewing again, but was chilled by a certain +sharp, cold light in his eyes, the look of one alert and ready. His +words gave meaning to this look. + +"If you tell me, I'll kill you," said Ewing. The sentence was evenly +uttered, and the tone was low, almost deferential, but the intention was +not to be mistaken. + +Teevan laughed, flourishing a gesture of scorn for the threat. + +"I'm no coward"--but he broke off, waiting, watching, with fear in his +eyes. + +"I'll take this," said Ewing. He lifted the portrait tenderly from the +chair and thrust it under his arm with a protecting movement. Teevan +stared at this with an air of fine disdain, but did not speak. + +The woman had been waiting for his words with parted lips. Now she +breathed a long, trembling sigh of relief and turned to Ewing. + +"You see, he has nothing to say. Let us go." + +He opened the door for her and closed it after them without looking +again at Teevan. + +"There's a reason why I can't do it for you now," he said, as they went +down the stairs. She wondered what he could mean, but was too little +alive to ask. When they reached the street she became at once interested +in a belated laborer going home with a loosely tied bundle over his +shoulder, odds and ends of small boards, refuse from some building. He +whistled in a tired way as he trudged on, not looking at them. She felt +pleased at the thought that his wife was going to have wood with which +to cook the poor fellow's supper. The dark was fast gathering, but +children still romped in the street. An elderly stout man passed, his +hat off, wielding a palm-leaf fan. She was surprised at this, for the +outer air had fallen on her with icy clutch, making her draw the scarf +more closely about her. + +Ewing would have left her at her door, but she urged him to go in. She +took him to sit in the unlighted library, and there, when he could no +longer see her face, he was astounded to hear her talk of her girlhood, +her schooldays, of the few people they knew in common, of Piersoll's new +book, of her brother's ranch life; of a score of little gossipy matters +that would occur to the untroubled mind in a twilight chat. But when he +rose to go after a little time, she was in an instant wild panic of +protest, seizing one of his hands with a convulsive grip. He covered her +poor hand with his own and regarded her with pity. She lifted her face +to him with a sudden wild entreaty for shelter. "Oh, stay with +me--stay--stay--and comfort me. I am so ill, and I--I would comfort +you." He soothed her as best he could, protesting that he would stay, +and in a few moments she was talking cheerfully of Kensington and of +Virginia. She tried to amuse him with tales of Virginia's childhood--how +she had been such a droll and merry little creature. She still retained +his hand, gripping it with an intensity through which he could feel the +quivering of her whole body. + +Only once did she refer to Teevan. "Please don't see him again," she +urged. "Promise me, promise never to let him tell you--anything. Please, +please promise that!" + +Believing she pleaded for herself, he felt that old longing to lift her +in his arms and show her there without words how little she had to fear. +But he controlled himself to answer simply, "I promise; I'll never let +him speak to me again. Don't be afraid; he shall never say anything to +me." + +Her father came in presently, grumbling about the lack of light as he +stumbled against a chair. He let it be known that he had returned to the +city in some alarm about her, inspired by a letter from her aunt. She +hastily assured him that she was well--never better. But he demurred at +her remaining longer in town. + +"You'll have to get out, daughter. It's beastly unpleasant doing those +slum things in summer. You need life and gayety. You come with me and +dance, play bridge, swim, sail--enjoy yourself with your own kind for a +while. You're going on Tom Neville's yacht to-morrow. He's to pick us up +about noon with Randy Teevan." + +"Will he be there?" she asked. + +"He will, and he'll be one of a jolly crowd that will 'liven you up. +Here's Clarence--he must come, too." + +Her brother had felt his way through the darkness, and before she +guessed his intention he had found one of the electric lights and turned +it on. She shrank back with a strange, smothered cry, under the sudden +light, her hand before her face as if to ward off invisible horrors, her +eyes staring at them under it, wild with appeal. They were speechless +for the moment, alarmed by her manifest illness, her frightened, haggard +face, in which the fever raged. Her brother was the first to speak, +going to her and taking the blind, defending hand she had put out. She +clung to him when she felt his touch, but turned her face away. + +"See here, Nell," he began, in tones of savage decision, "no yachting +trip for you, my girl. 'Twon't do, governor, you can see that for +yourself. But I'll tell you what she's going to do--she's going to pack +up and go back to the mountains with me and stay there till she's well." + +She still clung to him, drawing his arms around her with an effect of +hiding. + +"Yes, yes, that's it--let's go there--out where there's room. It's +stifling here. Have you noticed how curiously stifling it is? Too many +people, dead people and live people, and all hobnobbing. We must get +away, brother." + +"You hear that, dad? She'll go back with me. How soon, Nell?--I say, how +soon?" he repeated, for she had not seemed to hear him. + +"How soon?" She raised her eyes to them with sudden intelligence, then +sprang wildly to her feet. + +"Oh, soon, at once!--Well, not to-night, perhaps,"--she sank back +again--"but to-morrow, next day. We'll all go. Mr. Ewing is going." Her +eyes rested on Ewing a moment, then, with a difficult smile, she turned +to her brother. "And Virgie must go, too. Telegraph her to-night. She'll +make us gay, she'll make us--as we used to be. We couldn't go without +Virgie. She will--comfort us." + +"She'll go, too, Sis. It's all right. I'll telegraph. But what are you +afraid of? You'll be a well woman there in a month." + +"Afraid--I afraid?" She looked up at him in wonder. "I don't know. Oh, +yes I do. Why, I just tried to kill--I've just killed--killed a hundred +people--killed----" + +"Good Lord--there--she's fainted! Get some water and a drop of brandy, +dad!" + +"Poor child--it's so fearfully unpleasant," murmured Bartell as he came +back with a glass and decanter. "It's that tenement house thing that's +got on her nerves." + +"An unpleasant business," returned his father, "all that rot--mighty +unpleasant!" + +Ewing waited in the outer room until he heard the broken murmur of her +voice and knew that she had recovered. Then he went quickly out, the +portrait under his arm. He had the feeling that it had been contaminated +by Teevan's touch. + +He began dismantling his studio that night. He stopped in the work once +to look out over the roofs, glowing luridly under a half moon. This was +because the pleading of the woman still rang in his ears--"Don't let him +tell you anything"--and the whole entreating look of her flashed back to +him. Then the big, slow tears of pity gathered in his eyes to set the +chimney pots dancing before him. + +"If only I hadn't owed him money!" he muttered, beside himself with pity +and hatred. + +It was not until the day before they started West that Mrs. Laithe +learned the secret of this pity of Ewing's that had so puzzled her. +Alden Teevan begged a moment with her in the afternoon of that day, and +she, sunk in the languor of her sickness, received him where she lay, in +her own sitting-room. + +He swept her with a long, knowing look as he entered, reading, she saw, +the truth about her condition. + +"I'd gladly go with you, Nell," he began--"let my own walls close at the +same time." But she would have no bald admissions. + +"I'm not going, Alden--I'm only a bit run down. I shall pick up in a +month out there." He detected her insincerity but only smiled in a hurt +way. + +"That's one of your rules of the game, isn't it, to keep up the +pretense? Of course I can't expect you to break rules for me." She faced +him stanchly, looking denial. + +"But I must tell you something," he went on quickly, "something horrible +and absurd and unbelievable." She listened, and grew faint in an agony +of unbelief, while he told her what had inspired Ewing's behavior the +night before. She made him repeat it, testing each detail, weighing its +credibility against Ewing's inexperience; dazedly trying to see herself +as he must see her now. Alden Teevan regarded her with quickening +sympathy. + +"It wasn't a pretty thing to do, Nell, but I saw he had some deviltry +afoot, and I got it from him--I half choked and half wheedled it from +him. Fortunately he was drunk or I couldn't have got it either way. But +now you know. It began, as nearly as I could gather, one night last +spring when Ewing saw you leaving the house. The vain little fool +guessed he'd seen you, and told him the tale about a woman who'd been +harassing him because he was trying to break off an affair with her." + +"I remember----" + +"And then last night----" + +"Last night--ah, last night!" She laughed weakly, recalling the scene +that had met Ewing's eyes, perceiving what he must have thought. "I'd +have done it for you," she heard him say again, and shuddered. She +recalled, too, her own later urging, "Never let him tell you anything." +How pitiful she must have seemed to him, and how monstrous! She laughed +again wildly, suddenly struck by the cunning of this satire on truth. +Alden Teevan recalled her from the picture. + +"It was like him, wasn't it, Nell?--like both of them--like him to say +it, and like the other to believe. But the harm can be undone. You can +explain--a word or two." + +She stared at him in sudden consternation. It had flashed upon her that +no half truth would satisfy Ewing. She knew she would be unequal to any +adequate fiction; she would falter and he would see to the heart of her +lie. She must let him think as he did--or blacken his dearest memory. +But to Alden Teevan she only said: + +"Ah, yes--a word will explain--and I'm so grateful to you." She was +wondering then if she were glad or sorry that he had told her. She might +have lived out her time without knowing, she thought. + +"Of course, if you'd like me to tell him, Nell----" + +"No, no, Alden, thank you; but that's for me." + +They had not spoken Ewing's name, but his concern in the matter, the +meaning of his faith in the woman, was a matter that seemed to lie open +to them both. Alden Teevan had assumed it and she had made no denial. +His recognition of it colored his leave-taking. + +"All happiness for you, Nell. The game ought to be worth playing with +you--and with him. You both live so hard." He found it difficult to say +as little, there was such gratitude and such misery in her eyes as they +fell before his, trying to veil at least a part of what she felt. But he +left her so. + +She lay a long time trying to realize Ewing in this new light. She had +never read anything in his eyes but the fullest devotion, and yet for +months he had believed this sinister thing. She caught again his young, +sorry, protesting look, and the poignancy of it brought her tears. +There came into the tenderness she had felt for him something of awe for +his unquestioning allegiance, a thing that had not wavered under the +worst he could believe. Then the monstrous absurdity of what he did +believe came upon her once more and she laughed; but her tears still +fell. And so, with laughter and tears, she set him up anew in her heart, +her beloved child and her terrible master. She was glad now that she +knew. It made him more to her. And the time would be so short. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE SUNSET TRAIL + + +Ewing had looked forward pleasantly to meeting Virginia Bartell again, +but it was a new Virginia who met him with a nod when he joined the +party on the evening of the start. She had eyes only for her sister, the +white, weak, phantom thing who smiled terribly as her brother half +carried her into the stateroom of their car. Through the days of the +journey he sought to cheer her, wistfully making jests about the flat +land and its people as they sped through the little wooden towns, +promising her a land that would be "busy every minute." But she would +only say, "I'll like your land when it makes sister well." + +"It's bound to," he assured her. "Nobody dies there unless he gets +careless. Here, this is the way it happens. Here's Ben Crider's last +letter. You'll like Ben. Listen to this and see if it doesn't make you +hopeful." He opened the scrawled sheet and read: + +"'Dear Kid, I thought it about time to write you a few lines. If you +seen the lake now you would want to of been here. Life and nature seems +very complete here. I heard Chet Lynch shot Elmer Watts. I been building +a haystacker for Pierce. Plenty deer sign around the lick. Lee Jennings +was killed by a bucker falling back on him. I can sell your saddle for +twenty-two dollars to Ben Lefferts. I put a new latigo on it. Let me +know. Say, Kid, I sent two dollars to the Mystic Novelty Company. The +address is Lock Box 1347. The ad. said they would send you a book how to +read past, present and future from the hand and a genuine ten-karat +Persian diamond pin set in solid gold, if you sent on one dollar in +stamps or P. O. order. Well, the diamond may be all right enough +Persian, but the solid gold setting has turned black. You go there and +ask for the head man and raise particular--'" He broke off the reading. + +"You see, they only die by getting shot, or falling off a horse." + +The girl shuddered and turned to him with a sudden helpless yielding. + +"I can hardly bear it," she said, almost in a whisper. "You don't know +what she is to me, how I've loved her and loved her and loved her. And +yet I've accepted her as a matter of course, a thing that couldn't be +taken from me, like the world itself. How could I think she might be +like--like those others? Oh, I never dreamed I could lose my dearest--my +dearest!" + +He waited a moment, and at last said gently, "You won't lose your +dearest--we won't lose her." + +"Oh, but she's going, before our eyes." + +"Listen to me, listen now! She's going to get well. She'll be strong +again--I know it. I say she can't die; but you must be sure of it--as +sure as I am--do you hear?--as sure as I am." + +"Yes, yes--I will be sure." She tried to look at him through her +tear-wet lashes. He smiled at her confidently. + +"If we're both sure, we can have your sister crying in a month because +Ben won't let her work in the garden." + +"Oh, if you only--" She broke off to look at him in wondering gratitude. + +"And I'll go in and tell her so now," he added, rising. + +"Yes, yes, make her feel sure, too," she implored. She turned quickly to +the car window, where twilight was blurring the fields to a far, dreamy +horizon, level and vast. He stood a moment, tracing with mental point +the line of her profile under the boyish cap pinned to her yellow hair. + +Mrs. Laithe lay on a narrow sofa in the stateroom. She had moved from +that only to the berth at night since their start, and had betrayed a +preference for being alone in the little compartment. Ewing had felt, +however, that she liked to talk with him as evening drew on. She had +sent for him at this hour the day before and they had sat together in +the dusk. He was reassured by the cheerfulness of her tone as she +greeted him now. + +"We're flying so fast," she said joyously. + +"To make you well the sooner. I've just been telling Virginia what we'll +do for you even in a month. You'll be riding and climbing, and you'll +cry because you can't fell trees or rive out shakes, or something." + +"I'm not worrying about that. It will come right very soon." + +"We'll make it come right. No one ever dies a natural death there, you +know. I was just reading your sister a letter from Ben. Lee Jennings +killed breaking a horse, Elmer Watts shot by Chester Lynch. Of course, +in a way, that was a natural death for Elmer. He was bound to go that +way sooner or later, but you're not going to ride a bucker, and you're +not a gunfighter. Oh, you'll thrive, with a little stall feeding." + +"And there's so much room out there." She smiled. "So much room to--to +live. And life is so full. I like to hear it, through Virgie and through +you. You are shells that give me the roar of it." + +He was sensitive to some pathos of aloofness which her whole being +expressed for him, and he strove to meet this with pictures of herself +returning, a well woman; but she turned her face from him at length, and +did not speak for so long that he thought she might be sleeping. He went +carefully out, with a last enveloping look. + +When he had gone the woman laughed in a helpless, shuddering way, then +raised herself far enough toward the window to see the fields rushing by +outside. There was timidity in her look until she had seen a mile of +that relentless earth rush back and away from her. She seemed to need +this assurance that she was going away from the trouble in the crude, +literal sense of earthly distance--going off where there was room "to +live," she had told Ewing; "to die," she had amended the phrase to +herself. For death was now a solace she faced. She who had been so hot +for the fight, so avid of life, had been cheated of a combatant's +privileges. She could not tell Ewing the truth, and she could not live +while he believed the lie. It was well, she thought, to know that she +had only to let herself float down that placid current of the white +death. She was amazed at her own calmness and tested it in all subtle +ways, making sure of its foundations. She could find no weak spot. She +craved only a moderate speed in the descent. Too long a wait would be +wearisome, and the wise man had assured her against that. Yet she felt +that she had the right to be a little glad when her brother told her the +next day of a change in the plan. + +"It will be better for you and Virgie to go to Ewing's place, Nell. +It's always quiet there, and my place is pretty busy and noisy. I'll +manage to stay over there with you a good deal, and we'll get a woman to +come and do for you--I know one that will be glad to come. It will only +be for a little while, you know." + +She smiled at that well-worn fiction, but applauded the plan. + +"I shall like it, dear, and Virgie will, too, I'm sure, if you think it +best, and if Mr. Ewing----" + +"Ewing suggested it, and he didn't waste any words telling what a good +plan he thought it was. We'll have some extra things brought up from +Pagosa to make you comfortable, and you can have a bully long rest +there." + +"A long rest, yes--and let us have a piano. I'd like to hear some music +while I'm resting." + +"Sure! we'll have one up from Durango. You might need to stay there +until--well--into the winter, you know." + +"I think so, Clarence." She was tempted sometimes to confide to him the +truth about her sickness, but refrained. + +"Well, it won't be very long. All you want is a rest." + +Her mind echoed it when he had gone. Yes, a rest. She looked up at +Virginia, who had entered softly. Her face still shone with the thought +of rest and release, and she smiled up at the girl, who had laid a cool +hand on her flushing cheek, and now regarded her with devouring eyes. +She stood so a moment, then knelt to peer at the wasted face. She looked +a long time without speaking, looked shrewdly and, at last, accusingly. + +"What is it, dearest? I saw it in your face yesterday. What is it I see? +Something has frightened you--beaten you." + +The other smiled protestingly, chidingly, with a raised finger; but the +girl was not to be appeased. + +"You won't tell me, Nell; I know you; you'll keep it in. But, oh, +dearest!" She suddenly gathered the sick woman into her strong young +arms, raising her head from the pillow, holding the fevered face to her +breast, pressing her own cool cheek to the hot brow. + +"Dearest dear, let me in. Trust me. Tell me where it hurts. Let me +mother you." + +"There, there, dear! Everything is all right. Lay me down again and be +easy in that mind of yours." + +But once more on the pillow she had to endure again the girl's accusing +eyes. + +"Nell, someone hasn't loved you enough. That's what I feel. Who is it?" + +"Nonsense! You're only worried because I'm a little run down. Everyone +loves me enough--all I deserve. There, dear, I think I can rest." The +girl kissed her shut eyes, and went out, after a long, doubting look. +The sick woman raised her arms once, like a child who would be taken, +but they fell back, and she painfully laughed the old low laugh of +secrecy. + +She mused on her brother's words. "A little rest." Yes, a rest. "Yet a +little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." +She remembered now that it would come to her in the shelter of those +hills, perhaps in that room to which her thoughts had flown so many +times, where she had seen the awakening man in the sleeping boy, and +caught misty shadowings of the portent he bore for her. Her eyes might +fall before his now, but they need not fall before the eyes of his +mother. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE HILLS OF REST + + +Ben Crider waited for them on the station platform at Pagosa. He was +excited to a point of feverish unrest until the train warned its way out +of the last canyon. Then, by a masterful effort, he became elaborately +nonchalant. That train had brought Ewing back to him, but he constrained +himself to handle the occasion as one rising hardly to common levels. He +would have considered any other demeanor "shameless." + +He nodded to Bartell, who supported his sister from the car, and stared +politely at the pretty but anxious-looking girl who followed them. But +when Ewing appeared, burdened with handbags, Ben ignored him, and rushed +to shake the hand of Beulah Pierce, returning from a three-days' trip to +Durango. So effusive was his greeting that Pierce mentally convicted him +of having lingered at the "Happy Days" bar for one too many drinks, and +broke from his affectionate grasp with some embarrassment. + +Ben strolled forward to the baggage car, humming lightly, and, with the +bored air of a man creating diversion for himself, laid listless hands +on the trunks as they were unloaded. He was whirling one of the heaviest +of these to the waiting wagon when Ewing fell on him with a glad shout. +Ben paused briefly, balancing the trunk on a corner, glanced up with +moderate surprise, and spoke his welcome. + +"Oh, that you, Kid? Howdy!" He resumed his struggle with the trunk, +blind to the other's outstretched hand, and when Ewing thereupon hissed +at him, "You damned Mexican sheep herder!" he allowed pleasure to show +but faintly in his face. But when he was seized by the collar, hurled +half across the platform, and slammed brutally against the wall of the +station, he protested with pleased annoyance as he picked up his hat, +"Aw, quit yer foolin', now, Kid! I got to hustle them trunks." He was +sufficiently refreshed by the attack, however, to sing to himself as he +labored. And when the start was made he insisted that Ewing should +drive. Ben sat in the rear seat. He wanted to look at Ewing's back for +five hours. + +The sick woman, in another and easier conveyance, rejoiced that she was +going still farther into the peace of her last refuge. As they left the +brown-floored valley and began to climb the mountain road, she was glad +that the green walls closed in behind them; glad of every difficult +ascent; every stream forded; every confusing turn of the way. She was +hiding herself, cunningly insuring the peace of her last hours. + +She was troubled now only by Virginia, who hung upon her with an +agonized solicitude. But she promised herself to wear this down by her +own cheerfulness and expressed certainty. Virginia would see her +peaceful, hopeful, happy; she would become used to the idea of her +wasting; and the actual going out would come gently to her as something +fit and benign. Life so abounding as Virginia's could not long droop +under the shadow of death. + +Made at home in the lake cabin, she still felt the world rushing back +from her as had the fields rushed by when she looked from the car +window. And she rested in this. Affairs went on about her, plans were +made, talk of the future or of the day; all went by her unheeded, save +for a blurred and pleasant effect of swiftness. Outwardly she was +serene, languorous, incuriously placid. Inwardly she thrilled with a +luxury of inertness. She had loosed herself in the ebbing tide, and she +folded her hands and smiled from this with the assured indolence of one +who knows that some earned reward will not long be delayed. The +slow-paced even life was a balm to her, the gathering about the table at +mealtimes, the evenings in the studio, when her sister played or talked +with Ewing; when she could lie still on the couch and try to make +herself forgotten, regretting only the short dry cough that racked her +night and morning and brought her to the minds of the others. + +She had thought that she could adjust herself, after a little, to the +new look in Ewing's eyes, knowing as she did its secret spring. It was a +look of blind acceptance, of unquestioning adoration--and mingled with +it was a maddening pity. But there flashed from him, too, at times, a +look of purpose and assurance, steady, secret, determined. She detected +this chiefly when he glanced up to her from his drawing. He had brought +with him a story to illustrate for the _Knickerbocker_, and he was, at +last, to finish that series of Western scenes for the same periodical. +And he had flown to this work with a frantic haste, with the look, as he +bent over the board, that seemed to say: "This is for you. Be patient +with me, it will soon be done." + +When the work did not claim him he stayed by her side, watchful for +service, jealous of Virginia for little acts he might not himself +perform. His eyes seldom left her, she thought, though she could not +long endure their look, and she knew that he read this evasion of hers +in the light of what Teevan had told him. Through all his devotion there +was a gentle aloofness, a constant withdrawing, as if he knew that he +must never come close. + +She had laughter and tears again for this when she was alone, though +there were times when, in her weakness, her wild craving for the +fullness of what she might not have, she would have told it all in one +surrendering cry to him but for the eyes of Kitty Teevan. They were +always upon her now--Ewing had hung the portrait in the studio--holding +her with passionate entreaty, the mother pleading for herself in the +son's memory. She could never tell him, she knew, under those eyes. She +must live out her few days in content with that wondrous thing his own +eyes revealed for her. She thought it comic and tragic and beautiful. +One night she dreamed that she was not to die, and woke in horror of +what his belief would then mean. But morning restored her serenity, and +she reposed placidly again on the unquestioned sureness of her going. + +Best of all times she liked the late morning and midday, when she could +be alone in the sun-heated nook out of doors and give her body to the +warmth. She knew it was a primal, sensuous pleasure, but she surrendered +to it; turned and bathed writhingly in the sun flood, feeling herself +transparent to it. And the pleasure had its reverse side. Autumn came +presently in these upper reaches; a less splendid autumn than would set +the Eastern woods ablaze with flaunts of gold and scarlet, but an autumn +more eloquent of death, the faded yellow of the aspen groves, broken but +rarely by some flaming shrub that only emphasized the monotone. This, +the unending, lifeless yellow, and the dead green of spruce and +hemlock--a false green, she felt, with its tale of ever-living--made a +coloring of nice symbolism for her state. + +Had she felt the need of a death's head at her sun feast, this neutral, +denying flatness would have sufficed. The end had come home to her. It +was her unseen familiar, voiceless, but ever present, with a look +unhurrying but constant. + +And there were the mountains themselves, things that had once leaped +alive and tortured themselves into frenzied furies of striving only to +be stricken and left at last in all the broken tossing of their folly. +They had tried the fighting death, and it had availed only to fix their +last agonies. Their scarred hulks testified to the wisdom of submission. + +Yet her mind was normal in these sun-warmed hours of musing. She knew +that those dead hills with their dying leafage told another tale to the +pair of young lives housed with her. To them they were but inspirations +to life vital and triumphant; eminences to be scaled in joyous effort, +offering to youth's dreaming, half-true clairvoyance, unending reaches +to provoke; near enough to seem attainable; far enough to be plausible +with promise of delights. + +Nor did she fail to rejoice in the fervor of this fresh view so unlike +her own. She was conscious of its truth to untouched souls like theirs, +and she sought to throw them together, urging them to excursions through +the hills. She thought of them at first as her pair whom she had set in +a garden where the fruit of no tree was forbidden. + +She coolly studied Ewing on the days when he worked indoors, detaching +herself from his life as one about to go on a long journey. From her +shadowed couch she scanned his face as he bent over the drawing board. +It had filled in the year since she first saw it, and was an older face, +the strength of it more conscious, the promise of it almost kept in its +well-controlled, level-eyed maturity. Much of the boy remained to flash +out, but she saw that this would never go; that it would kindle his eyes +when the brown hair had gone white. It was this eternal boyishness, she +saw, that made him quick of response to another's interest; this that +had made him seem too ductile under Teevan's manipulation, when in truth +he had merely been loath to hurt, fearing nothing so much as another's +pain. The forward line of the nose and the smoldering fierceness of eye +should have been more informing. That was the face, vital, fearless, +patently self-willed for all its kindly immaturities of concession, that +Teevan had thought to prevail over by his stings of waspish contempt. +She smiled pityingly for Teevan, until she recalled that she also had +misread its lines. There were moments when her beaten spirit fluttered +up at thought of Teevan's being blasted by what he had thought to blast. +But a look at the mother's restraining face, or, still more, a look at +Ewing as he would glance from his work up to the portrait, stilled this +craving for battle. It was well, she thought, as it had fallen. + +Ewing had set to work doubtingly at first, but with laughing energy when +he found that the lines came again at his call. He felt, indeed, that +his facility had been increased, and he confided this to Mrs. Laithe one +day as she lay watching him. + +"I don't have to 'squeeze' the way I did," he said. "Perhaps I really +learned something there in spite of myself, in all that messing with +colors. I didn't learn to paint, but I seem to have a new line on +bucking bronchos and bucked cowboys." He stopped in sudden thought. + +"There, I've forgotten that old painting of mine. I'll treat us both to +a look at it." + +He went off to Ben's room beyond the kitchen and came back with the +dusty canvas. He wiped it with a cloth and placed it on the easel. + +She did not look at this. She knew it too well. Her look was for his +face as he studied it. She saw surprise there, bewilderment, +incredulity, and then, slowly dawning, a consternation of dropped jaw +and squinting scowl. Yet this broke at length, and, to her great relief, +he laughed, heartily, honestly. She smiled, not at the poor painting, +but in sympathy with him. Then he remembered that she had looked at this +same canvas once before, and that neither of them had laughed. His face +sobered, and he went over to her. + +"You had nerve, didn't you--after seeing that thing?" + +"You remember I didn't praise it." + +"But you saw I didn't know any better, and you never let me see that +_you_ did. You must have thought highly of me, I can see that." He +stooped and laid one of his hands on hers with a friendly, thanking +pressure. + +"I saw plainly enough what you could do," she protested. + +He went to stand again before the despised canvas, playing upon it with +humorous disparagement. + +"But if you see now," she said, "that it's so--if it seems so----" + +"Say the word--do!" + +"If it seems bad to you now, that's a good sign. It means that you've +learned something about color. Suppose it had still seemed good." + +He took the thing off the easel. + +"If I've learned as much about color as I think this is bad--well +there's only a little left for me to learn." + +"Now you will paint others that will seem faultless at the time and bad +a year later. That's the penalty of growth, but it's the proof. Make +your prayer to the god of painting: 'May everything I do seem bad when +it's a year old!'" + +"I'll try to," he returned gravely. Then, "Let's put this out of sight +quick, before Virginia sees it." + +"You didn't burn it," she asked, when he returned. + +"I should think not. I'd have to fight Ben if I burned that. Of course I +didn't know any better when I gave it to him, any more than I knew about +his songs. That's another thing you must have laughed at me for." + +He laughed himself as she looked up at him with puzzled inquiry, and +went on to confess how he had sung Ben's choicest ballad at the +Monastery. + +"Of course it's a funny song," he continued, as he returned to the +drawing board, "but it isn't so very much funnier than a lot that aren't +supposed to be funny at all. Come, now," he rallied her, "don't they all +rub in the sadness, even the ones you might think serious? There must be +a million songs about 'Dreaming,' 'I Dreamed that You Were with Me, +Love!' and 'It was All a Dream!' and 'Could I but Recall that Day!' and +'Alas, It was not so to be!' and 'Must We, then, Part Forever!' Always +crying about something! Always moaning 'if only' something or other. +They're about as teary a lot as Ben's songs. I told Virginia last night +I never wanted to hear another 'Could I but--' song; they're as bad as +'The Fatal Wedding.'" + +Though he had rushed at the drawings with a powerful incentive--to make +himself free so that he could perform one great service for his lady--he +yielded often to the persuasions of Mrs. Laithe and took Virginia out +for adventures. They explored box canyons that she believed to be +impenetrable until he nonchalantly opened a way to their secret +recesses. They whipped trout streams and he complacently caught fish +from holes she would angle in without result. He tried to persuade her +that certain brown patches he professed to detect off through the forest +from time to time were deer; but vainly each time, until there would be +a sudden terrific shattering amid the underbrush, and perhaps a fleeting +glimpse of the brown patch with its white center, flying in swift rebuke +to her unbelief. They climbed hills together, and he irritated her by +his continued ease of breath under the strain, while her own "wind" that +she had thought so well of in Kensington was exhausted by the first +moments of effort. She believed him guilty of a polite fiction when he +explained that the altitude made all the difference. She disbelieved his +tale of the lake water's coldness--it was annoying to be told that even +he wanted no more than a single plunge in it--and bathed there one day +to her undoing. She refused to believe that he could shoot accurately +with a rifle that made so much noise, or with a revolver that wobbled +when one tried to hold it still, until he had demonstrated these +matters. And she refused to concede that she could not ride a certain +half-broken little mare--which Ewing rode without apparent +difficulty--until the mare proved it to the satisfaction of all +concerned. + +These little disbeliefs were not unpleasant to Ewing. He revenged +himself for having been proved a "duffer" at her own games. + +It was on their return from an afternoon's fishing one day that they +found Bartell bestowing Cooney on his sister. + +"I bought him for you from Pierce," he was explaining. "Of course Virgie +can ride him until you're fit again." + +The sick woman greeted her old friend formally in the presence of the +others. But when they had gone inside she led the little roan around to +the corral, and there, sheltered by its wall, she put an arm tightly +over his lowered neck and laid her face to his with fond little words of +greeting and remembrance. He had carried her so well on a day when +nothing had happened; when she was a girl herself, it almost seemed, +more curious of the world than knowing. + +That had been an age--a year--ago. The little horse had been bravely +doing his work, carrying his inconsequent burdens as they listed, while +she had been losing herself in protests. She had begun doing that, it +seemed, the first day he brought her there. She wondered if he could +remember it. She doubted that; but at least he remembered Ewing and +loved him. She clasped the arm more tightly about his neck, and the +little horse whinnied, pawing the earth with a small forefoot, and +moving his head up and down in a knowing way. To the woman he had the +effect of seeking to return her caress, so that in a moment she was +sobbing in a sudden weakness of love for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE WHITE TIME + + +The days went, shortening. She kept to her couch through all but those +hours when the sun was high. Then she lay to be warmed in the open while +the year died before her. She could not see another year. She must read +all her meanings into this one. September went and October waned. The +sky was often overcast. They had ceased to talk of her going back. Her +brother reminded her cheerfully that he had half expected a long stay +for her. She must be patient. She spoke in his own vein of hopefulness, +promising patience, and smiled as ever on her pair, who still wandered +in that garden, bantering comrades, tasting the fruit of every tree but +one. + +And one day she knew that all her imaginings about this pair had been +vain, caught it in the deepened look of Ewing as he turned from Virginia +to herself. It was a thing to bask in--that look--like the fervid sun +itself. But it hurt her, too; made it harder to let go of life. Yet +always before her was the face of Kitty Teevan with its beseeching eyes: +"You have so little time to live, and I must live in his memory always!" +And so she put the thing away, letting him think as he must, wincing +under his look of pity, and that devouring thing that lurked always back +of his pity, and striving for lightness when she talked with him. + +"I understand why our land seemed unreal to you," she said to him while +they loitered in the blue dusk of the pine woods near the cabin one day. +The peaks beyond were misty behind gray clouds that lay sullenly along +the horizon. "I understand why you called our land a stage land, for +this is unreal to me, painted, theatrical, impossible. I keep hearing +the person who's seen the play telling his neighbor what's to come +next." + +"It's real enough," he answered, looking away from her. "I have a way of +telling when a land is real." + +"You have?" + +"Any land is real where you are. New England or Colorado or Siberia +or----" + +"There, there!" she soothed him mockingly--"or India's coral strand. +That's quite enough. You have learned your geography lesson. What a busy +traveler you must have been!" + +"And no land can be real where you are not," he went on gravely. "I go +where you go, follow you around the world and out into the stars beyond +the moon, up and down and on forever, and it all seems real to me--all +except you." + +"Oh, I--I'm real, real enough, but this land is a sad, fearful, +threatening land, so heartless." She shivered. "Let us go in!" + +"That's only because it's closing up now for the winter; that's why the +sky is sorry. The leaves are nearly gone, and the fat old bears are +slouching down from the high places to curl up in the holes, and the +deer are moving down into the valleys, and pretty soon the hills will +crawl under white blankets and go to sleep. And we shall have to do the +same. We shall be shut in before you know it, snowed in, frozen in, like +the bears. But the winter--it can't take you from me." + +"There, there!" But she could not finish. She flashed a helpless smile +at him and fled indoors. He went after her, crying that winter was upon +them. + +And then, all in a day and a night, winter came. The wind fell to an +ominous hush one midday, and a leaden quiet lay over the hills. Blurred +masses of cloud rose slowly above the peaks, shaping themselves with +ponderous sloth. Below these a white mist formed. Then one tiny snow +crystal fell. It was followed presently by another, and then by more, +floating down with unhurried ease. Meaningless wisps they seemed, +fugitive bits of wool, perhaps, from a sheep losing its fleece in some +nearby shearing pen. More of them came with the same slow, loitering +grace, as if they would lull suspicion of the fury they heralded. + +By night the storm had shut off the hills so that the cabin might have +been set in a plain, for all the eye could see. The flakes no longer +came saunteringly, but swiftly now, in a slant of honest fervor, frankly +threatening. + +By morning the land was muffled in white. The sun shone pale and cold +through the mist, and the wind began a game with its new plaything, +still light and dry, and quick to dance to any piping. Spruce and +hemlock seemed to have darkened their green, and their arms drooped +wearily under the white burdens they bore. The second day's fall buried +their lowest branches so that not even the circle of bare earth was left +about them. + +Inside the cabin they sought the peace of the earth under its cover, the +trustful repose of the live things sleeping there. The days sped by +almost unmarked. Scarcely ever were they certain of the day of week or +month, especially after Ben forgot to mark his calendar on the days he +and Ewing devoted to getting deer for their winter's meat. There were +but opinions as to the date after that. + +Ben, after his work with the stock each morning, hibernated gracefully +in a chair by the kitchen stove, sleeping with excited groans, like a +dreaming dog. Or, awake, he stared at the wall with dulled eyes. At +times he would touch his guitar to life and sing very softly, or hold it +affectionately in his lap, a hand muting its strings, while he pondered +dreamily of far-off matters, of cities and men, and the folly of +expecting ever to receive treasure such as the advertisements promise. + +Ewing and Virginia, after the snow packed, went forth on snowshoes far +into the white silence; over open spaces so glaring that the eyes closed +in defense; through ravines where once-noisy streams were stilled; and +under forest arches of green where the snow was darkened to hints of +blue--they agreed that Sydenham would paint it blue without +condescending to hints--and where the hush was so intense that they +instinctively lowered their voices. They passed long times without +speech, as they would have done in a church, worshiping the still beauty +about them, beauty of buttressed peak, of snow-choked canyon, of +green-roofed cathedral, of pink light at sunset on endless snow-quilted +slopes. + +Mrs. Laithe, too, sought the open when the sun was high, and one day in +midwinter she walked as far as the lake in the path beaten by the stock. +It did not occur to her then that this was no feat for a dying woman nor +even on the succeeding days when this walk became her habit. It was a +change for her eyes from the cabin prospect; the sun warmed her +genially, despite the intense cold, and she liked the stillness, all the +movements of life going on in a strange, muffled silence. This helped +her to remember her own plight. Life still abounded with all its warmth +and glad clashing, but she must have only eyes for it--no heart of +desire. She had been so sure of this from the first that she gave but +heedless smiles to the others when they told her she was better. They +had always said such things. + +She slept the long nights through now, seeking bed like a tired child, +and waking in strange refreshment. And milk no longer appeased her +hunger as it had wholly done when she arrived. The savor of baked meats +was now sweet to her. She was presently walking to the lake both morning +and afternoon, breathing deep of the dry air that ran fire in her veins +as she absorbed it. And the flush on her face when she returned was not +that of fever. + +But more eloquent than these physical symptoms was a sullen current of +rebellion rising slowly within her, the old fighting instinct, a lust +for sheer living, a thing she had believed was long since extinct. + +She did not lose her certainty of death all in a day. For weeks she was +haunted merely by an unquiet suspicion. The cough still racked her night +and morning, and the fever came each evening, but the old potency seemed +to have gone from both. She tried to believe at first that this was one +of those false rallies so common before the end. + +The full, maddening realization came to her on a day when Ewing walked +with her to the lake. He turned on her suddenly when they had mounted a +slope, seized both her hands, and looked long into her eyes with a +certain grave wonder. + +"You are made new," he said at last. She trembled in a sudden panic, +divining the truth of it, feeling, as he spoke, a great rush of life +overwhelming her. + +"You are living again, you are going to live. I knew you would live." He +still gripped her hands. It was as if he had drawn her, warm and +pulsing, out of all the wintry death about them. She could not face him, +but released her hands and turned away. He had seen truly. She had +relaxed utterly when she came, to waver unresistingly down into the cool +abyss of her despair. But some indomitable brute thing had risen in her +while she slept, to fight for life, and to fire her whole being with its +triumph. While she had rested and waited in that luxury of +self-abandonment she had been cheated of her victory--betrayed back to +life. + +Trying now to think what life would mean to her, she was overwhelmed +with shame and dismay. With death so near things had been simple. But +how could she live on and face Ewing, shaming herself and shaming him in +the darkness of his belief about her? + +They walked back to the cabin in silence. Ewing, too, she felt, saw the +future to be less simple now. + +"I shall know what to do," he said, as they reached the door; and there +was again in his eyes that puzzling look of some fixed purpose. For the +first time this vaguely alarmed her now, and she questioned him swiftly +with her eyes. But he only pointed to his mother's portrait--they had +entered the studio--and said, "Do you think I'd do less for you than I +would for her?" + +She could endure neither his own look nor the mother's, and fled to her +room. There she studied her face in the glass. It was all true. She was +going to live, and she sickened at the thought. Again it was a time for +tears and laughter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE AWAKENING + + +The white giant, sun-stricken, drooping languidly, crumbled and +dissolved before their eyes. The air softened. The streams rushed full, +the southern hillsides showed bare and gaunt. + +In the lake cabin they felt aged by their imprisonment. It had been so +long, so remote from the world rush. Like prisoners long confined, they +were loath to leave a dungeon where life had been well ordered if not +exhilarating. Benumbed in the first days of the change, they returned +indoors to the soothing evenness of their six months' hibernation. They +found those first changes unbelievable. Winter would surely go on +forever; too mighty a jailer it was to be vanquished by a mere breath of +honey and flowers. They stayed in to warn one another against false +appearances. + +But there came a day when, in the blaze of noontime, Ben Crider moved +his chair out by the door and sang softly to the strains of his guitar. +His eyes blinked in the sunlight as he sang, yet they did not fail to +detect the signs of spring so plentiful about the clearing in bud and +leaf and tiny grass shoot, even though patches of snow still lay in the +shaded spots. + +The woman who cooked came also to the door as Ben sang. He had spoken of +her the winter through as "the woman," dimly perceiving her as a spirit +that mumbled endless complainings as she toiled, for she was one who +had been disillusioned by much cooking. She cooked acceptably, and Ben +had burgeoned in the uncanny luxury of food prepared by another hand +than his own, but he had given her little attention beyond discovering +her opinion that cooking was a barren performance, since people +perversely ate and thereby destroyed, and the thing must be done again +endlessly. He had vaguely observed that this woman was not beautiful, +and now, as she faced him with a sudden joviality in the spring +sunshine, he saw that she could never have been beautiful. She beamed +amicably on the balladist, and he, turning casual eyes on her, was +stricken to dismayed silence; the tuneful praise of young love fainted +on his lips as he stared, aghast, and his startled hand hushed the +vibrant strings. A moment he looked, recovering from the shock. Then, in +swift recoil, he grasped his chair and went resolutely out under the big +hemlock, there to resume his song and his absent contemplation of +Nature's awakening--his back to the cabin door. In this sensitive mood +he wished not to incur again a vision that blighted song. + +It was no longer disputable that spring was real; no baseless tradition, +but an unfolding reality. Ben had divined it, and the other prisoners +were not long in proving it. + +One of them surveyed it in panic wonder, turning in upon herself to face +the ordeal of enforced living. They wandered in the open, three of them, +now, finding it good to feel the bare, elastic earth under their feet +again, and prove the noiseless but sensational life of growing things +all about them. They plucked buds to see their secret hearts, and +exposed the roots of peeping herbs that had begun their strivings +before the snow went. + +When the sunny places had been dried and warmed, and were pulsing in +their myriad hidden hearts, so that winter began to fade in their minds +as some dream of night, they would penetrate the sunless depths of a +narrow canyon where the snow yet lay deep and the stream was a mere +choking of ice in a gorge. + +It was in the flush of this exultation over winter's downfall that they +planned camp life in a vale at the edge of the lake, where the spruces +thinned to leave wide-vaulted arches, and spread the floor with yielding +brown rugs of the pine needle. They began it as a play, and finished +with a permanent camp into which they moved from the cabin. There were +tents and beds, a table, a sheet-iron stove, chests for their stores, +and hammocks in which to be fanned by the south wind. + +Bartell promised his sister vast benefits from this life. + +"This will put the finishing touches to you, Sis. A month here and +you'll be loping over the range, high, wide, and handsome. It'll take an +elk-high fence to hold you after you've slept awhile out here." + +She felt the truth of what he said, and was appalled by it. Almost daily +she dismayed herself by recalling some unpremeditated feat of strength +or endurance. Life had crept back to her like a whipped dog, and +bitterly she felt the sting of its satire. She was loath to leave the +cabin in which she had so long nursed death. She had impregnated the +very walls with an atmosphere of dissolution. But she understood now +that that prison house could no longer suffice her. Stubborn life had +prevailed over all its powers of suggestion. There she had clung +stubbornly to the old solution, cherishing a hope of some sudden +relapse, despite the new life that taunted her with its animal buoyance. +But once in the open, her brain was washed of that. Her mind was as +clear as the fathomless blue above them at noon; and the stars at night +were not more coldly luminous than the reasoning she bent upon herself, +nor sharper than a certain deduction she made. + +Ewing brought his drawing to the camp and spent the mornings in work. He +had finished his series for the _Knickerbocker_ during the winter, and +these drawings, with the illustrations for the story previously made, +had brought him enough to discharge the Teevan debt. He had reported +this transaction significantly to Mrs. Laithe, and was now busy on +pictures for another story for the _Knickerbocker_. + +"Only a little longer," he said, with a meaning she could not fathom, +and he returned to his work with a singular absorption. Not even Ben +could distract him when he sauntered up for his daily criticism. Ben was +respectful to the drawings after he saw the checks they brought, but his +summing up of the purchaser's acumen never varied. + +"Well, well--fools and their money! The idee of payin' out cash for a +thing that looks as much like Red Phinney as that there does!" + +When work was done for the day Ewing would turn to Mrs. Laithe with a +smile of release, and they would stray along some dim trail or off into +pathless, shaded silences of the wood, lingering in grassy mountain +meadows, or skirting the base of bleak crags where streaks of snow in +shadow still clung to the gray walls. She was conscious then of a tumult +throbbing wonderfully beneath the surface of their companionship--a +tumult of life aching for release. In little chance moments of silence +this rumbled ominously, leaving her fearful, but curiously resigned, +moved to blind flight, yet chained and submissive as were the hills +themselves. + +One afternoon they sought their canyon of delayed winter after many days' +neglect of it. They wondered if spring might not have reached even that +secret recess at last. They left the trail that skirted the edge and +descended a rocky way that Ewing found, emerging at last through a +fringe of the stunted cedars into the gloom of the depths. + +At first glance this last stronghold of winter seemed to have remained +impregnable. Snow lay deep along the bottom, enormous stalactites of ice +depended from overhanging ledges, and the stream itself appeared to be +still only a riven glacier. But, listening intently, they heard a steady +liquid murmur, the very music of spring come at last to sing the gorge +awake. As they stood, listening, there was a shivering crash; one of the +huge icicles had dropped, shattering on a lower ledge and raining its +fragments into the soft snowbed below. + +"It's the very last of winter," said Ewing mournfully. "That snow is +eaten through and through. See how those bits of ice drove into it. And +hear that running water. It will be off with a rush now. It's the very +last of it--all I shall have to look back to--that winter of ours +together." His tone was full of a meaning she dared not question. They +climbed in silence to the summer above and traversed, still silently, +the stretch of green woods that grew beyond the canyon wall. Only at the +first mountain meadow, a dazzle of emerald under the slanting sun, did +they halt to gaze at each other. His eyes were wonderfully alight with +sadness and rejoicing as she faced him, radiant in a moment of +forgetfulness, flagrant in her beauty's renewal. + +"You're wonderful again," he said, almost whisperingly, "you're all in +flower now!" She quickened under his look, feeling the glow on her +cheeks. But that faded at his next words. + +"I finished the last of those drawings to-day. Now I must go." + +"Ah--go?" It was a little cry, half of question, half of understanding. + +"Yes--I can go now. I couldn't go before, but I have the money now." + +She sickened as they walked on in silence, fearing to question him, and +when they reached the camp she ran to throw herself on the bed in her +tent, covering her eyes with her hands, pressing the lids down, but +making no sound. + +As they sat about their camp fire that evening Ewing was struck by a +certain view he caught of her. She sat in shadow on a stool at the foot +of a towering hemlock, and once when he rose to stir the waning fire a +flame shot up from a half-burned log, with a volley of sparks that fell +back in a golden rain. He glanced over to be sure that she escaped +these, and saw her sharply revealed in the sudden light, unconscious of +it, unaroused by the crackling explosion. She was staring fixedly into +the darkness, her body relaxed, her hands half clasped, her head, the +profile toward him, leaning wearily against the tree. Before this +background she seemed frail again, her face pallid under the dark of +her hair and against the rough, ruddy brown of the tree bole, her whole +body contrasting in its fragile lines with the tree's strength--human +weakness showing starkly against the vigor of the woods. + +To dull the sudden wanting of his heart for her he walked off alone over +the path that bordered the lake, to reduce the amazing actuality of +things, if he could, to proportions seemly with normal life. But the +lake was a mirror of enchantment, the booming of an owl was a magic +portent, the shadowed wall of granite was a turreted castle of +mysteries, vague in the starlight, and the very stars themselves huddled +down on him excitingly. He was in a world of the unreal, and must do an +unreal thing. He stumbled blindly back to camp. He was surprised to find +Mrs. Laithe as he had left her, still drooping against the rough-barked +tree, weak, submissive, overborne. He touched her arm gently to recall +her from some troubled distance. She looked at him with eyes unseeing at +first. + +"Isn't it bedtime?" he suggested. + +She smiled and stood up to shrug away the spell of her dreaming. She +spoke with such clear strength of tone that he was at once reassured of +her vigor. + +"Yes, it's sleeping time--in a moment. I haven't said much to you, but +there's really little to say. You feel that you must go?" + +"How could I stay here--after that?" + +She repressed a sudden spasm of wild, weeping laughter that threatened +to overcome her. + +"And you'll not come back?" She waited breathless. + +"There isn't much chance of it." + +"You dear, dear fool!" was on her lips, but she held back the words and +said very quietly: + +"Go out, then, and live as you must. Only don't let life cow you. Don't +ever fear that living is intricate or hard or tragic--a thing to be gone +about warily. The wary people make the same mistakes as the careless +ones, and feel them ten times more. Don't be afraid to dream--afraid to +believe. I'm glad I've dreamed every dream of mine--false or true. Never +be afraid to want." She turned half away as if to go, but halted, and he +thought she had grown suddenly weak. + +"You're going----" + +"To-morrow, I'd thought--the sooner the better." + +"Ah, but that's so soon. Can't we have one more day here? One more day +to think of it?" + +"I've thought of it all winter, days and nights as well; but I'd like +another day--" He watched her longingly as she went beyond the +firelight. + +"Not a day to think about it," he called softly--"a day to forget." + +They made it a day of forgetting, as he had said. In the morning they +planned to ride, and their spirits were such as they rode off that Ben +was moved to regard them knowingly, as one who had taken a fling at life +in his time. + +The day long they rode or rambled, talking of all but obvious +things--making it, indeed, a day of forgetting and a day to remember. +Deep in the woman's heart stirred an instinct of primal coquetry, an +impulse to wield her charm upon him, to make the woman prevail over the +man, beating all reason down, blindly, madly. And she yielded to this, +watching its effect on him, divining the power of her freshened beauty +each time she compelled his eyes. Instinctively she would have had him +say, "I give up. I can't go. Let me stay--stay by you!" The natural +woman in her fought for that. But reason reigned above the conflict. She +knew he would not surrender and knew she would not have him surrender. +Still she could not resist that impulse to enchain him, and exulted each +time she made him tremble at their nearness. + +Not until night had come did the imminence of his going seem to lie upon +them. But then it lay with a weight. Together they left the camp and +felt a way over the darkened trail to the cabin. Ewing had spoken of +packing he must do, of matters in which she might help him. + +But when they were in the studio, and he had started a great blaze in +the fireplace he sat before it with her, silent. She spoke at length of +the packing. + +"There's none to do," he answered. "I'm taking scarcely anything--only +what I can carry back of the saddle." + +Her blood leaped with a quick hope. + +"Then you're not going for long--you _will_ come back--" But he only +shook his head. + +"I can't expect to come back." He looked at her with a sudden lighting +of his eyes. "Come near to me this once." He moved a stool in front of +him. "Sit here, this once." + +She sat on the low stool at his feet and felt herself drawn slowly +forward until her arms rested on his knees. She laid her head on them, +shaken to the heart. Then she felt him bending over her, hovering, +sheltering her, and at last, with a long sigh, come to rest, his face +buried in her hair. They remained so, immovable, without further speech. + +The absurdity of the thing between them had never seemed so egregious +to her. The words rang in her mind, burning behind her closed +eyes--"It's all a mistake, that. How could you believe it, even you, +unused to the world though you are?" But she knew the questions this +would bring from him, the doubt that would stay with him; knew she could +never satisfy him with less than the truth. For a moment she heard +herself telling him this truth, gently, delicately, tenderly. But he +spoke, even while she was thinking this. + +"I wanted to be here to-night with you, and with her." He raised his +head at last, to look at the portrait of his mother. "She understands, +I'm sure. And she would have me go--she would have me do as I am doing." + +She knew finally, then, that she could never tell him. She ceased all +vain considering of that. He was going away from her because of the lie +he believed. The truth might come to him some day, but it must never +come from her. The certainty brought her a kind of rest. She could fall +back on laughter and tears for the thing. + +A long time they sat there, speaking little, her head still cradled on +his knees. But when the fire died they knew it must be late and rose to +go. Ewing looked long at the portrait, then turned to her. + +"I'm doing what I would do for her," he said, "and I'm glad I had you +both with me this last time. You'll always keep that for me, won't you?" +He raised a hand toward the portrait. + +"If you wish it," she said. + +When they came in sight of the camp fire they stopped and turned to each +other. He caught her by the shoulders. + +"Good night and good-by!" he whispered. + +She tried to speak, but could not for the trembling of her lips. She +turned to go, and took a few faltering steps, then flew back, and with a +wild gesture, drew him down and pressed his head against her heart. + +Ben came sleepily from the cabin next morning as Ewing was about to +mount his horse. He had felt at ease about this journey, because of the +slender equipment with which Ewing was setting out. An early return was +to be inferred. + +Ewing held out his hand, and Ben, observing that it was scarce daylight, +and that the act could in no way be considered a public scandal, grasped +it cordially. + +"So long, Kid--and good luck, whatever you're goin' to do!" + +"There's a man down in New York needs killing, Ben." + +"Now, look a here, Kid, you better look out"--but the practical aspects +of the affair at once seized his mind, and he broke off with, "Got your +gun?" + +"No--a gun's too good for him." + +Ben considered this, and became again solicitous. + +"Well, look a here, now, you be darned careful. If it's needed, why, do +it. But you jest want to remember that New York ain't Hinsdale County. +You want to be mighty careful you don't git into some trouble over it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE HARDEST THING + + +The zest had gone from camp life with Ewing's departure, and the cabin +was again occupied. Mrs. Laithe filled the days with a sort of blind +waiting. It could not end so, she felt, despite the eyes of Kitty +Teevan, so watchful of her, and so certain that it had ended. Something +must happen. That was the burden of her hope--as vague as a child's +hope. She would set no time, nor would she name the thing. But come it +must, and she could wait. + +When Beulah Pierce rode by on his way from Pagosa and left their mail +one afternoon, she felt no eagerness about it. There could be nothing so +soon, she was sure. Virginia brought her some letters and read aloud one +from the aunt at Kensington. Then Mrs. Laithe looked through her own +letters and found one from Ewing. She did not open it, but rose after a +few moments, and walked swiftly over to the lake camp. Only there, +alone, could she trust herself. + +She read the thing staringly, haltingly, testing each phrase as if it +were worded in some strange tongue. + +"I can tell you now what I came for," the letter ran, "because the thing +will be done before this letter can reach you. It's a thing you want +done, but if you had known I meant to do it you would have tried to +prevent me, and that would only have distressed us both. But now, when +it is all over, you will see that I was the one person in the world to +do it for you. Think if you had killed him yourself that night, the pain +you would have brought to yourself and to others. It wasn't a woman's +work. I would have done it for you then, but I owed him money. I +couldn't kill him till I had paid that. + +"I used to dream of doing things for you always, many things, big and +little, but it has turned out that I can do only this. So won't you try +to believe that I am putting all my heart into it for you, all that +thing I would have tried to show you if it had been scattered over the +rest of our lives? I must put it all into this one act. + +"Ben seemed to suspect that such affairs could be managed here with the +informality that often marks them in the San Juan, but you and I know +better. I cannot expect to return, nor to see you again. Yet I shall see +you always; see no one else--while they let me see at all. We must take +life as it falls, do the next thing without complaining, even if it is +the hardest thing. And be sure of this--I shall do it so quickly that he +will have no chance to tell me anything. He will not even speak your +name. Afterwards you can have this to remember, that I did it gladly, +knowing what the consequences would be. I hope that will be, in time, +the happiness to you that it is to me. It is enough for me." + +Over and over she read it, and at last she mastered it--all the horror +of it. A long time she gazed dumbly at the sheets, then once more she +laughed the old, low laugh, with a sinister note in it now. Ben Crider +found her there an hour later, staring blankly out over the flawed +surface of the lake. The breeze was swirling many finely torn bits of +paper about her feet. + +As they walked back to the cabin she reflected that the letter had lain +four days in the postoffice at Pagosa. It had been written nine days +before. Then Ewing had done the thing. She no more believed that Randall +Teevan still lived than she believed that the mountains about her were +phantoms. A sentence from the letter ran in her mind. "We must take life +as it falls--do the next thing without complaining, even if it is the +hardest thing." + +"The hardest thing!" + +She pleaded fatigue and lack of appetite to Virginia and sought her bed +to lie and think in the dark. She saw her own hardest thing, the thing +she must do. + +She had caused a man to be put to death; a vicious, mischievous fool, it +was true, but still a man. That was sad and horrible. But of another +man, one she had thought to guard and cherish and care for in all of +woman's ways--she had made a murderer, and she had murdered him. For she +knew that Ewing must die. It was as if he were already dead. Perhaps out +there in the agonized void of the world he had already killed himself, +his work being done. Or, if not, they would kill him. She felt a blind, +hollow sickness, as if her heart had broken and was bleeding away inside +her. She had made her beloved a slayer and had slain him. She could not +live with it. She hungered for her own death with intolerable desire. + +She arose with a despair-cleared mind the next morning, her resolve +made. Only the smaller details were to be worked out. She walked by the +lake, resolving these. Once she wept, from the very abundance and color +of life about her. Life was so full, and she had taken it from him in +his splendid youth. But she would not shirk the penalty of her +blood-guiltiness. She looked out to the hills beyond the valley that +fell away from the lake, studying headland and wooded slope and canyon +opening, choked with green. Some spot far out there would be secret and +gracious to her--welcome her with a finger on its lips--take her and +keep. Death, to her, was no longer terrible. There had been a long +intimacy with it. She rushed to the idea of it as to a home--a benignant +succor from the unendurable thought. + +Back in the cabin she lay counting the minutes as they rushed--thinking +and counting. She must not let herself be prisoned by a mere body that +exulted blindly, basely, in its vigor. She could make everything right. +She could conform to the law of a life for a life. + +"The hardest thing," she murmured. "I must do the hardest thing." That +would be her expiation, though not a sufficing one; she recognized that. +She longed for it too avidly, for the relief from thought, from +torturing visions. Yet it was formally perfect as a punishment, +according to the world's standards. She would be her own executioner, +and it would satisfy the world if the world knew. And despite her +longing for release, it was still, she thought, the hardest thing, +although it saved--saved her from that old man and that young man slain: +that young beloved one, lying dead with blood upon his hands. Poor +sacrificed, poor betrayed, poor ruined one! Again, the hollow sickness, +as if her heart were bleeding away inside her. To expiate--to do the +hardest thing. She came back to that always. It was the hardest thing, +although it saved. + +When her brother rode up in the afternoon, she instantly saw her plan +completed. There came an hour in which she walked and talked and laughed +in a waking dream, without sensation, except as she could imagine it +felt by a creature she seemed to watch from afar, a creature who had +looked strangely like herself. She saw this woman greet the others and +sit at table with them to laugh and talk with acceptable ease. Their +voices were soundless as voices in a dream, their shapes and flittings +as illogical. So benumbed was her spirit that she suffered little even +at the moment of hurried parting from Virginia. Her role was played with +flawless detachment. She studied herself coolly and guarded against +wrong speeches. + +"I shall go home with Clarence; I haven't seen that magnificent ranch +yet," she remarked carelessly, and Virginia and her brother had +applauded this. + +"I'll show you a ranch that is a ranch," Bartell had answered. + +Ben led Cooney around, saddled. She kissed Virginia lightly and was on +the little horse. She turned to wave gayly as she fell in ahead of +Bartell on the trail to the lake. + +The moon had sailed up over the eastern hills with the going down of the +sun, and the shadows were sharply cut in its light. They reined in at +the lake, lingering there a moment in its charm. Under the slanting moon +rays it shone like another moon, radiantly silver in its setting of +cloudlike leafage. She drew a long breath as her brother started on, and +called to him. + +"Clarence!" He pulled up his horse, looking back at her. + +"You'll think me absurd, but I've decided not to go with you, after all. +I believe I'd rather stay with Virginia. She'll be lonesome." + +He came back to her, scolding whimsically. + +"I know I'm foolish," she persisted, "but you're so dreadfully busy and +noisy over there." + +"Nonsense! And Virgie will be all right. She doesn't need you for a few +days." + +"I'm sure she'll need me. No--go on alone, there's a dear. I can ride +over myself and bring you back for a few days, after your rush is over." + +"Well, if you're really set." He submitted, grumbling. + +"And kiss me, dear!" + +He did so, still grumbling. "And you skip back, if you're going back. +You're cold as ice. So long, weathervane! And come over when you feel +like it." + +"I'll be warm, dear--and good-by." + +She watched him down the slope and across the meadow until he vanished +into the black of the forest wall. Then she rode on to the camp. Without +dismounting she took from the end of a broken branch a revolver in its +holster that she had hung there earlier in the day. She made sure again +that it was loaded and buckled the holster about her waist. + +Turning from the ranch trail, then, she found another that led off to +the north and away from the Pagosa road--off into a wooded wilderness of +hills where she would be safe from discovery. She halted again on the +first ridge above the camp, sitting motionless in the shadow, her eyes +on the little moon-flooded opening across the lake where the cabin trail +came down to the shore. That was a walk for lovers, but they could not +walk there now. After a little time she whirled Cooney about in a sudden +gust of fierceness and sent him along the winding ridge, keeping close +within the shadow. + +When the trail fell away into the first of the unknown valleys she +breathed a sigh of relief and release. Her burden was falling from her. +She could not again be cheated back from her refuge. + +She began to rejoice in the wide, wild sweetness of the night, its piny +fragrance, the soft-footed scurryings of its lesser people, the gloom of +its sharply defined shadows, and the silvering haze that enveloped the +peaks. She came on a deer feeding in the open, and was delighted when it +did not run. It only lifted its head to look at her. + +She began to rejoice, also, in the cleverness of her plan. As well as +she might she had preserved the decencies. A week might ensue before +they missed her. Cooney, stripped of his trappings, would appear at the +lake cabin, to be laughed at and chided for his desertion of the Bar-B +ranch, a week before she was missed; and then she would never be found. +There was, indeed, small chance of their having the pain of that. She +would keep to the trail as long as the night hid her; then a climb up +some unpathed slope, over rocks that would show no trace of her passage; +then a tangled thicket, remote, secret, improbable--and the tale of a +lost woman, a woman who wandered confusingly far on a night of tempting +splendor. She thought of Virginia's pain with a feeble pity. It seemed +as if humanity was dead in her. + +The narrow trail wound beckoningly before her, the land stretched off to +peaks of silver or barren gray slopes or shadowed promontories, glooming +above ravines where little rivers turned restlessly in their beds; and +over all hung the mystic shimmer of moon rays, softening all angles and +picking the fronds of trees with dancing lights as she passed. + +An owl boomed from a dead pine, and a little off the trail she heard the +scream of a cougar, like the scream of a woman in some strange terror. +But all sounds were indifferently alike to her, the shrilling of the +beast, the sibilance of running water, the bellow of the owl, the +whistle of a deer, or the throaty mutterings of an awakened bird. She +heard them as receding echoes of a life already remote. + +She kept Cooney moving as rapidly as the trail permitted, checking his +little snatches at the wayside herbage. He could fast with her for one +night, she told him. To-morrow he could feast his way home harassed by +no rider. He stopped at times to test some doubtful bit of trail with a +cautious forefoot; or slowed to feel a sure way down a gullyside of +loose stones; or lingered knee deep in a melody of swift water, to +drink, with swelling sides. She was glad to have this last night with +the little horse that had been Ewing's. Ewing--only not to think of +him--for one cannot ride with the heart all bled away. + +The light faded from the lower ways after a while. The moon had +completed its short arc and fell below the mountain ahead of her; +defining sharp little notches in its rim. + +The hills seemed to steal upon her in the darkness then, huddling close +about her, muffling her with their black plumage. But she was glad of +this--surmounting the mere physical oppression of it--for she felt that +it doubled the secrecy of her going; and Cooney's eyes, with his skilled +feet, sufficed for the trail. + +At times she shrank as under the touch of a palpable hand reached out to +her from the darkness, a thing that frantically protested, pleaded, +expostulated--but she knew it for the hand of mere brute life, a +cowardly, blind, soulless thing, that would subvert all fitness. She +shook it off, knowing herself its superior by right of mind, with power +to inflict justice upon it. And _he_ was dead, he, the young and +strong--alas, poor slayer, poor slain! How her heart bled away. To +expiate---- + +She clung to that: it was an obligation that lay on her, a secret +obligation, but the more imperative for that. She could not hold a +forfeited life. She must redeem herself. The hardest thing was demanded +of her. And then, one could not go on with this bleeding heart. + +"The hardest thing--the hardest thing!" she murmured, shutting her lips +tightly on the words, with a sudden inexplicable fear of some flaw in +her logic. Again and again she forced the words from her lips with +stubborn, deaf insistence, to still some mental voice of inquiry, a +passionless, cold thing that lifted itself in her brain, but which she +could beat down with this bludgeon of her phrase. She was even bold +enough to cross-examine herself presently. The hardest thing was +demanded of her, and she was doing the hardest thing. Her hand fell on +the laden holster at her side with a panic impulse to rush the thing +through. But the touch reassured her and she laughed in the +consciousness of her security. She could not be thwarted now, and she +need not hurry. She could afford to the very end that deliberate +thoroughness with which she had begun. Her will for the thing had lost +none of its iron. + +An hour or so after the darkness had crowded the hills in upon her she +rode into a dense mist, chilling to the bone after the dryness of the +early night. The range of her vision was again shortened, and even the +little horse halted more frequently to feel his way. Once he seemed to +have wandered, and stood a moment in uncertainty. She let him rest, then +flicked his shoulder with the bridle rein, and he struggled stanchly on +over the ridge of loose gravel where he had halted, feeling for the +trail with expert hoofs. He found it a moment later, and was moving +forward again. She patted his neck and blessed him for being so "trail +wise." He, too, was doing the hardest thing, and doing it faithfully. + +She fell again into the rhythm of her battle cry--"The hardest +thing--the hardest thing!" + +And yet it was not hard. She was so near to it now that she could afford +the luxury of this admission. It required only a sense of justice, of +moral symmetry. She had taken a life--two, doubtless--and by the law she +must pay. But no debtor could have had a willinger spirit. And she would +not be paying too much. She recalled certain homely words of an old man +whose life she had watched out, a man whose worn, seamed face showed his +right to speak. + +"Experience, lady, a dear thing sometimes--yes--but never too dear. It +is worth always just what we pay for it. It is had at slightest cost, +high or low. No other thing is like it thus. All else of the world may +cheat us in their price, but not experience. Our fee shall vary as we +are quick to learn, but the good God teaches us what we must know at +flat cost, as says the merchant, with never the penny of profit. This it +saves much to know--much sorrowing, much whining. It would make us +wise--so!" + +"So!" She echoed his rich guttural imitatively and laughed as she drew +in a deep breath of the damp air. She was numb with the cold now, and +laughed at foolish life for registering so petty a discomfort at such a +moment. The humor of it came home to her--that she should sensually feel +the cold. + +Another span of hours the little horse strode on at his quick step, +valiantly lifting her up steep ascents, or descending the sides of +ravines with devoted sureness of foot, treading narrow ways where she +could feel that he hugged the bush-lined bank, and knew that a fall lay +the other side. + +"The hardest thing--the hardest thing!" Again she muttered it, beating +at her purpose. And again, that mental, passionless query lifted its +head. Strike it down as she would, its cool, curious eyes were always on +her, not denying, not disputing, only questioning, calmly but +implacably, until her soul seemed to writhe in loyalty to her motives, +holding them sacred even from questioning. + +"The hardest thing"--but her brain rang with the relentless +question--"are you doing it because it is the hardest thing or because +you want to do it?" + +"I am doing it because I want to do the hardest thing." + +"A quibble!" + +She set her lips, shut her eyes, even to the darkness, and tried to +deafen her ears to the sounding thing. A long time she rode so. And then +she wept because she was alone and cold and dying and unsuccored by the +only one who could have comforted her. + +"I would never, never have left _you_!" she called back toward Ewing, +with the first reproach she had ever given him. Her voice had a broken +sweetness like that of a child speaking through tears. "I'd never have +let you be so cold! I'd have stayed--stayed by you--warmed +you--comforted you!" + +But after a little her tears ceased, as an unpitied child wears out its +crying, and her eyes closed again as she laughed at her own sad lack of +reason. + +When she opened her eyes again she gave a little gasping cry of relief. +The black of the night had faded to gray. A dull, dark, opaque gray it +was, but ghosts of the land already bulked massively through it; +shrouded, vague shapes without line. And the spirit of her purpose +quickened as she looked. + +Slowly the mist lightened, still opaque but silver now, and presently +she saw the murky face of a nearby rock and could trace the cedar that +twisted outward from its summit. They were amazing shapes to her, so +long had she seemed to live in the dark, and she named them over, +wonderingly--"A tree, a rock--a rock, a tree!" + +Again the question struck at her: "You want to do the hardest thing?" + +"I _must_ do the hardest thing--it only happens that I also wish to." + +"Is there nothing harder than what you are doing?" + +Again she shut her eyes and set her lips, but the voice came with +merciless insistence. + +"_What_ would be harder than dying?" + +Then she threw back her head and challenged the voice. + +"_Living!_ To live would be harder." She made the confession without +flinching, even with a laugh, and a weight dropped from her. + +"Then you are not doing the hardest thing--not doing it--not doing the +hardest thing!" + +She coolly scanned the descending bed of a creek that the trail now +crossed. The ravine widened below, and she saw that an ascent would be +practicable farther down. It was time, then, to leave the trail. If the +impossible should happen, if by some chance or trick of woodcraft they +tracked her all the miles of her night-long ride, they must lose her +here. + +She turned Cooney down the shallow stream with a furtive smile of pride +in her own craft. He splashed through the water, stumbling over the +submerged bowlders, but always recovering himself, and picking a sure +way over the creek bed. + +The cool gray of the mist-steaming water reminded her that she was +thirsty, but she would stop for nothing now. She knew herself for a +coward at last, guilty of a cowardice hideously selfish. She had planned +her act to be remote, secret, undiscoverable. But now she faced squarely +the grief her loss would be to others. + +But the sting would pass. And she had her own right--her own obligation +to meet. She had killed--she had killed her love--and she could not +live. There was service she might have performed through the years, but +others would perform it now, quite as acceptably. A gnat dropping from +the ephemeral human swarm could be nothing but a gnat the less. She no +longer pretended to call it the hardest thing. "But it's the next +hardest," she pleaded to herself. Her lips quivered, but she stilled the +spasm with a gust of fierce resolving to be done with the thing quickly. + +The shelving bank along which the stream had wound now fell away, and +she could dimly make out a draw between two hills where she might +ascend. She chose a place of broken stone and loose gravel for Cooney to +clamber out, so that he might leave no sign even to a searcher who had +come this far. Then, ascending the draw a little distance, she turned +and sent him up the side of the lesser hill. The mist still shut her in, +but she could make out that the woods were denser on this hill. + +Cooney made his way through a growth of the thick, wet buck brush, then +between white files of the quaking aspen, and at last into the heavier +wooded forest where his feet slipped and slid on the yielding pine +needles as he climbed. The hill lengthened before her in gradual +ascents, broken by terraces, and the way was rough with bowlders and +fallen trees and the clutching tangle of undergrowth. But the mist, +receding before her, revealed aisles of the wood farther on that allured +her. She would be thorough. Ahead of her were ruddy, yellow hints of the +sun, striking down through the green arches of the forest. + +At last she saw that she had reached the summit of the hill. "It is the +place," she said, then reined in and dismounted by a clump of bushes. +She found herself stiffened by the cold, and a sudden fear of failing +force seized her. She stamped on the ground until she felt warmth in her +feet again, and the stirred blood mounting through her. She drew a great +breath and straightened her body with a consciousness of its strength +and wealth of life. "It is the place," she repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE MISSION OF EWING + + +In a dingy little bedroom of a dingy little hotel in one of the lesser +avenues of New York Ewing sat waiting for his hour. He had sealed his +letter to Mrs. Laithe with the feeling that this was the last +intelligible word he could say to anyone. Henceforth he must be silent; +refuse reasons. He must let them devise reasons for him. Any but the +true reason would suffice. + +When darkness came on he went out into the noisy street, mailing the +letter as he passed through the hotel office. Then, by unfamiliar +thoroughfares he made his way to Ninth Street and resumed his old vigil +in front of Teevan's house. + +There were lights in the house, both above and below. The thing was not, +then, to be attempted at the moment. He walked for an hour through +squalid streets to the west and came back to his post. The house was +still alight. Teevan, apparently, was entertaining. He watched but a +moment, then returned to his hotel and went to bed. He could be patient, +and he must be thorough. Before extinguishing his light he made sure +that he had not lost what was now his most important possession: a key +to Teevan's door. Teevan had bestowed it on him the year before, in +order that he might obtain books during the little man's absence from +town. Ewing had forgotten the key until he set on his present mission; +then he had perceived a use for it. + +He fell asleep, despite the recurrent tumult of elevated trains outside +his window; fell asleep thinking of Teevan. There was no bitterness in +his heart toward the little man. It was only necessary that he die. + +He kept closely to his room the next day, wishing not to be recognized +by any of his acquaintances, and he was at his post early in the +evening. This time the house was dark. Teevan was out, but he would +return. So he paced back and forth through Ninth Street, going only so +far as would let him keep the house in view. He felt no impatience. It +was his last work, and he could bide the time when it might be well +done. A little after midnight two men entered the street from Fifth +Avenue, strolling leisurely in the warm June night, and ascended the +steps of the Teevan house. Ewing felt a slight tingling of relief when +he recognized Teevan, but then he saw the other take a key from his +pocket, and he knew that this would be Teevan's son. They went in +together, and the watcher left his post. He must have Teevan alone in +the house. + +He walked on with strange echoes from another time--from another world, +it seemed, sounding in his ears. The sight of Teevan, the tones of his +voice, faintly heard, seemed to awaken him from some dream in which he +walked, awaken him to a time when the little man was his good friend. He +felt a sudden nausea, but then he raised his eyes to the Bartell house +opposite and was himself again. He crossed the street and stood a moment +before the door, seeing his lady there, seeing her again as he had seen +her that night in Teevan's grasp, striving with Teevan, weakly, but with +the killing light in her eyes. The vision convinced him. The other time +had been the time of dream. He had not been awake until now. + +Again he slept and again he passed a day of waiting. That night there +were no lights in the house, but also no returning master, though he +waited until the night was far on. Yet he went to sleep in all patience, +knowing he had only to wait. + +On the fourth night there were lights again, but about ten o'clock he +saw Teevan's two servants leave. He walked on, to avoid recognition by +them. When he returned a man was leaving the house. He thought this +might be Teevan, but when the figure had descended the steps and passed +under the street lamp he saw it to be Teevan's son. Still he waited. He +must be sure. + +After half an hour the lights in the lower part of the house went out, +save one that shone dimly through the fanlight over the door. A moment +later two windows on the floor above leaped ruddily into view and he saw +a shadow pass across them. This was Teevan's room, and Teevan was +doubtless there, alone at last. + +He did not cross the street directly, but walked east to the end of the +block and came back on the other side. As he passed the Bartell house he +opened and closed his hands tensely, recalling Ben's suggestion about a +weapon. His bare hands were sufficing weapons. + +He went up the steps and softly turned his key in the lock. The door +yielded noiselessly to his push and he was in the hall. Unconsciously he +took off his hat and was about to leave it, but then he smiled and +replaced it firmly on his head. He stood listening a moment. There was +no sound. Then, very slowly, taking each step with caution, he mounted +the thickly carpeted stairs. + +So intent was he on his purpose that he felt no anxiety, no excitement. +As he halted at the head of the stairs to listen again, he thrilled +only with the need for perfect silence, a thing he would have felt in +the same degree if his quarry had been a deer in some green cover of the +hills. Still without a sound he felt his way to the door of Teevan's +room. The door was open and light from it glowed dimly into the hall. He +paused within the shadow and peered into the room. He could see the desk +but not the man who sat before it. Of him he could see only an arm and +hand--writing at the moment. Presently the hand dropped its pen and took +up a tall glass that stood near. The glass ascended and passed beyond +the watcher's range of vision. The hand brought it back, empty, a moment +later, and resumed the pen once more. + +He took a step forward and brought the room into view. Teevan sat at the +desk, his head bent and half turned away. Ewing coolly noted his +position. He seemed smaller than ever, smaller and older. But now no +time must be wasted. + +Ewing stepped through the doorway with noiseless tread and took one long +step toward the desk. Teevan turned his head and looked up. His eyes +rested on Ewing, at first vacantly, his mind still busied with the +matter of his writing. Ewing thrilled with a sudden alertness, his +purpose growing in his eyes, his hands tensely closing and unclosing. +Teevan started back from the desk, conscious now of the intruder's +menace. Yet such was the cool fixedness of Ewing's gaze, the hypnotic +tenseness of his crouch, that the little man made no sound; only stared +as one under a spell, the pen still held in his poised hand. + +Only when the crouching figure leaped toward him did his lips open. But +then, what would have been a cry of terror became a mere gurgling +snarl, for Ewing's hands had met about his throat with unerring +deftness. Teevan was half-raised from the chair, his head was forced +back, and for an instant his eyes met Ewing's in full consciousness. +Then his mouth opened wide, but not for speech, and his eyes rolled in +the agony of that choking grip. Ewing felt the thing writhe in his +clutch, then felt a sudden terrible relaxation, and his pressure ceased +in unthinking response to this. He stood a moment, holding the limp +form, then dropped it in the chair, feeling himself sicken at the sheer +physical horror of what he was doing. There was no pity for Teevan--only +for the animal that suffered. He had had to kill a dog once and his +loathing of that deed was like this. Teevan's head lay over on his +shoulder, his face distorted and purple, his eyes upturned and fixed in +a hideous stare. The fine little hands hung limply down. + +At the moment Ewing believed his task was done, but then he was dismayed +by a gasping, indrawn breath and the convulsive shuddering of Teevan's +chest. The little man was breathing again, though still unconscious. The +dog had shown this same horrible tenacity. He must do the thing all over +again. He bent over the figure, again fixing his grip nicely at the +throat. He would make sure this time. Then nerving himself to exert the +needed pressure, he turned his eyes away--he could not look at the face +in its death agony--turned his eyes away and found himself staring +stupidly at Alden Teevan, who stood inside the door. They gazed at each +other a moment until Ewing had appraised the significance of this +interruption. It meant only that he would be swiftly apprehended, for he +knew that Alden Teevan could not save his father. He had not changed +his position, still bending over the little man, still fingering his +throat. He was conscious of an increase in his purpose; this hint of +opposition would enable him to kill Teevan with a better spirit. He +spoke and his voice was only a little hoarse under the strain. + +"I'm killing your father. I don't want to hurt you, but you mustn't try +to stop me. If you do, by God! I'll kill both of you. If you keep away +I'll go with you after I've done it. I promise that." + +He turned again to the livid face beneath him. But the younger Teevan +called sharply to him, though with only irritation in his voice: + +"Stop! Don't be an ass! You're making an ass of yourself!" + +Ewing only stared at him. The other came a step nearer in his eagerness. + +"You'll be sorry if you don't listen to me. You're a fool, I tell you." + +Ewing smiled confidently, bitterly, not relaxing his hold of the little +man's throat. + +"I'm not doing it for myself." + +"All the more fool!" + +"For some one who couldn't do it--who has reason to do it." + +The other came nearer, clutching Ewing's sleeve with gentle persuasion +and speaking with quick intensity. + +"Ah, so that's it--she never told you! But you're a fool. She had no +reason--she was merely trying to save you from the truth about your +mother, and she has let you believe his lies about herself. What a +rotten fool you were to think that contemptible little mucker could ever +have been anything to her. He lied to you, do you hear me? Lied to you +about her, and she let you believe it--a fool herself for doing that--so +you wouldn't know the truth about your own mother." + +Slowly Ewing unclasped his hands from the throat of Teevan and stood +facing the son. Two phrases rang in his ears: "He lied to you about +her--the truth about your mother." He put up a hand to loosen his +collar. It seemed now as if he himself were being choked. + +"The truth about my mother--_what_ truth about my mother?" + +"Sit down there." + +"_What_ truth about my mother?" + +"Come--get hold of yourself. The truth that your mother happened to be +my mother." + +Ewing passed a hand over his face, as if to awaken himself from some +trance in which he had moved. + +"Sit down there." + +He felt for a chair now and sank awkwardly into it, repeating dazedly: + +"My mother was your mother--" He could get no meaning from the words. +The other answered sharply: + +"Your mother married my father. She left him for your father when I was +a baby. Do you understand that? Mrs. Laithe knew it. He knew it--" He +pointed toward the limp but breathing figure in the chair--"and she was +afraid he would tell you." + +He tried to take it in. + +"My mother--his wife? Ah--you--you are my brother." + +"That's beside the point; but if it means anything to you, listen to +me--try to understand." + +Again and again he told the thing point by point, as simply as he could, +while his listener stared curiously at him. The figure in the chair +stirred, the head rolled, the breathing became quieter and more even, +but neither gave any heed to this. + +At last the incredible thing began to shape itself in Ewing's mind, but +it was not until the very last, and then it came as a sudden blinding +illumination. The man in the chair drew a long, shuddering breath and +opened his eyes on them. Ewing at the same moment caught the full force +of the little man's deceit. He had felt no anger toward Teevan before, +but now rage grew within him as he remembered what the woman had +suffered. He sprang toward Teevan, feeling no longer a specific desire +to kill, but only a mad impulse to beat down and blindly destroy. + +"You lied about her!" he cried, towering above the little man with +clenched, threatening fists. If Teevan had retorted, had raised a hand, +or betrayed anything but abject fear, shrinking in his chair, turning +eyes of appeal to his son, Ewing would have vented his rage. But this +died into mere loathing as he looked. Teevan was near to whimpering, in +his fear. Ewing turned away with a gesture of repulsion. + +"That's best, after all," remarked the son coolly. + +"Doubtless he deserves kicking more than any unkicked man alive, but +you'll be glad you didn't do it." + +Ewing shot another look at Teevan, and then said, almost as if to +himself. + +"How wise my mother was!" He turned again to the little man with a +sudden blaze of scorn. + +"And you believed I could think less of her for leaving you--leaving you +for a _man_!" Teevan merely closed his eyes and cautiously raised a hand +to his neck. + +"You'll be glad you let him off," repeated the son, "and so will she. +She wouldn't have you----" + +"Ah--she!" It was a cry of remembrance. "Why--she's--" He broke off, +glowing with a strange illumination. "Why, I left her----" + +A moment longer he stood, like a sleeper wakened, then rushed from the +room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE TURNING OF COONEY + + +When she again felt sure of her strength she began to unsaddle Cooney. +The cinches bothered her stiffened fingers, but she had them worked +loose at last, and lifted the heavy saddle off, smiling grimly at her +own strength. When she took off the blanket she warmed her hands a +moment in its heat. Then she stripped off the bridle, and the little +horse, after a moment's mouthing to rest his jaws from the bit, fell to +grazing. As he seemed inclined to stay by her, she broke a switch from +one of the nearby bushes and cut him sharply. Even after this he +galloped off but a little way, with astonished, resentful shakings of +his head. She had wanted him to be on his way back over the miles he had +come before the thing was done. + +She glanced shrewdly about her. She was far away from the cabin, a +night's ride at Cooney's best trail pace, and in a region rough and +untraveled, except as an occasional way to the lower valleys. There were +no trails about her, no dead camp fires, no trees rimmed by the axe or +scarred by a "blaze." There was life enough of a sort; jays called +harshly, and squirrels barked their alarm; and half a dozen grouse eyed +her from a few yards' distance, with a sort of half-timid stupidity. But +there was no life to touch hers. She walked about the chosen thicket, +admiring its denseness, not notable in any way, but casual, improbable +to the searching eye. + +"The hardest thing!" It was satire now, and she murmured it as such, +done with all fighting. It was good to anticipate the thing, the +restfulness of extinction--or not, as that might be. That was no matter. +She was beaten in this life. It was good to know that in a moment she +would feel as little as Randall Teevan--or as much. She unconsciously +drew herself up at the thought of facing that withered fop. + +She rejoiced in the warming air. She would take a long breath of it, and +then the triumphant exit. She stepped a few paces forward to peer about +a low-growing spruce that had shaded her. She had a last fancy for +following the echo of her shot to the farther valley wall. + +As she lifted the curtain boughs the sun dazzled her. She would see its +golden points, she thought, when she shut her eyes in the thicket. She +shut them quickly now, to prove this, and saw the myriad dancing lights. + +As she opened her eyes again and turned to draw back into the wood there +was imprinted curiously on her recovering vision a silhouette of the +lake cabin. She shut them quickly again, dreading memories she was +forever done with, and laughing in the certainty that the cabin was +miles away. Then she looked again, blinking dazedly in the sunlight, and +the cabin loomed before her across the clearing. + +As she stared desperately, her mind roused to frantic denials, her eyes +straining to banish this monstrous figment, the door of the cabin opened +and Ewing came out. She sprang forward with an impulse to shatter the +illusion by some quick movement. But her eyes still beheld him, +bareheaded, turning his face up to the sun. He stretched his arms and +drew deep breaths. He had never seemed so tall. His look had a kind of +triumph in it. + +She swayed under the shock of the thing, feeling herself grow faint. +Cooney had betrayed her. Some time in the night, at one of those +confusing bends in the trail, he had turned. He had brought her home. + +Ewing's head had turned as she moved; his eyes were on her. She saw the +rapt gladness in his face and beheld him approach her across the +clearing. She managed another step or two and gained the support of a +felled tree. As Ewing came up she essayed a little smile of nonchalance. + +"Cooney--" she begun. The word came itself, but she felt easier under +the sound of her own voice and went on--"Cooney came with me. I didn't +go at all. I rode--but you see--" She beamed on him with explanatory +embarrassment--"I took an early morning ride--it was so pleasant--and I +thought I was lost--indeed I did, and I took off his saddle. I left it +right there--" She pointed with the literal exactness of a child in its +narrative of adventure--"right there behind that tree, and then I found +I was--found I was closer to home than I thought." + +He had not seemed to hear her, but stood looking narrowly, as if she +were still far away. Gradually his eyes widened, as if he were drawing +her close to him. He took a step toward her, with arms half raised. + +"I'm so ashamed--" he muttered; "but you--you let me think that." + +His voice brought her to sudden agonized alarm. The blood ebbed from her +face and she almost staggered toward him. + +"Did you do it--do _that_?" she whispered, ready to fall. + +"No; I found out in time. I found out everything--everything you didn't +tell me." He was shaken with longing, yet shamed into restraint before +her. + +"I'm so ashamed--I came as soon as I could to tell you. I rode all night +to be here, to tell you as soon as I could." + +"You didn't do it--you didn't do it?" she insisted pitifully. + +"I stopped in time." She muttered this over and over, and at last the +truth struggled into her chilled brain. + +"You dear, dear fool!" she said with a little sobbing laugh. + +Again his arms were half raised to her, but she turned swiftly and ran +to Cooney, who had fallen to grazing a little way off, throwing her arms +about his neck and weeping out incoherent words of endearment. + +Ewing gathered his strength, like a wrestler who has been pressed to the +ground, but lifts himself with infinite effort, and went resolutely +toward her. Gently he unclasped her arms from Cooney's neck. + + +THE END + + + + +A STORY OF AMERICAN LIFE + +David Harum. + +Illustrated Edition. With 70 full-page and text pictures by B. West +Clinedinst, and other text designs by C. D. Farrand, and a biography of +the author by Forbes Heermans. 12mo. $1.50. + + +"What seems to us to be the final judgment of 'David Harum' is given in +the _North American Review_ by no less a personage than John Oliver +Hobbes. This review strikes at the root of the matter. + +"'It would not be presumptuous to say,' opines Mrs. Craigie, 'well +remembering the magnificent ability of certain English authors of the +present day, that not one could create a character which would win the +whole English population as David Harum has won the American public. The +reason is plain. With so many class distinctions, a national figure is +out of the question. A national hero--yes; but a man for "winterin' and +summerin' with"--no. Social equality and independence of thought, in +spite of all abortive attempts to introduce the manners and traditions +of feudal Europe, are in the very air of the United States. One could +not find an American man or woman of the true stock who had not known +intimately, or who did not count among his or her ancestors, connections, +relatives, a David Harum. The type, no doubt, is getting old: becoming +more and more "removed" from the younger generation. In the course of +the next twenty years it may become so changed as to seem extinct, but +it is a national figure--certainly the most original, probably the +purest in blood. And the spirit of Harum is the undying spirit--no +matter how much modified it may eventually become by refinement, +travel, and foreign influence--of the American people. Individuals +may change, but the point of view remains unalterable.'"--_New York +Mail and Express._ + +"'David Harum' is one of those extremely rare and perfectly fresh +creations in current fiction which really enrich our literature. In +brief, it is a masterpiece, and one that deserves an immense popularity. +No words can adequately describe its wholesome, sparkling humor, its +quaint and endearing originality, its genuine Yankee wit and native +shrewdness. A well-nigh perfect work it is--a creation which will take a +permanent place among American literary portraits."--_Literary Review._ + + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + + + +THE LEADING NOVEL OF TODAY. + +The Fighting Chance. + +By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell. 12mo. Ornamental +Cloth, $1.50. + + +In "The Fighting Chance" Mr. Chambers has taken for his hero, a young +fellow who has inherited with his wealth a craving for liquor. The +heroine has inherited a certain rebelliousness and dangerous caprice. +The two, meeting on the brink of ruin, fight out their battles, two +weaknesses joined with love to make a strength. It is refreshing to find +a story about the rich in which all the women are not sawdust at heart, +nor all the men satyrs. The rich have their longings, their ideals, +their regrets, as well as the poor; they have their struggles and +inherited evils to combat. It is a big subject, painted with a big brush +and a big heart. + +"After 'The House of Mirth' a New York society novel has to be very good +not to suffer fearfully by comparison. 'The Fighting Chance' is very +good and it does not suffer."--_Cleveland Plain Dealer._ + +"There is no more adorable person in recent fiction than Sylvia +Landis."--_New York Evening Sun._ + +"Drawn with a master hand."--_Toledo Blade._ + +"An absorbing tale which claims the reader's interest to the +end."--_Detroit Free Press._ + +"Mr. Chambers has written many brilliant stories, but this is his +masterpiece."--_Pittsburg Chronicle Telegraph._ + + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Spelling, grammar, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained as +in the original publication except as follows: + + Page 9 + you'll _git_ somewhur's, I says _changed to_ + you'll _git_ somewhur's,' I says + + Page 14 + comsummation of this mild adventure _changed to_ + consummation of this mild adventure + + Page 23 + considered is so quietly _changed to_ + considered it so quietly + + front of "art emporiums." on _changed to_ + front of "art emporiums," on + + Page 33 + rainment was donned _changed to_ + raiment was donned + + Page 48 + sasshaying down Fifth Avenue _changed to_ + sashaying down Fifth Avenue + + Page 50 + that man every marry _changed to_ + that man ever marry + + Page 84 + vista of heartshaking surprises _changed to_ + vista of heart-shaking surprises + + Page 133 + latest golf and yatching news _changed to_ + latest golf and yachting news + + Page 243 + slay me an you will _changed to_ + slay me an' you will + + Page 292 + walked by the lake, revolving _changed to_ + walked by the lake, resolving + + Page 311 + with a gesture of replusion _changed to_ + with a gesture of repulsion + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ewing's Lady, by Harry Leon Wilson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EWING'S LADY *** + +***** This file should be named 32988.txt or 32988.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/9/8/32988/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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