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+The Project Gutenberg Etext The Two Vanrevels, by Booth Tarkington
+#11 in our series by Booth Tarkington
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+Title:  The Two Vanrevels
+
+Author:  Booth Tarkington
+
+Official Release Date: September, 2002  [Etext #3428]
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+[The actual date this file first posted = 04/16/01]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext The Two Vanrevels, by Booth Tarkington
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+
+
+The Two Vanrevels
+
+by Booth Tarkington
+
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+A Cat Can Do More than Look at A King
+Surviving Evils of the Reign of Terror
+The Rogue's Gallery of a Father Should be Exhibited to a Daughter with
+Particular Care
+"But Spare Your Country's Flag"
+Nero not the Last Violinist of his Kind
+The Ever Unpractical Feminine
+The Comedian
+A Tale of a Political Difference
+The Rule of the Regent
+Echoes of a Serenade
+A Voice in a Garden
+The Room in the Cupola
+The Tocsin
+The Firm of Gray and Vanrevel
+When June Came
+"Those Endearing Young Charms"
+The Price of Silence
+The Uniform
+The Flag Goes Marching By
+"Good-by"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A Cat Can Do More than Look at a King
+
+It was long ago in the days when men sighed when they fell in love; when
+people danced by candle and lamp, and did dance, too, instead of solemnly
+gliding about; in that mellow time so long ago, when the young were
+romantic and summer was roses and wine, old Carewe brought his lovely
+daughter home from the convent to wreck the hearts of the youth of Rouen.
+
+That was not a far journey; only an afternoon's drive through the woods
+and by the river, in an April, long ago; Miss Betty's harp carefully
+strapped behind the great lumbering carriage, her guitar on the front
+seat, half-buried under a mound of bouquets and oddly shaped little
+bundles, farewell gifts of her comrades and the good Sisters.  In her left
+hand she clutched a small lace handkerchief, with which she now and then
+touched her eyes, brimmed with the parting from Sister Cecilia, Sister
+Mary Bazilede, the old stone steps and all the girls: but for every time
+that she lifted the dainty kerchief to brush away the edge of a tear, she
+took a deep breath of the Western woodland air and smiled at least twice;
+for the years of strict inclosure within St. Mary's walls and still
+gardens were finished and done with, and at last the many-colored world
+flashed and danced in a mystery before her.  This mystery was brilliant to
+the convent-girl because it contained men; she was eager to behold it.
+
+They rumbled into town after sunset, in the fair twilight, the dogs
+barking before them, and everyone would have been surprised to know that
+Tom Vanrevel, instead of Mr. Crailey Gray, was the first to see her.  By
+the merest accident, Tom was strolling near the Carewe place at the time;
+and when the carriage swung into the gates, with rattle and clink and
+clouds of dust at the finish, it was not too soon lost behind the
+shrubbery and trees for Tom to catch something more than a glimpse of a
+gray skirt behind a mound of flowers, and of a charming face with parted
+lips and dark eyes beneath the scuttle of an enormous bonnet.  It
+happened--perhaps it is more accurate to say that Tom thought it happened-
+-that she was just clearing away her veil when he turned to look.  She
+blushed suddenly, so much was not to be mistaken; and the eyes that met
+his were remarkable for other reasons than the sheer loveliness of them,
+in that, even in the one flash of them he caught, they meant so many
+things at one time.  They were sparkling, yet mournful; and they were
+wistful, although undeniably lively with the gayest comprehension of the
+recipient of their glance, seeming to say, "Oh, it's you, young man, is
+it!"  And they were shy and mysterious with youth, full of that wonder at
+the world which has the appearance, sometimes, of wisdom gathered in the
+unknown out of which we came.  But, above all, these eyes were fully
+conscious of Tom Vanrevel.
+
+Without realizing what he did, Mr. Vanrevel stopped short.  He had been
+swinging a walkingstick, which, describing a brief arc, remained poised
+half-way in its descent.  There was only that one glance between them; and
+the carriage disappeared, leaving a scent of spring flowers in the air.
+
+The young man was left standing on the wooden pavement in the midst of a
+great loneliness, yet enveloped in the afterglow, his soul roseate, his
+being quavering, his expression, like his cane, instantaneously arrested.
+With such promptitude and finish was he disposed of, that, had Miss Carewe
+been aware of his name and the condition wrought in him by the single
+stroke, she could have sought only the terse Richard of England for a like
+executive ability, "Off with his head! So much for Vanrevel!"
+
+She had lifted a slender hand to the fluttering veil, a hand in a white
+glove with a small lace gauntlet at the wrist.  This gesture was the final
+divinity of the radiant vision which remained with the dazed young man as
+he went down the street; and it may have been three-quarters of an hour
+later when the background of the picture became vivid to him: a carefully
+dressed gentleman with heavy brows and a handsome high nose, who sat
+stiffly upright beside the girl, his very bright eyes quite as conscious
+of the stricken pedestrian as were hers, vastly different, however, in
+this: that they glittered, nay, almost bristled, with hostility; while
+every polished button of his blue coat seemed to reflect their malignancy,
+and to dart little echoing shafts of venom at Mr. Vanrevel.
+
+Tom was dismayed by the acuteness of his perception that a man who does
+not speak to you has no right to have a daughter like the lady in the
+carriage; and, the moment of this realization occurring as he sat making a
+poor pretence to eat his evening meal at the "Rouen House," he dropped his
+fork rattling upon his plate and leaned back, staring at nothing, a
+proceeding of which his table-mate, Mr. William Cummings, the editor of
+the Rouen Journal, was too busy over his river bass to take note.
+
+"Have you heard what's new in town?" asked Cummings presently, looking up.
+
+"No," said Tom truthfully, for he had seen what was new, but not heard it.
+
+"Old Carewe's brought his daughter home.  Fanchon Bareaud was with her at
+St. Mary's until last year and Fanchon says she's not only a great beauty
+but a great dear."
+
+"Ah!" rejoined the other with masterly indifference.  "Dare say--dare
+say."
+
+"No wonder you're not interested," said Cummings cheerfully, returning to
+the discussion of his bass.  "The old villain will take precious good care
+you don't come near her."
+
+Mr. Vanrevel already possessed a profound conviction to the same effect.
+Robert Meilhac Carewe was known not only as the wealthiest citizen of
+Rouen, but also as its heartiest and most steadfast hater: and, although
+there were only five or six thousand inhabitants, neither was a small
+distinction.  For Rouen was ranked, in those easy days, as a wealthy town;
+even as it was called an old town; proud of its age and its riches, and
+bitter in its politics, of course.  The French had built a fort there,
+soon after LaSalle's last voyage, and, as Crailey Gray said, had settled
+the place, and had then been settled themselves by the pioneer militia.
+After the Revolution, Carolinians and Virginians had come, by way of
+Tennessee and Kentucky; while the adventurous countrymen from Connecticut,
+travelling thither to sell, remained to buy--and then sell--when the
+country was in its teens.  In course of time the little trading-post of
+the Northwest Territory had grown to be the leading centre of elegance and
+culture in the Ohio Valley--at least they said so in Rouen; only a few
+people in the country, such as Mr. Irving of Tarrytown, for instance,
+questioning whether a centre could lead.
+
+The pivotal figure, though perhaps not the heart, of this centre, was
+unquestionably Mr. Carewe, and about him the neat and tight aristocracy of
+the place revolved; the old French remnant, having liberally intermarried,
+forming the nucleus, together with descendants of the Cavaliers (and those
+who said they were) and the industrious Yankees, by virtue (if not by the
+virtues) of all whom, the town grew and prospered.  Robert Carewe was
+Rouen's magnate, commercially and socially, and, until an upstart young
+lawyer named Vanrevel struck into his power with a broad-axe, politically.
+The wharves were Carewe's; the warehouses that stood by the river, and the
+line of packets which plied upon it, were his; half the town was his, and
+in Rouen this meant that he was possessed of the Middle Justice, the High
+and the Low.  His mother was a Frenchwoman, and, in those days, when to go
+abroad was a ponderous and venturesome undertaking, the fact that he had
+spent most of his youth in the French capital wrought a certain glamour
+about him; for to the American, Paris was Europe, and it lay shimmering on
+the far horizon of every imagination, a golden city.  Scarce a drawing-
+room in Rouen lacked its fearsome engraving entitled "Grand Ball at the
+Tuileries," nor was Godey's Magazine ever more popular than when it
+contained articles elaborate of similar scenes of festal light, where
+brilliant uniforms mingled with shining jewels, fair locks, and the white
+shoulders of magnificently dressed duchesses, countesses, and ladies.
+Credit for this description should be given entirely to the above-
+mentioned periodical.  Furthermore, a sojourn in Paris was held to confer
+a "certain nameless and indescribable polish" upon the manners of the
+visitor; also, there was something called "an air of foreign travel."
+
+They talked a great deal about polish in those days; and some examples
+still extant do not deny their justification; but in the case of Mr.
+Carewe, there existed a citizen of Rouen, one already quoted, who had the
+temerity to declare the polish to be in truth quite nameless and
+indescribable for the reason that one cannot paint a vacuum.  However,
+subscription to this opinion should not be over-hasty, since Mr. Crailey
+Gray had been notoriously a rival of Carewe's with every pretty woman in
+town, both having the same eye in such matters, and also because the
+slandered gentleman could assume a manner when he chose to, whether or not
+he possessed it.  At his own table he exhaled a hospitable graciousness
+which, from a man of known evil temper, carried the winsomeness of
+surprise.  When he wooed, it was with an air of stately devotion, combined
+with that knowingness which sometimes offsets for a widower the tendency
+a girl has to giggle at him; and the combination had been, once or twice,
+too much for even the alluring Crailey.
+
+Mr. Carewe lived in an old-fashioned house on the broad, quiet, shady
+street which bore his name.  There was a wide lawn in front, shadowy under
+elm and locust trees, and bounded by thick shrubberies.  A long garden,
+fair with roses and hollyhocks, lay outside the library windows, an old-
+time garden, with fine gravel paths and green arbors; drowsed over in
+summer-time by the bees, while overhead the locust rasped his rusty
+cadences the livelong day; and a faraway sounding love-note from the high
+branches brought to mind the line, like an old refrain:
+
+"The voice of the turtle was heard in the land."
+
+Between the garden and the carriage gates there was a fountain where a
+bronze boy with the dropsy (but not minding it) lived in a perpetual bath
+from a green goblet held over his head.  Nearby, a stone sun-dial gleamed
+against a clump of lilac bushes; and it was upon this spot that the white
+kitten introduced Thomas Vanrevel to Miss Carewe.
+
+Upon the morning after her arrival, having finished her piano-forte
+practice, touched her harp twice, and arpeggioed the Spanish Fandango on
+her guitar, Miss Betty read two paragraphs of "Gilbert" (for she was
+profoundly determined to pursue her tasks with diligence), but the open
+windows disclosing a world all sunshine and green leaves, she threw the
+book aside with a good conscience, and danced out to the garden.  There,
+coming upon a fuzzy, white ball rolling into itself spirally on a lazy
+pathway, she pounced at it, whereupon the thing uncurled with lightning
+swiftness, and fled, more like a streak than a kitten, down the drive,
+through the open gates and into the street, Miss Betty in full cry.
+
+Across the way there chanced to be strolling a young lady in blue,
+accompanied by a gentleman whose leisurely gait gave no indication of the
+maneuvering he had done to hasten their walk into its present direction.
+He was apparently thirty or thirty-one, tall, very straight, dark, smooth-
+shaven, his eyes keen, deep-set, and thoughtful, and his high white hat,
+white satin cravat, and careful collar, were evidence of an elaboration of
+toilet somewhat unusual in Rouen for the morning; also, he was carrying a
+pair of white gloves in his hand and dangled a slender ebony cane from his
+wrist.  The flying kitten headed toward the couple, when, with a celerity
+only to be accounted for on the theory that his eye had been fixed on the
+Carewe gateway for some time previous to this sudden apparition, the
+gentleman leaped in front of the fugitive.
+
+The kitten attempted a dodge to pass; the gentleman was there before it.
+The kitten feinted; the gentleman was altogether too much on the spot.
+Immediately--and just as Miss Carewe, flushed and glowing, ran into the
+street--the small animal doubled, evaded Miss Betty's frantic clutch, re-
+entered the gateway, and attempted a disappearance into the lilac bushes,
+instead of going round them, only to find itself, for a fatal two seconds,
+in difficulties with the close-set thicket of stems.
+
+In regard to the extraordinary agility of which the pursuing gentleman as
+capable, it is enough to say that he caught the cat.  He emerged from the
+lilacs holding it in one hand, his gloves and white hat in the other, and
+presented himself before Miss Betty with a breathlessness not entirely
+attributable to his exertions.
+
+For a moment, as she came running toward him and he met her flashing look,
+bright with laughter and recognition and haste, he stammered.  A thrill
+nothing less than delirious sent the blood up behind his brown cheeks, for
+he saw that she, too, knew that this was the second time their eyes had
+met.  Naturally, at that time he could not know how many other gentlemen
+were to feel that same thrill (in their cases, also, delirious, no less)
+with the same, accompanying, mysterious feeling, which came just before
+Miss Betty's lashes fell, that one had found, at last, a precious thing,
+lost long since in childhood, or left, perhaps, upon some other planet in
+a life ten thousand years ago.
+
+He could not speak at once, but when he could, "Permit me, madam," he said
+solemnly, offering the captive, "to restore your kitten."
+
+An agitated kitten should not be detained by clasping its waist, and
+already the conqueror was paying for his victory.  There ensued a final,
+outrageous squirm of despair; two frantic claws, extended, drew one long
+red mark across the stranger's wrist and another down the back of his hand
+to the knuckles.  They were good, hearty scratches, and the blood followed
+the artist's lines rapidly; but of this the young man took no note, for he
+knew that be was about to hear Miss Carewe's voice for the first time.
+
+"They say the best way to hold them," he observed, "is by the scruff of
+the neck."
+
+Beholding his wounds, suffered in her cause, she gave a pitying cry that
+made his heart leap with the richness and sweetness of it.  Catching the
+kitten from him, she dropped it to the ground in such wise as to prove
+nature's foresight most kind in cushioning the feet of cats.
+
+"Ah!  I didn't want it that much!"
+
+"A cat in the hand is worth two nightingales in the bush," he said boldly,
+and laughed.  "I would shed more blood than that!"
+
+Miss Betty blushed like a southern dawn, and started back from him.  From
+the convent but yesterday--and she had taken a man's hand in both of hers!
+
+It was to this tableau that the lady in blue entered, following the hunt
+through the gates, where she stopped with a discomposed countenance.  At
+once, however, she advanced, and with a cry of greeting, enveloped Miss
+Betty in a brief embrace, to the relief of the latter's confusion.  It was
+Fanchon Bareaud, now two years emancipated from St. Mary's, and far gone
+in taffeta.  With her lustreful light hair, absent blue eyes, and her
+gentle voice, as small and pretty as her face and figure, it was not too
+difficult to justify Crailey Gray's characterization of her as one of
+those winsome baggages who had made an air of feminine helplessness the
+fashion of the day.
+
+It is a wicked thing that some women should kiss when a man is by; in the
+present instance the gentleman became somewhat faint.
+
+"I'm so glad--glad!" exclaimed Betty.  "You were just coming to see me,
+weren't you?  My father is in the library.  Let me--"
+
+Miss Bareaud drew back.  "No, no!" she interrupted hastily and with
+evident perturbation. "I--we must be on our way immediately."  She threw a
+glance at the gentleman, which let him know that she now comprehended his
+gloves, and why their stroll had trended toward Carewe Street.  "Come at
+once!" she commanded him quickly, in an undertone.
+
+"But now that you're here," said Miss Betty, wondering very much why he
+was not presented to her, "won't you wait and let me gather a nosegay for
+you?  Our pansies and violets--"
+
+"I could help," the gentleman suggested, with the look of a lame dog at
+Miss Bareaud.  "I have been considered useful about a garden."
+
+"Fool!"  Betty did not hear the word that came from Miss Bareaud's closed
+teeth, though she was mightily surprised at the visible agitation of her
+schoolmate, for the latter's face was pale and excited.  And Miss Carewe's
+amazement was complete when Fanchon, without more words, cavalierly seized
+the gentleman's arm and moved toward the street with him as rapidly as his
+perceptible reluctance to leave permitted.  But at the gate Miss Bareaud
+turned and called back over her shoulder, as if remembering the necessity
+of offering an excuse for so remarkable a proceeding: "I shall come again
+very soon.  Just now we are upon an errand of great importance.  Good-
+day!"
+
+Miss Betty waved her hand, staring after them, her eyes large with wonder.
+She compressed her lips tightly: "Errand!"  This was the friend of
+childhood's happy hour, and they had not met in two years!
+
+"Errand!" She ran to the hedge, along the top of which a high white hat
+was now seen perambulating; she pressed down a loose branch, and called in
+a tender voice to the stranger whom Fanchon had chosen should remain
+nameless:
+
+"Be sure to put some salve on your hand!"
+
+He made a bow which just missed being too low, but did miss it.
+
+"It is there--already," he said; and, losing his courage after the bow,
+made his speech with so palpable a gasp before the last word that the
+dullest person in the world could have seen that he meant it.
+
+Miss Betty disappeared.
+
+There was a rigidity of expression about the gentle mouth of Fanchon
+Bareaud, which her companion did not enjoy, as they went on their way,
+each preserving an uneasy silence, until at her own door, she turned
+sharply upon him.  "Tom Vanrevel, I thought you were the steadiest--and
+now you've proved yourself the craziest--soul in Rouen!" she burst out.
+"And I couldn't say worse!"
+
+"Why didn't you present me to her?" asked Vanrevel.
+
+"Because I thought a man of your gallantry might prefer not to face a
+shotgun in the presence of ladies!"
+
+"Pooh!"
+
+"Pooh!" mimicked Miss Bareaud.  "You can `pooh' as much as you like, but
+if he had seen us from the window--"  She covered her face with her hands
+for a moment, then dropped them and smiled upon him.  "I understand
+perfectly to what I owe the pleasure of a stroll with you this morning,
+and your casual insistence on the shadiness of Carewe Street!"  He laughed
+nervously, but her smile vanished, and she continued, "Keep away, Tom.
+She is beautiful, and at St. Mary's I always thought she had spirit and
+wit, too.  I only hope Crailey won't see her before the wedding!  But it
+isn't safe for you.  Go along, now, and ask Crailey please to come at
+three this afternoon."
+
+This message from Mr. Gray's betrothed was not all the ill-starred Tom
+conveyed to his friend.  Mr. Vanrevel was ordinarily esteemed a person of
+great reserve and discretion; nevertheless there was one man to whom he
+told everything, and from whom he had no secrets.  He spent the noon hour
+in feeble attempts to describe to Crailey Gray the outward appearance of
+Miss Elizabeth Carewe; how she ran like a young Diana; what one felt upon
+hearing her voice; and he presented in himself an example exhibiting
+something of the cost of looking in her eyes.  His conversation was more
+or less incoherent, but the effect of it was complete.
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+Surviving Evils of the Reign of Terror
+
+Does there exist an incredulous, or jealous, denizen of another portion of
+our country who, knowing that the room in the wooden cupola over Mr.
+Carewe's library was commonly alluded to by Rouen as the "Tower Chamber,"
+will prove himself so sectionally prejudiced as to deny that the town was
+a veritable hotbed of literary interest, or that Sir `Walter Scott was
+ill-appreciated there? Some of the men looked sly, and others grinned, at
+mention of this apartment; but the romantic were not lacking who spoke of
+it in whispers: how the lights sometimes shone there all night long, and
+the gentlemen drove away, whitefaced, in the dawn. The cupola, rising
+above the library, overlooked the garden; and the house, save for that,
+was of a single story, with a low veranda running the length of its front.
+The windows of the library and of a row of bedrooms---one of which was
+Miss Betty's--lined the veranda, "steamboat fashion;" the inner doors of
+these rooms all opening upon a long hail which bisected the house. he
+stairway leading to the room in the cupola rose the library itself, while
+the bisecting hail afforded be only access to the library; hence, the
+gossips, `eli acquainted with the geography of the place, conferred
+seriously together upon what effect Miss Betty's homecoming would have in
+this connection:
+
+Dr anyone going to the stairway must needs pass her door; and, what was
+more to the point, a party C gentlemen descending late from the mysterious
+garret might be not so quiet as they intended, and the young lady
+sufficiently disturbed to inquire of her father what entertainment he
+provided that should keep his guests until four in the morning.
+
+But at present it was with the opposite end of the house that the town was
+occupied, for there, workmen were hammering and sawing and painting day
+long, finishing the addition Mr. Carewe was building for his daughter's
+debut. This hammering disturbed Miss Betty, who had become almost as busy
+with the French Revolution as with her mantua-maker. For she had found in
+her father's library many books not for convent-shelves; and she had
+become a Girondin.
+She found memoirs, histories, and tales of that delectable period, then
+not so dim with time but that the figures of it were more than tragic
+shadows; and for a week there was no meal in that house to which she sat
+down earlier than half an hour Jate. She had a rightful property-interest
+in the Revolution, her own great-uncle having been one of those who
+"suffered;" not, however, under the guillotine; for to Georges Meilhac
+appertained the rare distinction of death by accident on the day when the
+business-like young Bonaparte played upon the mob with his cannon.
+
+There were some yellow letters of this great uncle's in a box which had
+belonged to her grandmother, a rich discovery for Miss Betty, who read and
+re-read them with eager and excited eyes, living more in Paris with
+Georges and his friends than in Rouen with her father. Indeed, she had
+little else to do. Mr. Carewe was no comrade for her, by far the reverse.
+She seldom saw him, except at the table, when he sat with averted eyes,
+and talked to her very little; and, while making elaborate preparation for
+her introduction to his friends (such was his phrase) he treated her with
+a perfunctory civility which made her wonder if her advent was altogether
+welcome to him; bat when she noticed that his hair looked darker than
+usual about every fourth day, she began to understand Why he appeared
+ungrateful to her for growing up. He went out a great deal, though no
+visitors came to the house; for it was known that Mr. Carewe desired to
+present his daughter to no one until he presented her to all. Fanchon
+Bareaud, indeed, made one hurried and embarrassed call, evading Miss
+Betty's reference to the chevalier of the kitten with a dexterity too
+nimble to be thought unintentional. Miss Carewe was forbidden to return
+her friend's visit until after her debut; and Mr. Carewe explained that
+there was always some worthless Young men hanging about the Bareaud's,
+where (he did not add) they interfered with a worthy oh one who desired to
+honor Fanchon's older sister, Virginia, with his attentions.
+
+This was no great hardship for Miss Betty, as, since plunging into the
+Revolution with her great-uncle, she had lost some curiosity concerning
+the men of to-day, doubting that they would show forth as heroic, as
+debonnair, gay and tragic as he. He was the legendary hero of her
+childhood; she remembered her mother's stories of him perhaps more clearly
+than she remembered her mother; and one of the older Sisters had known him
+in Paris and had talked of him at length, giving the flavor of his
+dandyism and his beauty at first hand to his young relative. He had been
+one of those hardy young men wearing unbelievable garments, who began to
+appear in the garden of the Tuileries with knives in their sleeves and
+cudgels in their hands, about April, 1794, and whose dash and recklessness
+in many matters were the first intimations that the Citizen Tallien was
+about to cause the Citizen Robespierre to shoot himself through the jaw.
+
+In the library hung a small, full-length drawing of Georges, done in color
+by Miss Betty's grandmother; and this she carried to her own room an&
+studied long and ardently, until sometimes the man himself seemed to stand
+before her, in spite of the fact that Mile. Meithac had not a
+distinguished talent and M. Meilhac's features might have been anybody's.
+It was to be seen, however, that he was smiling.
+
+Miss Betty had an impression that her grandmother's art of portraiture
+would have been more-successful with the profile than the "full-face."
+Nevertheless, nothing could be more clearly indicated than that the hair
+of M. Melihac was very yellow, and his short, huge-lapeiled waistcoat
+white, striped with scarlet. An enormous cravat coyered his chin; the
+heavy collar of his yellow coat rose behind his ears, while its tails fell
+to his ankles; and the tight trousers of white and yellow stripes were
+tied with white ribbons about the middle of the calf; he wore white
+stockings and gold-buckled yellow shoes, and on the back of his head a
+jauntily cocked black hat. Miss Betty innocently wondered why his letters
+did not speak of P‚tion, of Vergniaud, or of Dumoriez, since in the
+historical novels which she read, the hero's lot was inevitably linked
+with that of everyone of importance in his generation; yet Georges
+appeared to have been unacquainted with these personages, Robespierre
+being the only name of consequence mentioned in his letters; and then it
+appeared in much the same fashion practised by her father in alluding to
+the Governor of the State, who had the misfortune to be unpopular with Mr.
+Carewe. But this did not dim her great-uncle's lustre in Miss Betty's
+eyes, nor lessen for her the pathetic romance of the smile he wore.
+
+Beholding this smile, one remembered the end to which his light footsteps
+bad led him; and it was unavoidable to picture him left lying in the empty
+street behind the heels of the flying crowd, carefully forming that same
+smile on his lips, and taking much pride in passing with some small,
+cynical speech, murmured to himself, concerning the mutility of a
+gentleman's getting shot by his friends for merely being present to
+applaud them. So, fancying him thus, with his yellow hair, his scarlet-
+itriped waistcoat, and his tragedy, the young girl felt a share of family
+greatness, or, at least, of picturesqueness, descend to her. And she
+smiled sadly back upon the smile in the picture, and dreamed about its
+original night after night.
+
+Whether or no another figure, that of a dark young man in a white hat,
+with a white kitten etching his wrist in red, found any place in her
+dreams. at this period, - it is impossible to determine. She did not see
+him again. it is quite another thing, hazardous to venture, to state that
+he did not see her. At all events, it is certain that many people who bad
+never beheld her were talking of her; that Rouen was full of contention
+concerning her beauty and her gift of music, for a song can be heard
+through an open window. And how did it happen that Crailey Gray knew that
+it was Miss Carewe's habit to stroll in her garden for half an hour or so,
+each evening before retiring, and that she went to mass every morning soon
+after sunrise? Crailey Gray never rose at, or near, sunrise in his life,
+though he sometimes beheld it, from another point of view, as the end of
+the evening. It appears that someone must have told him.
+
+One night when the moon lay white on the trees and housetops, Miss Betty
+paused in her evening promenade and seated herself upon a bench on the
+borders of the garden, "touched," as the books of the time would have put
+it, "by the sweet tranquillity of the scene," and wrought upon by the
+tender incentive to sighs and melancholy which youth in loneliness finds
+in a loveliness of the earth. The breeze bore the smells of the old-
+fashioned garden, of violets and cherry blossoms, and a sound of distant
+violins came on the air playing the new song from the new opera.
+
+"But I also dreamt, which pleased me most,
+That you loved me just the same--"
+
+they sang; and with the lilt of them and the keen beauty of the night, the
+inherited pain of the ages rose from the depths of the young girl's heart,
+so that she thought it must break; for what reason she could not have
+told, since she was without care or sorrow that she knew, except the
+French Revolution, yet tears shone upon the long lashes. She shook them
+off and looked up with a sudden odd consciousness. The next second she
+sprang to her feet with a gasp and a choked outcry, her bands pressed to
+her breast.
+
+Ten paces in front of her, a gap in the shrubbery where tall trees rose
+left a small radiant area of illumination like that of a lime-light in a
+theatre, its brilliancy intensified by the dark foliage behind. It was
+open to view only from the bench by which she stood, and appeared, indeed,
+like the stage of a little theatre a stage occupied by a bizarre figure.
+For, in the centre of this shining patch, with the light strong on his
+face, was standing a fair-haired young man, dressed in a yellow coat, a
+scarlet and white striped waistcoat, wearing a jauntily cocked black hat
+on his bead. And even to the last detail, the ribbon laces above the ankle
+and the gold-buckled shoes, be was the sketch of Georges Meilhac sprung
+into life.
+
+About this slender figure there hung a wan sweetness like a fine mist,
+almost an ethereality in that light; yet in the pale face lurked something
+reckless, something of the actor, too; and though his smile was gentle and
+wistful, there was a twinkle behind it, not seen at first, something
+amused and impish; a small surprise underneath, like a flea in a rose-jar.
+
+Fixed to the spot by this apparition, Miss Betty stood wildly staring, her
+straining eyelids showing the white above and below the large brown iris.
+Her breath came faster and deeper, until, between her parted lips it
+became vocal in a quick sound like a sob. At that he spoke.
+
+"Forgive me!" The voice was low, vibrant,
+
+and so exceedingly musical that he might have been accused of coolly
+selecting his best tone; and it became only sweeter when, even more
+softly, in a semi-whisper of almost crucial pleading, he said, "Ah--don't
+go away!"
+
+In truth, she could not go; she had been too vitally stirred; she began to
+tremble excessively, and sank back upon the bench, motioning him away with
+vague gestures of her shaking hands.
+
+This was more than the Incroyable had counted upon, and far from his
+desires. He started forward with an exclamation.
+
+"Don't come near me!" she gasped. "Who are you? Go away!"
+
+"Give me one second to explain," he began; but with the instant
+reassurance of this beginning she cut him off short, her fears dispelled
+by his commonplace. Nay, indignation displaced them so quickly that she
+fairly flashed up before him to her full height.
+
+"You did not come in by the gate!" she cried. "What do you mean by coming
+here in that dress What right have you in my garden?"
+
+"Just one word," he begged quickly, but very gently. "You'd allow a
+street-beggar that much!"
+
+She stood before him, panting, and, as he thought, glorious, in her flush
+of youth and anger. Tom Vanrevel had painted her incoherently, but richly,
+in spite of that, his whole heart being in the portrait; and - Crailey
+Gray had smiled at what he deemed the exaggeration of an ordinarily
+unimpressionable man who had fallen in love "at first sight;" yet, in the
+presence of the reality, the Incroyable decided that Tom's colors had been
+gray and humble. It was not that she was merely lovely, that her nose was
+straight, and her chin dexterously wrought between square and oval; that
+her dark hair lay soft as a shadow on her white brow; not that the
+trembling hand she held against her breast sprang from a taper wrist and
+tapered again to the tips of the long fingers; nor that she was of that
+slenderness as strong as it is delicate; not all the exquisite regularity
+of line and mould, nor simplicity of color, gave her that significance
+which made the Incroyable declare to himself that he stood for the first
+time in the presence of Beauty, and that now he knew the women he had been
+wont to call beautiful were but pretty. And yet her beauty, he told
+himself, was the least of her loveliness, for there was a glamour about
+her. It was not only the richness of her youth; but there was an ineffable
+exhalation which seemed to be made partly of light, partly of the very
+spirit of her, and, oddly enough, partly of the scent of the little fan
+that hung by a ribbon from her waist. This was a woman like a wine, he
+felt, there was a bouquet.
+
+In regard to the bouquet of the young man himself, if he possessed one, it
+is pertinent to relate that at this very instant the thought skipped
+across his mind (like the hop of a flea in a rose-jar) that some day he
+might find the moment when he could tell her the truth about herself--with
+a half-laugh--and say: "The angels sent their haloes in a sandal-wood box
+to be made into a woman--and it was you!"
+
+"If- you have anything to say for yourself, say it quickly!" said Miss
+Betty.
+
+"You were singing a while ago," he answered, somewhat huskily, "and I
+stopped on the street to listen; then I came here to be nearer. The spell
+of your voice " He broke off abruptly to change the word. "The spell of
+the song came over me-- it is my dearest favorite--so that I stood
+afterward in a sort of trance, only hearing again, in the silence, `The
+stolen heart, like the gathered rose, will bloom but for a day!' I did not
+see you until you came to the bench. You must believe me: I would not have
+frightened you for anything in the world."
+
+"Why are you wearing that dress?"
+
+He laughed, and pointed to where, behind him on the ground, lay a long
+gray cloak, upon which had been tossed a white mask. "I'm on my way to the
+masquerade;" he answered, with an airy gesture in the direction of the
+violins. "I'm an Incroyable, you see; and I had the costume made from my
+recollection of a sketch of your great-uncle. I saw it a long time ago in
+your library."
+
+Miss Carewe's accustomed poise was quite recovered; indeed, she was
+astonished to discover a distinct trace of disappointment that the
+brilliant apparition must offer so tame an explanation. What he said was
+palpably the truth; there was a masquerade that night, she knew, at the
+Madrillon's, a little way up Carewe Street, and her father had gone, an
+hour earlier, a blue domino over his arm.
+
+The Incroyable was a person of almost magical perceptiveness; he felt the
+let-down immediately and feared a failure. This would not do; the attitude
+of tension between them must be renewed at once. "You'll forgive me?" he
+began, in a quickly impassioned tone. "It was only after you sang, a dream
+possessed me, and--"
+
+"I cannot stay to talk with you," Miss Betty interrupted, and added, with
+a straightforwardness which made him afraid she would prove lamentably
+direct: "I do not know you."
+
+Perhaps she remembered that already one young man had been presented to
+her by no better sponsor than a white cat, and had no desire to carry her
+unconventionality farther than that. In the present instance there was not
+even a kitten.
+
+She turned toward the house, whereupon he gave a little pathetic
+exclamation- of pleading in a voice that was masterly, being as sincere as
+it was musical, and he took a few leaning steps toward her, both hands
+outstretched.
+
+"One moment more!" he cried, as she turned again to him. "It may be the
+one chance of my life to speak with you; don't deny me this. - All the
+rest will meet you when the happy evening comes, will dance with you, talk
+with you, see you when they like, listen to you sing. I, alone, must hover
+about the gates, or steal like a thief into your garden to hear you from a
+distance. Listen to me--just this once--for a moment?"
+
+"I cannot listen," she said firmly; and stood quite still. She was now in
+deep shadow.
+
+"I will not believe you merciless! You would not condemn the meanest
+criminal unheard I" Remembering that she was so lately from the convent,
+he ventured this speech in a deep, thrilling voice, only to receive a
+distinct shock for his pains, for she greeted it with an irrepressible,
+most unexpected peal of contralto laughter, and his lips parted slightly
+with the surprise of it.
+
+They parted much farther in the next instant-- in good truth, it may be
+stated of the gentleman that he was left with his mouth open--for,
+suddenly leaning toward him out of the shadow into the light, her face
+shining as a cast of tragedy, she cried in a hoarse whisper:
+
+"Are you a murderer?"
+
+And with that and a whisk of her skirts, and a footfall on the gravel
+path, she was gone. He stood dumbfounded, poor comedian, having come to
+play the chief role, but to find the scene taken out of his hands. Then
+catching the flutter of her wrap, as she disappeared into the darkness of
+the veranda, be cried in a loud, manly voice:
+
+"You are a dear!"
+
+As he came out into the street through a gap in the hedge, he paused,
+drawing his cloak about him, and lifted his face to the eastern moon. It
+was a strange face: the modelling most like what is called "Greek," save
+for the nose, which was a trifle too short for that, and the features
+showed a happy purity of outline almost childlike; the blue eyes, clear,
+fleckless, serenely irresponsible, with more the look of refusing
+responsibility than being unconscious of it; eyes without care, without
+prudence, and without evil. A stranger might have said be was about
+twenty-five and had never a thought in his life. There were some blossoms
+on the hedge, and he touched one lightly, as though he chucked it under
+the chin; he smiled upon it then, but not as he had smiled upon Miss
+Betty, for this was his own, the smile that came when he was alone; and,
+when it came, the face was no longer joyous as it had been in repose;
+there was an infinite patience and worn tolerance-possibly for himself.
+This incongruous and melancholy smile was astonishing:  one looked for the
+laughter of a boy and found, instead, a gentle, worldly, old prelate.
+
+Standing there, all alone in the moonlight, by the hedge, he lifted both
+hands high and waved them toward the house, as children wave to each other
+across lawns at twilight. After that he made a fantastic bow to his
+corrugated shadow on the board sidewalk.
+
+"Again, you rogue!" be exclaimed aloud. Then, as he faced about and began
+to walk in the direction of the beckoning violins: "I wonder if Tom's
+kitten was better, after all!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Rogue's Gallery of a Father Should be Exhibited to a Daughter with
+Particular Care
+
+Those angels appointed to be guardians of the merry people of Rouen,
+poising one night, between earth and stars, discovered a single brilliant
+and resonant spot, set in the midst of the dark, quiet town like a
+jewelled music-box on a black cloth.  Sounds of revelry and the dance from
+the luminous spot came up through the summer stillness to the weary
+guardians all night long, until, at last, when a red glow stole into the
+east, and the dance still continued, nay, grew faster than ever, the
+celestial watchers found the work too heavy for their strength, and
+forthwith departed, leaving the dancers to their own devices; for, as
+everyone knows, when a dance lasts till daylight, guardian angels flee.
+
+All night long the fiddles had been swinging away at their best; all night
+long the candles had shone in thin rows of bright orange through the slits
+of the window-blinds; but now, as the day broke over the maples, the
+shutters were flung open by laughing young men, and the drivers of the
+carriages, waiting in the dusty street, pressed up closer to the hedge, or
+came within and stretched themselves upon the lawn, to see the people
+waltzing in the daylight.  The horses, having no such desires, stood with
+loosened check-reins, slightly twitching their upper lips, wistful of the
+tall grass which bordered the wooden sidewalk, though now and then one
+would lift his head high, sniffing the morning air and bending an earnest
+gaze not upon the dancers but upon the florid east.
+
+Over the unwearied plaint of French-horn, violin, and bassoon, rose a
+silvery confusion of voices and laughter and the sound of a hundred
+footfalls in unison, while, from the open windows there issued a warm
+breath, heavily laden with the smell of scented fans, of rich fabrics, of
+dying roses, to mingle with the spicy perfume of a wild crab-tree in
+fullest blossom, which stood near enough to peer into the ball-room, and,
+like a brocaded belle herself, challenge the richest to show raiment as
+fine, the loveliest to look as fair and joyful in the dawn..
+
+"Believe me, of all those endearing young charms,
+Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
+Were to fade by to-morrow and fleet from my arms,
+Like fairy gifts fading away--"
+
+So ran the violins in waltz time, so bassoon and horn to those dulcet
+measures; and then, with one accord, a hundred voices joined them in the
+old, sweet melody:
+
+"Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art,
+Let thy loveliness fade as it will;
+And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
+Would entwine itself verdantly still."
+
+And the jealous crab-tree found but one to overmatch itself in beauty: a
+lady who was the focus of the singing; for, by the time the shutters were
+flung open, there was not a young man in the room, lacked he never so
+greatly in music or in voice, who did not heartily desire to sing to Miss
+Betty Carewe, and who did not now (craning neck over partner's shoulder)
+seek to fix her with his glittering eye, while he sang "Oh, believe me"
+most directly and conspicuously at her.  For that night was the beginning
+of Miss Betty's famous career as the belle of Rouen, and was the date from
+which strangers were to hear of her as "the beautiful Miss Carewe," until
+"beautiful" was left off, visitors to the town being supposed to have
+heard at least that much before they came.
+
+There had been much discussion of her, though only one or two had caught
+glimpses of her; but most of the gallants appeared to agree with Crailey
+Gray, who aired his opinion--in an exceedingly casual way--at the little
+club on Main Street.  Mr. Gray held that when the daughter of a man as
+rich as Bob Carewe was heralded as a beauty the chances were that she
+would prove disappointing, and, for his part, he was not even interested
+enough to attend and investigate.  So he was going down the river in a
+canoe and preferred the shyness of bass to that of a girl of eighteen just
+from the convent, he said.  Tom Vanrevel was not present on the occasion
+of these remarks; and the general concurrence with Crailey may be
+suspected as a purely verbal one, since, when the evening came, two of the
+most enthusiastic dancers and love-makers of the town, the handsome
+Tappingham Marsh and that doughty ex-dragoon and Indian fighter, stout old
+General Trumble, were upon the field before the enemy appeared; that is to
+say, they were in the new ball-room before their host; indeed, the
+musicians had not arrived, and Nelson, an aged negro servitor, was engaged
+in lighting the house.
+
+The crafty pair had planned this early descent with a view to monopoly by
+right of priority, in case the game proved worth the candle, and they were
+leaning effectively against the little railing about the musicians'
+platform when Mr. Carewe entered the room with his daughter on his arm.
+
+She was in white, touched with countless small lavender flowers; there
+were rows and rows of wonderful silk and lace flounces on her skirt, and
+her fan hung from a rope of great pearls.  Ah, hideous, blue, rough cloth
+of the convent, unforgotten, but laid aside forever, what a chrysalis you
+were!
+
+Tappingham twitched his companion's sleeve, but the General was already
+posing; and neither heard the words of presentation, because Miss Betty
+gave each of them a quick look, then smiled upon them as they bowed; the
+slayers were prostrated before their prey.  Never were lady-killers more
+instantaneously tamed and subjugated by the power of the feminine eye.
+Will Cummings came in soon, and, almost upon his heels, Eugene Madrillon
+and young Frank Chenoweth.  No others appeared for half an hour, and the
+five gentlemen looked at one another aside, each divining his own
+diplomacy in his fellow's eye, and each laboriously explaining to the
+others his own mistake in regard to the hour designated upon Mr. Carewe's
+cards of invitation.  This small embarrassment, however, did not prevent
+General Trumble and young Mr. Chenoweth from coming to high words over
+Miss Carewe's little, gilt-filigree "programme" of dances.
+
+It may be not untimely to remark, also, of these five redoubtable beaux,
+that, during the evening, it occurred to every one of them to be glad that
+Crailey Gray was betrothed to Fanchon Bareaud, and that he was down on the
+Rouen River with a canoe, a rod and a tent.  Nay, without more words, to
+declare the truth in regard to Crailey, they felt greater security in his
+absence from the field than in his betrothal.  As Mr. Chenoweth, a youth
+as open as out-of-doors, both in countenance and mind, observed
+plaintively to Tappingham Marsh in a corner, while they watched Miss
+Betty's lavender flowers miraculously swirling through a quadrille:
+"Crailey, you know, well, Crailey's been engaged before!"  It was not Mr.
+Chenoweth's habit to disguise his apprehensions, and Crailey Gray would
+not fish for bass forever.
+
+The same Chenoweth was he, who, maddened by the General's triumphantly
+familiar way of toying with Miss Betty's fan between two dances, attempted
+to propose to her during the sunrise waltz.  Having sung "Oh, believe me"
+in her ear as loudly as he could, he expressed the wish--quite as loudly--
+"That this waltz might last for always!"
+
+That was the seventh time it had been said to Betty during the night, and
+though Mr. Chenoweth's predecessors had revealed their desires in a guise
+lacking this prodigious artlessness, she already possessed no novel
+acquaintance with the exclamation.  But she made no comment; her partner's
+style was not a stimulant to repartee.  "It would be heaven," he amplified
+earnestly, "it would be heaven to dance with you forever--on a desert isle
+where the others couldn't come!" he finished with sudden acerbity as his
+eye caught the General's.
+
+He proceeded, and only the cessation of the music aided Miss Carewe in
+stopping the declaration before it was altogether out; and at that point
+Frank's own father came to her rescue, though in a fashion little saving
+of her confusion.  The elder Chenoweth was one of the gallant and kindly
+Southern colony that made it natural for Rouen always to speak of Miss
+Carewe as "Miss Betty.  He was a handsome old fellow, whose hair, long
+moustache and imperial were as white as he was proud of them, a Virginian
+with the admirable Southern fearlessness of being thought sentimental.
+Mounting a chair with complete dignity, he lifted a glass of wine high in
+the air, and, when all the other glasses had been filled, proposed the
+health of his young hostess.  He made a speech of some length, pronouncing
+himself quite as hopelessly in love with his old friend's daughter as all
+could see his own son was; and wishing her long life and prosperity, with
+many allusions to fragrant bowers and the Muses.
+
+It made Miss Betty happy, but it was rather trying, too, for she could
+only stand with downcast eyes before them all, trembling a little, and
+receiving a mixed impression of Mr. Chenoweth's remarks, catching
+fragments here and there:  "And may the blush upon that gentle cheek,
+lovelier than the radiant clouds at set of sun," and "Yet the sands of the
+hour-glass must fall, and in the calm and beauteous old age some day to be
+her lot, when fond mem'ry leads her back to view again the brilliant scene
+about her now, where stand `fair women and brave men,' winecup in hand to
+do her honor, oh, may she wipe the silent tear", and the like.  As the old
+gentleman finished, and before the toast was drunk, Fanchon Bareaud,
+kissing her hand to Betty, took up the song again; and they all joined in,
+lifting their glasses to the blushing and happy girl clinging to her
+father's arm:
+
+"Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art,
+Let thy loveliness fade as it will;
+And around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart,
+Would entwine itself verdantly still."
+
+They were happy people who had not learned to be self-conscious enough to
+fear doing a pretty thing openly without mocking themselves for it; and it
+was a brave circle they made about Betty Carewe, the charming faces of the
+women and their fine furbelows, handsome men and tall, all so gay, so
+cheerily smiling, and yet so earnest in their welcome to her.  No one was
+afraid to "let out" his voice; their song went full and strong over the
+waking town, and when it was finished the ball was over, too.
+
+The veranda and the path to the gate became like tropic gardens, the fair
+colors of the women's dresses, ballooning in the early breeze, making the
+place seem strewn with giant blossoms.  They all went away at the same
+time, those in carriages calling farewells to each other and to the little
+processions departing on foot in different directions to homes near by.
+The sound of the voices and laughter drew away, slowly died out
+altogether, and the silence of the street was strange and unfamiliar to
+Betty.  She went to the hedge and watched the musicians, who were the last
+to go, until they passed from sight: little black toilsome figures,
+carrying grotesque black boxes.  While she could still see them, it seemed
+to her that her ball was not quite over, and she wished to hold the least
+speck of it as long as she could; but when they had disappeared, she faced
+the truth with a deep sigh: the long, glorious night was finished indeed.
+
+What she needed now was another girl: the two would have gone to Betty's
+room and danced it all over again until noon; but she had only her father.
+She found him smoking a Principe cigar upon the veranda, so she seated
+herself timidly, nevertheless with a hopeful glance at him, on the steps
+at his feet; and, as she did so, he looked down upon her with something
+more akin to geniality than anything she had ever seen in his eye before.
+It was not geniality itself, but might be third cousin to it.  Indeed, in
+his way, he was almost proud of her, though he had no wish to show it.
+Since one was compelled to display the fact that one possessed a grown
+daughter, it was well that she be like this one.
+
+They did not know each other very well, and she often doubted that they
+would ever become intimate.  There was no sense of companionship for
+either in the other; she had been unable to break through his perfunctory,
+almost formal, manner with her; therefore, because he encouraged no af-
+fection in her, she felt none, and wondered why, since he was her father.
+She was more curious about him than interested, and, though she did not
+know it, she was prepared to judge him--should occasion arise--precisely
+as she would judge any other mere acquaintance.  This morning, for the
+first time, she was conscious of a sense of warmth and gratitude toward
+him: the elaborate fashion in which he had introduced her to his friends
+made it appear possible that he liked her; for he had forgotten nothing,
+and to remember everything in this case was to be lavish, which has often
+the appearance of generosity.
+
+And yet there had been a lack: some small thing she had missed, though she
+was not entirely sure that she identified it; but the lack had not been in
+her father or in anything he had done.  Then, too, there was something so
+unexpectedly human and pleasant in his not going to bed at once, but
+remaining to smoke on the veranda at this hour, that she gave him credit
+for a little of her own excitement, innocently fancying that he, also,
+might feel the need of a companion with whom to talk over the brilliant
+passages of the night.  And a moment ensued when she debated taking his
+hand.  She was too soon glad that her intuition forbade the demonstration.
+
+"It was all so beautiful, papa," she said, timidly.  "I have no way to
+tell you how I thank you."
+
+"You may do that," he replied, evenly, with no unkindness, with no
+kindness, either, in the level of his tone, "by never dancing again more
+than twice with one man in one evening."
+
+"I think I should much prefer not, myself," she returned, lifting her head
+to face him gravely.  "I believe if I cared to dance more than once with
+one, I should like to dance all of them with him."
+
+Mr. Carewe frowned.  "I trust that you discovered none last night whom you
+wished to honor with your entire programme?"
+
+"No," she laughed, "not last night."
+
+Her father tossed away his cigar abruptly   "Is it too much to hope," he
+inquired, "that when you discover a gentleman with whom you desire to
+waltz all night, you will omit to mention the fact to him?"
+
+There was a brief flash of her eye as she recalled her impulse to take his
+hand, but she immediately looked at him with such complete seriousness
+that he feared his irony had been thrown away.
+
+"I'll remember not to mention it," she answered.  "I'll tell him you told
+me not too."
+
+"I think you may retire now," said Mr. Carewe, sharply.
+
+She rose from the steps, went to the door, then turned at the threshold.
+"Were all your friends here, papa?"
+
+"Do you think that every ninny who gabbled in my house last night was my
+friend?" he said, angrily.  "There was one friend of mine, Mrs. Tanberry,
+who wasn't here, because she is out of town; but I do not imagine that you
+are inquiring about women. You mean: Was every unmarried male idiot who
+could afford a swallow-tailed coat and a clean pair of gloves cavorting
+about the place?  Yes, miss, they were all here except two, and one of
+those is a fool, the other a knave."
+
+"Can't I know the fool?" she asked, eagerly.
+
+"I rejoice to find them so rare in your experience!" he retorted.  "This
+one is out of town, though I have no doubt you will see him sufficiently
+often when be returns.  His name is Crailey Gray, and he is to marry
+Fanchon Bareaud--if he remembers!"
+
+"And the knave?"
+
+"Is one!"  Carewe shut his teeth with a venomous snap, and his whole face
+reddened suddenly.  "I'll mention this fellow once--now," he said,
+speaking each word with emphasis.  "His name is Vanrevel.  You see that
+gate; you see the line of my property there: the man himself, as well as
+every other person in the town, remembers well that the last time I spoke
+to him, it was to tell him that if he ever set foot on ground of mine I'd
+shoot him down, and he knows, and they all know, I shall keep my word!
+Elsewhere, I told him that for the sake of public peace, I should ignore
+him.  I do.  You will see him everywhere; but it will not be difficult; no
+one will have the hardihood to present him to my daughter.  The quarrel
+between us--" Mr. Carewe broke off for a moment, his hands clinching the
+arms of his chair, while he swallowed with difficulty, as though he choked
+upon some acrid bolus, and he was so strongly agitated by his own mention
+of his enemy that he controlled himself by a painful effort of his will.
+"The quarrel between us is political--and personal.  You will remember."
+
+"I shall remember," she answered in a rather frightened voice.
+
+. . . It was long before she fell asleep.  "I alone must hover about the
+gates or steal into your garden like a thief," the Incroyable had said.
+"The last time I spoke to him it was to tell him that if he ever set foot
+on ground of mine, I'd shoot him down!  " had been her father's
+declaration.  And Mr. Carewe had spoken with the most undeniable air of
+meaning what he said.  Yet she knew that the Incroyable would come again.
+
+Also, with hot cheeks pressed into her pillow, Miss Betty had identified
+the young man in the white hat, that dark person whose hand she had far
+too impetuously seized in both of hers.  Aha! It was this gentleman who
+looked into people's eyes and stammered so sincerely over a pretty speech
+that you almost believed him, it was he who was to marry Fanchon Bareaud--
+" if he remembers!"  No wonder Fanchon had been in such a hurry to get him
+away . . . .  "If he remembers!"  Such was that young man's character, was
+it?  Miss Carewe laughed aloud to her pillow: for, was one to guess the
+reason, also, of his not having come to her ball?  Had the poor man been
+commanded to be "out of town?"
+
+Then, remembering the piquant and generous face of Fanchon, Betty clinched
+her fingers tightly and crushed the imp who had suggested the unworthy
+thought, crushed him to a wretched pulp and threw him out of the open
+window.  He immediately sneaked in by the back way, for, in spite of her
+victory, she still felt a little sorry for poor Fanchon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"But Spare Your Country's Flag"
+
+If it be true that love is the great incentive to the useless arts, the
+number of gentlemen who became poets for the sake of Miss Betty Carewe
+need not be considered extraordinary.  Of all that was written of her
+dancing, Tom Vanrevel's lines, "I Danced with Her beneath the Lights"
+(which he certainly had not done when he wrote them) were, perhaps, next
+to Crailey Gray's in merit, though Tom burned his rhymes after reading
+them to Crailey.  Other troubadours were not so modest, and the Rouen
+Journal found no lack of tuneful offering, that spring, generously print-
+ing all of it, even at the period when it became epidemic.  The public had
+little difficulty in recognizing the work of Mr. Francis Chenoweth in an
+anonymous "Sonnet" (of twenty-three lines) which appeared in the issue
+following Miss Carewe's debut.  Mr. Chenoweth wrote that while dancing the
+mazourka with a Lovely Being, the sweetest feelings of his soul, in a
+celestial stream, bore him away beyond control, in a seraphic dream; and
+he untruthfully stated that at the same time he saw her wipe the silent
+tear, omitting, however, to venture any explanation of the cause of her
+emotion.  Old General Trumble boldly signed his poem in full.  It was
+called "An Ode upon Miss C--'s Waltzing," and it began:
+
+"When Bettina found fair Rouen's shore,
+And her aged father to us bore
+Her from the cloister neat,
+She waltzed upon the ball-room floor,
+And lightly twirled upon her feet."
+
+Mr. Carewe was rightfully indignant, and refused to acknowledge the
+General's salutation at their next meeting: Trumble was fifteen years
+older than he.
+
+As Crailey Gray never danced with Miss Carewe, it is somewhat singular
+that she should have been the inspiration of his swinging verses in waltz
+measure, "Heart-strings on a Violin," the sense of which was that when a
+violin had played for her dancing, the instrument should be shattered as
+wine-glasses are after a great toast.  However, no one, except the author
+himself, knew that Betty was the subject; for Crailey certainly did not
+mention it to Miss Bareaud, nor to his best friend, Vanrevel.
+
+It was to some degree a strange comradeship between these two young men;
+their tastes led them so often in opposite directions.  They had rooms to-
+gether over their offices in the "Madrillon Block" on Main Street, and the
+lights shone late from their windows every night in the year.  Sometimes
+that would mean only that the two friends were talking, for they never
+reached a silent intimacy, but, even after several years of companionship,
+were rarely seen together when not in interested, often eager,
+conversation, so that people wondered what in the world they still found
+to say to each other.  But many a night the late-shining lamp meant that
+Tom sat alone, with a brief or a book, or wooed the long hours with his
+magical guitar.  For he never went to bed until the other came home.
+
+And if daylight came without Crailey, Vanrevel would go out, yawning
+mightily, to look for him; and when there was no finding him, Tom would
+come back, sleepless, to the day's work.  Crailey was called "peculiar"
+and he explained, with a kind of jovial helplessness, that he was always
+prepared for the unexpected in himself, nor did such a view detract from
+his picturesqueness to his own perusal of himself; though it was not only
+to himself that he was interesting.  To the vision of the lookers-on in
+Rouen, quiet souls who hovered along the walls at merry-makings and
+cheerfully counted themselves spectators at the play, Crailey Gray held
+the centre of the stage and was the chief comedian of the place.  Wit,
+poet, and scapegrace, the small society sometimes seemed the mere
+background set for his performances, spectacles which he, also, enjoyed,
+and from the best seat in the house; for he was not content as the actor,
+but must be the Prince in the box as well.
+
+His friendship for Tom Vanrevel was, in a measure, that of the vine for
+the oak.  He was full of levities at Tom's expense, which the other bore
+with a grin of sympathetic comprehension, or, at long intervals, returned
+upon Crailey with devastating effect.  Vanrevel was the one steadying
+thing in his life, and, at the same time, the only one of the young men
+upon whom he did not have an almost mesmeric influence.  In good truth,
+Crailey was the ringleader in all the devilries of the town.  Many a youth
+swore to avoid the roisterer's company for all time, and, within two hours
+of the vow, found himself, flagon in hand, engaged in a bout that would
+last the night, with Mr. Gray out-bumpering the hardiest, at the head of
+the table.  And, the next morning, the fevered, scarlet-eyed perjurer
+might creep shaking to his wretched tasks, only to behold the cause of his
+folly and headache tripping merrily along the street, smiling, clean-
+shaven, and fresh as a dew-born primrose, with, perchance, two or three of
+the prettiest girls in town at his elbow to greet his sallies with
+approving laughter.
+
+Crailey had been so long in the habit of following every impulse, no
+matter how mad, that he enjoyed an almost perfect immunity from condemna-
+tion, and, whatever his deeds, Rouen had learned to say, with a chuckle,
+that it was "only Crailey Gray again."  But his followers were not so
+privileged.  Thus, when Mr. Gray, who in his libations sometimes developed
+the humor of an urchin, went to the Pound at three in the morning of New
+Year's Day, hung sleigh-bells about the necks of the cattle and drove them
+up and down the streets, himself hideously blowing a bass horn from the
+back of a big brown steer, those roused from slumber ceased to rage, and
+accepted the exploit as a rare joke, on learning that it was "only Crailey
+Gray;" but the unfortunate young Chenoweth was heavily frowned upon and
+properly upbraided because he had followed in the wake of the bovine
+procession, mildly attempting to play upon a flageolet.
+
+Crailey never denied a folly nor defended an escapade.  The latter was
+always done for him, because he talked of his "graceless misdoings" (so he
+was wont, smilingly, to call them) over cups of tea in the afternoons with
+old ladies, lamenting, in his musical voice, the lack of female relatives
+to guide him.  He was charmingly attentive to the elderly women, not from
+policy, but because his manner was uncontrollably chivalrous; and, ever a
+gallant listener, were the speaker young, old, great or humble, he never
+forgot to catch the last words of a sentence, and seldom suffered for a
+reply, even when he had drowsed through a question.  Moreover, no one ever
+heard him speak a sullen word, nor saw him wear a brow of depression.  The
+single creed to which he was constant was that of good cheer; he was the
+very apostle of gayety, preaching it in parlor and bar; and made merry
+friends with battered tramps and homeless dogs in the streets at night.
+
+Now and then he would spend several days in the offices of Gray &
+Vanrevel, Attorneys and Counsellors-at-Law, wearing an air of unassailable
+virtue; though he did not far overstate the case when he said, "Tom does
+all the work and gives me all the money not to bother him when he's
+getting up a case."
+
+The working member of the firm got up cases to notable effect, and few
+lawyers in the State enjoyed having Tom Vanrevel on the other side.  There
+was nothing about him of the floridity prevalent at that time; he withered
+"oratory" before the court; he was the foe of jury pathos; and, despising
+noise and the habitual voice-dip at the end of a sentence, was,
+nevertheless, at times an almost fearfully effective orator.  So, by
+degrees the firm of Gray & Vanrevel, young as it was, and in spite of the
+idle apprentice, had grown to be the most prosperous in the district.  For
+this eminence Crailey was never accused of assuming the credit.  Nor did
+he ever miss an opportunity of making known how much he owed to his
+partner.  What he owed, in brief, was everything.  How well Vanrevel
+worked was demonstrated every day, but how hard he worked, only Crailey
+knew.  The latter had grown to depend upon him for even his political
+beliefs, and lightly followed his partner into Abolitionism; though that
+was to risk unpopularity, bitter hatred, and worse.  Fortunately, on
+certain occasions, Vanrevel had made himself (if not his creed) respected,
+at least so far that there was no longer danger of mob-violence for an
+Abolitionist in Rouen.  He was a cool-headed young man ordinarily, and
+possessed of an elusive forcefulness not to be trifled with, though he was
+a quiet man, and had what they called a "fine manner."  And, not in the
+latter, but in his dress, there was an echo of the Beau, which afforded
+Mr. Gray a point of attack for sallies of wit; there was a touch of the
+dandy about Vanrevel; he had a large and versatile wardrobe, and his
+clothes always fit him not only in line but in color; even women saw how
+nobly they were fashioned.
+
+These two young men were members of a cheerful band, who feasted, laughed,
+wrangled over politics, danced, made love, and sang terrible chords on
+summer evenings, together, as young men will.  Will Cummings, editor of
+the Rouen Journal, was one of these; a tall, sallow man, very thin, very
+awkward and very gentle.  Mr. Cummings proved himself always ready with a
+loud and friendly laugh for the poorest joke in the world, his countenance
+shining with such kindness that no one ever had the heart to reproach him
+with the evils of his journalistic performances, or for the things he
+broke when he danced.  Another was Tappingham Marsh, an exceedingly
+handsome person, somewhat languid in appearance, dainty in manner with
+women, offhand with men; almost as reckless as Crailey, and often the
+latter's companion and assistant in dissipation.  Young Francis Chenoweth
+never failed to follow both into whatever they planned; he was short and
+pink, and the uptilt of his nose was coherent with the appealing earnest-
+ness which was habitual with him.  Eugene Madrillon was the sixth of these
+intimates; a dark man, whose Latin eyes and color advertised his French
+ancestry as plainly as his emotionless mouth and lack of gesture betrayed
+the mingling of another strain.
+
+All these, and others of the town, were wont to "talk politics" a great
+deal at the little club on Main Street and all were apt to fall foul of
+Tom Vanrevel or Crailey Gray before the end of any discussion.  For those
+were the days when they twisted the Lion's tail in vehement and bitter
+earnest; when the eagle screamed in mixed figures; when few men knew how
+to talk, and many orated; when party strife was savagely personal; when
+intolerance was called the "pure fire of patriotism;" when criticism of
+the existing order of things surely incurred fiery anathema and black
+invective; and brave was he, indeed, who dared to hint that his country,
+as a whole and politically, did lack some two or three particular virtues,
+and that the first step toward obtaining them would be to help it to
+realize their absence.
+
+This latter point-of-view was that of the firm of Gray & Vanrevel, which
+was a unit in such matters.  Crailey did most of the talking--quite
+beautifully, too--and both had to stand against odds in many a sour
+argument, for they were not only Abolitionists, but opposed the attitude
+of their country in its difficulty with Mexico; and, in common with other
+men of the time who took their stand, they had to grow accustomed to being
+called Disloyal Traitors, Foreign Toadies, Malignants, and Traducers of
+the Flag.  Tom had long been used to epithets of this sort, suffering
+their sting in quiet, and was glad when he could keep Crailey out of worse
+employment than standing firm for an unpopular belief.
+
+There was one place to which Vanrevel, seeking his friend and partner,
+when the latter did not come home at night, could not go; this was the
+Tower Chamber, and it was in that mysterious apartment of the Carewe
+cupola that Crailey was apt to be deeply occupied when he remained away
+until daylight.  Strange as it appears, Mr. Gray maintained peculiar
+relations of intimacy with Robert Carewe, in spite of the feud between
+Carewe and his own best friend.  This intimacy, which did not necessarily
+imply any mutual fondness (though Crailey seemed to dislike nobody), was
+betokened by a furtive understanding, of a sort, between them.  They held
+brief, earnest conversations on the street, or in corners when they met at
+other people's houses, always speaking in voices too low to be overheard;
+and they exercised a mysterious symbolism, somewhat in the manner of
+fellow members of a secret society: they had been observed to communicate
+across crowded rooms, by lifted eyebrow, nod of head, or a surreptitious
+turn of the wrist: so that those who observed them knew that a question
+had been asked and answered.
+
+It was noticed, also, that there were five other initiates to this
+masonry: Eugene Madrillon, the elder Chenoweth, General Trumble,
+Tappingham Marsh, and Jefferson Bareaud.  Thus, on the afternoon following
+Miss Betty's introduction to Rouen's favorite sons and daughters, Mr.
+Carewe, driving down Main Street, held up one forefinger to Madrillon as
+he saw the young man turning in at the club.  Eugene nodded gravely, and,
+as he went in, discovering Marsh, the General, and others, listening to
+Mr. Gray's explanation of his return from the river with no fish,
+stealthily held up one finger in his turn.  Trumble replied with a wink,
+Tappingham nodded, but Crailey slightly shook his head.  Marsh and the
+General started with surprise, and stared incredulously.  That Crailey
+should shake his head!  If the signal had been for a church-meeting they
+might have understood.
+
+Mr. Gray's conduct was surprising two other people at about the same time:
+Tom Vanrevel and Fanchon Bareaud; the former by his sudden devotion to the
+law; the latter by her sudden devotion to herself.  In a breath, he became
+almost a domestic character.  No more did he spend his afternoons between
+the club and the Rouen House bar, nor was his bay mare so often seen
+stamping down the ground about Mrs. McDougal's hitching-post while
+McDougal was out on the prairie with his engineering squad.  The idle
+apprentice was at his desk, and in the daytime he displayed an aversion
+for the streets, which was more than his partner did, for the industrious
+Tom, undergoing quite as remarkable an alteration of habit, became, all at
+once, little better than a corner-loafer.  His favorite lounging-place was
+a small drug-store where Carewe Street debouched upon Main; nevertheless,
+so adhesive is a reputation once fastened, his air of being there upon
+business deceived everyone except Mr. Gray.
+
+Miss Bareaud was even happier than she was astonished (and she was
+mightily astonished) to find her betrothed developing a taste for her
+society alone.  Formerly, she had counted upon the gayeties of her home to
+keep Crailey near her; now, however, he told her tenderly he wished to
+have her all to himself.  This was not like him, but Fanchon did not
+question; and it was very sweet to her that be began to make it his custom
+to come in by a side gate and meet her under an apple-tree in the dusk,
+where they would sit quietly together through the evening, listening to
+the noise and laughter from the lighted house.
+
+That house was the most hospitable in Rouen.  Always cheerfully "full of
+company," as they said, it was the sort of house where a carpet-dance
+could be arranged in half an hour; a house with a sideboard like the
+widow's cruse; the young men always found more.  Mrs. Bareaud, a
+Southerner, loving to persuade the visitor that her home was his, not
+hers, lived only for her art, which was that of the table.  Evil cooks,
+taking service with her, became virtuous, dealt with nectar and ambrosia,
+and grew fit to pander to Olympus, learning of their mistress secrets to
+make the ill-disposed as genial gods ere they departed.  Mr. Bareaud at
+fifty had lived so well that he gave up walking, which did not trouble
+him; but at sixty he gave up dancing, which did trouble him.  His only
+hope, he declared, was in Crailey Gray's promise to invent for him: a
+concave partner.
+
+There was a thin, quizzing shank of a son, Jefferson, who lived upon
+quinine, ague and deviltry; and there were the two daughters, Fanchon and
+Virginia.  The latter was three years older than Fanchon, as dark as
+Fanchon was fair, though not nearly so pretty: a small, good-natured,
+romping sprite of a girl, who had handed down the heart and hand of
+Crailey Gray to her sister with the best grace in the world.  For she had
+been the heroine of one of Mr. Gray's half-dozen or so most serious
+affairs, and, after a furious rivalry with Mr. Carewe, the victory was
+generally conceded to Crailey.  His triumph had been of about a fort-
+night's duration when Fanchon returned from St. Mary's; and, with the
+advent of the younger sister, the elder, who had decided that Crailey was
+the incomparable she had dreamed of since infancy, was generously allowed
+to discover that he was not that vision--that she had fallen in love with
+her own idea of him; whereas Fanchon cared only that he be Crailey Gray,
+whatever kind of vision that was.  And Fanchon discovered that it was a
+great many kinds.
+
+The transfer was made comfortably, with nice judgment of a respectable
+interregnum, and to the greater happiness of each of the three young peo-
+ple; no objection ensuing from the easy-going parents, who were devotedly
+fond of Crailey, while the town laughed and said it was only that absurd
+Crailey Gray again.  He and Virginia were the best of friends, and
+accepted their new relation with a preposterous lack of embarrassment.
+
+To be in love with Crailey became Fanchon's vocation; she spent all her
+time at it, and produced a blurred effect upon strangers.  The only man
+with whom she seemed quite alive was Vanrevel: a little because Tom talked
+of Crailey, and a great deal because she could talk of Crailey to Tom;
+could tell him freely, as she could tell no one else, how wonderful
+Crailey was, and explain to him her lover's vagaries on the ground that it
+was a necessity of geniuses to be unlike the less gifted.  Nor was she
+alone in suspecting Mr. Gray of genius: in the first place, he was so odd;
+in the second, his poems were "already attracting more than local
+attention," as the Journal remarked, generously, for Crailey had ceased to
+present his rhymes to that valuable paper.  Ay! Boston, no less, was his
+mart.
+
+He was rather radical in his literary preferences, and hurt the elder
+Chenoweth's feelings by laughing heartily at some poems of the late Lord
+Byron; offended many people by disliking the style of Sir Edward Bulwer,
+and even refused to admit that James Fenimore Cooper was the greatest
+novelist that ever lived.  But these things were as nothing compared with
+his unpatriotic defence of Charles Dickens.  Many Americans had fallen
+into a great rage over the vivacious assault upon the United States in
+"Martin Chuzzlewit;" nevertheless, Crailey still boldly hailed him (as
+everyone had heretofore agreed) the most dexterous writer of his day and
+the most notable humorist of any day.  Of course the Englishman had not
+visited and thoroughly studied such a city as Rouen, Crailey confessed,
+twinklingly; but, after all, wasn't there some truth in "Martin
+Chuzzlewit?"  Mr. Dickens might have been far from a clear understanding
+of our people; but didn't it argue a pretty ticklish vanity in ourselves
+that we were so fiercely resentful of satire; and was not this very heat
+over "Martin Chuzzlewit" a confirmation of one of the points the book had
+presented against us?  General Trumble replied to this suggestion with a
+personal one to the effect that a man capable of saying a good word for so
+monstrous a slander, that a man, sir, capable of declaring his native
+country to be vain or sensitive ought to be horsewhipped, and at this
+Crailey laughed consumedly.
+
+Trumble retorted with the names of Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr.  "And
+if it comes to a war with these Greasers," he spluttered apoplectically,
+"and it is coming, mighty soon, we'll find Mr. Gray down in Mexico,
+throwing mud on the Stars and Stripes and cheering for that one-legged
+horse-thief, Santa Anna!  Anything to seek out something foolish amongst
+your own people!"
+
+"Don't have to seek far, sometimes, General," murmured Crailey, from the
+depths of the best chair in the club, whereupon Trumble, not trusting
+himself to answer, went out to the street.
+
+And yet, before that same evening was over, the General had shed honest
+tears of admiration and pity for Crailey Gray; and Miss Betty saw her
+Incroyable again, for that night (the second after the Carewe dance) Rouen
+beheld the great warehouse tire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Nero not the Last Violinist of his Kind
+
+Miss Carewe was at her desk, writing to Sister Cecilia, whom she most
+loved of all the world, when the bells startled her with their sudden
+clangor.  The quill dropped from her hand; she started to her feet, wide-
+eyed, not understanding; while the whole town, drowsing peacefully a
+moment ago, resounded immediately with a loud confusion.  She ran to the
+front door and looked out, her heart beating wildly.
+
+The western sky was touched with a soft rose-color, which quickly became a
+warm glow, fluctuated, and, in the instant, shot up like the coming of a
+full Aurora.  Then through the broken foliage of the treetops could be
+seen the orange curls of flames, three-quarters of a mile away though they
+were.
+
+People, calling loudly that "it was Carewe's warehouses," were running
+down the street.  From the stable, old Nelson, on her father's best horse,
+came galloping, and seeing the white figure in the doorway, cried out in a
+quavering voice, without checking his steed.
+
+"I goin' tell yo' pa, Miss Betty, he in de kentry on lan' bus'ness. Go
+back in de house, Missy!"
+
+The other servants, like ragged sketches in the night, flitted by, with
+excited ejaculations, to join the runners, and Miss Betty followed them
+across the dew-strewn turf in her night slippers, but at the gate she
+stopped.
+
+>From up the street came the sound of a bell smaller than those of the
+churches and courthouse, yet one that outdid all others in the madness of
+its appeal to clear the way.  It was borne along by what seemed at first
+an indefinite black mass, but which--as the Aurora grew keener, producing
+even here a faint, yellow twilight--resolved itself into a mob of
+hoarsely-shouting men and boys, who were running and tugging at ropes,
+which drew along three extraordinary vehicles.  They came rapidly down the
+street and passed Miss Betty with a hubbub and din beyond all
+understanding; one line of men, most of them in red shirts and oil-cloth
+helmets, at a dead run with the hose-cart; a second line with the hand-
+engine; the third dragging the ladder-wagon.  One man was riding, a tall,
+straight gentleman in evening clothes and without a hat, who stood pre-
+cariously in the hose-cart, calling in an annoyed tone through a brazen
+trumpet.  Miss Betty recognized him at once; it was he who caught her
+kitten; and she thought that if she bad been Fanchon Bareaud she must have
+screamed a warning, for his balance appeared a thing of mere luck, and, if
+he fell, he would be trampled under foot and probably run over by the
+engine.  But, happily (she remembered), she was not Fanchon Bareaud!
+
+Before, behind, and beside the Department, raced a throng of boys, wild
+with the joy experienced by their species when property is being
+handsomely destroyed; after them came panting women, holding their sides
+and gasping with the effort to keep up with the flying procession.
+
+Miss Betty trembled, for she had never seen the like in her life; she
+stood close to the hedge and let them go by; then she turned in after them
+and ran like a fleet young deer.  She was going to the fire.
+
+Over all the uproar could be heard the angry voice through the trumpet,
+calling the turns of the streets to the men in the van, upbraiding them
+and those of the other two companies impartially; and few of his hearers
+denied the chief his right to express some chagrin; since the Department
+(organized a half-year, hard-drilled, and this its first fire worth the
+name) was late on account of the refusal of the members to move until they
+had donned their new uniforms; for the uniforms had arrived from
+Philadelphia two months ago, and tonight offered the first opportunity to
+display them in public.
+
+"Hail Vanrevel!" panted Tappingham Marsh to Eugene Madrillon, as the two,
+running in the van of the "Hose Company," splattered through a mud-puddle.
+"You'd think he was Carewe's only son and heir instead of his worst enemy.
+Hark to the man!"
+
+"I'd let it burn, if I were he," returned the other.
+
+"It was all Crailey's fault," said Tappingham, swinging an arm free to
+wipe the spattered mud from his face.  "He swore he wouldn't budge without
+his uniform, and the rest only backed him up; that was all.  Crailey said
+Carewe could better afford to lose his shanties than the overworked
+Department its first chance to look beautiful and earnest.  Tom asked him
+why he didn't send for a fiddle," Marsh finished with a chuckle.
+
+"Carewe might afford to lose a little, even a warehouse or two, if only
+out of what he's taken from Crailey and the rest of us, these three
+years!"
+
+"Taken from Vanrevel, you mean.  Who doesn't know where Crai1ey's--
+Here's Main Street; look out for the turn!"
+
+They swung out of the thick shadows of Carewe Street into full view of the
+fire, and their faces were illuminated as by sunrise.
+
+The warehouses stood on the river-bank, at the foot of the street, just
+south of the new "covered bridge."  There were four of them, huge, bare-
+sided buildings; the two nearer the bridge of brick, the others of wood,
+and all of them rich with stores of every kind of river-merchandise and
+costly freight: furniture that had voyaged from New England down the long
+coast, across the Mexican Gulf, through the flat Delta, and had made the
+winding journey up the great river a thousand miles, and almost a thousand
+more, following the greater and lesser tributaries; cloth from Connecticut
+that had been sold in Philadelphia, then carried over mountains and
+through forests by steam, by canal, by stage, and six-mule freight-wagons,
+to Pittsburg, down the Ohio, and thence up to Rouen on the packet;
+Tennessee cotton, on its way to Massachusetts and Rhode Island spindles,
+lay there beside huge mounds of raw wool from Illinois, ready to be fed to
+the Rouen mill; dates and nuts from the Caribbean Sea; lemons from groves
+of the faraway tropics; cigars from the Antilles; tobacco from Virginia
+and Kentucky; most precious of all, the great granary of the farmers'
+wheat from the level fields at home; and all the rich stores and the
+houses that held them, as well as the wharves upon which they had been
+landed, and the steamers that brought them up the Rouen River, belonged to
+Robert Carewe.
+
+That it was her father's property which was imperilled attested to the
+justification of Miss Betty in running to a fire; and, as she followed the
+crowd into Main Street, she felt a not unpleasant proprietary interest in
+the spectacle.  Very opposite sensations animated the breast of the man
+with the trumpet, who was more acutely conscious than any other that these
+were Robert Carewe's possessions which were burning so handsomely.  Nor
+was he the only one among the firemen who ground his teeth over the folly
+of the uniforms; for now they could plainly see the ruin being wrought,
+the devastation threatened.  The two upper stories of the southernmost
+warehouse had swathed themselves in one great flame; the building next on
+the north, also of frame, was smoking heavily; and there was a wind from
+the southwest, which, continuing with the fire unchecked, threatened the
+town itself.  There was work for the Volunteer Brigade that night.
+
+They came down Main Street with a rush, the figure of their chief swaying
+over them on his high perch, while their shouting was drowned in the
+louder roar of greeting from the crowd, into which they plunged as a diver
+into the water, swirls and eddies of people marking the wake.  A moment
+later a section of the roof of the burning warehouse fell in, with a
+sonorous and reverberating crash.
+
+The "Engine Company" ran the force-pump out to the end of one of the lower
+wharves; two lines of pipe were attached; two rows of men mounted the
+planks for the pumpers, and, at the word of command, began the up-and-down
+of the hand-machine with admirable vim.  Nothing happened; the water did
+not come; something appeared to be wrong with the mechanism.  As everyone
+felt the crucial need of haste, nothing could have been more natural than
+that all the members of the "Engine Company" should simultaneously
+endeavor to repair the defect; therefore ensued upon the spot a species of
+riot which put the engine out of its sphere of usefulness.
+
+In the meantime, fifty or sixty men and boys who ran with the machines,
+but who had no place in their operation, being the Bucket Brigade, had
+formed a line and were throwing large pails of water in the general
+direction of the southernmost warehouse, which it was now impossible to
+save; while the gentlemen of the "Hook-and-Ladder Company," abandoning
+their wagons, and armed with axes, heroically assaulted the big door of
+the granary, the second building, whence they were driven by the
+exasperated chief, who informed them that the only way to save the wheat
+was to save the building.  Crailey Gray, one of the berated axemen,
+remained by the shattered door after the others had gone, and, struck by a
+sudden thought, set his hand upon the iron latch and opened the door by
+this simple process.  It was not locked. Crailey leaned against the
+casement and laughed with his whole soul and body.
+
+Meanwhile, by dint of shouting in men's ears when near them, through the
+trumpet when distant, tearing axes from their hands, imperiously
+gesticulating to subordinate commanders, and lingering in no one spot for
+more than a second, Mr. Vanrevel reduced his forces to a semblance of
+order in a remarkably short time, considering the confusion into which
+they had fallen.
+
+The space between the burning warehouse and that next it was not more than
+fifty feet in width, but fifty feet so hot no one took thought of entering
+there; an area as discomfiting in appearance as it was beautiful with the
+thick rain of sparks and firebrands that fell upon it.  But the chief had
+decided that this space must be occupied, and more: must be held, since it
+was the only point of defence for the second warehouse.  The roof of this
+building would burn, which would mean the destruction of the warehouse,
+unless it could be mounted, because the streams of water could not play
+upon it from the ground, nor, from the ladders, do much more than wet the
+projecting eaves.  It was a gable roof, the eaves twenty feet lower on the
+south side than on the north, where the ladders could not hope to reach
+them.  Vanrevel swung his line of bucketeers round to throw water, not
+upon the flames, but upon the ladder-men.
+
+Miss Carewe stood in the crowd upon the opposite side of the broad street.
+Even there her cheeks were uncomfortably hot, and sometimes she had to
+brush a spark from her shoulder, though she was too much excited to mind
+this.  She was watching the beautiful fiery furnace between the north wall
+of the burning warehouse and the south wall of its neighbor, the fifty
+feet brilliant and misty with vaporous rose-color, dotted with the myriad
+red stars, her eyes shining with the reflection of their fierce beauty.
+She saw how the vapors moved there, like men walking in fire, and she was
+vaguely recalling Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, when, over the
+silhouetted heads of the crowd before her, a long black ladder rose,
+wobbled, tilted crazily, then lamely advanced and ranged itself against
+the south wall of the second warehouse, its top rung striking ten feet
+short of the eaves.  She hoped that no one had any notion of mounting that
+ladder.
+
+A figure appeared upon it immediately, that of a gentleman, bareheaded and
+in evening dress, with a brass trumpet swinging from a cord about his
+shoulders; the noise grew less; the shouting died away, and the crowd
+became almost silent, as the figure, climbing slowly drew up above their
+heads.  Two or three rungs beneath, came a second--a man in helmet and
+uniform.  The clothes of both men, drenched by the bucketeers, clung to
+them, steaming.  As the second figure mounted, a third appeared; but this
+was the last, for the ladder was frail, and sagged toward the smoking wall
+with the weight of the three.
+
+The chief, three-fourths of the way to the top, shouted down a stifled
+command, and a short grappling-ladder, fitted at one end with a pair of
+spiked iron hooks, was passed to him.  Then he toiled upward until his
+feet rested on the third rung from the top; here he turned, setting his
+back to the wall, lifted the grappling-ladder high over his head so that
+it rested against the eaves above him, and brought it down sharply,
+fastening the spiked hooks in the roof.  As the eaves projected fully
+three feet, this left the grappling-ladder hanging that distance out from
+the wall, its lowest rung a little above the level of the chief's
+shoulders.
+
+Miss Betty drew in her breath with a little choked cry.  There was a small
+terraced hill of piled-up packing-boxes near her, possession of which had
+been taken by a company of raggamuffinish boys, and she found herself
+standing on the highest box and sharing the summit with these questionable
+youths, almost without noting her action in mounting thither, so strained
+was the concentration of her attention upon the figure high up in the
+rose-glow against the warehouse wall.  The man, surely, surely, was not
+going to trust himself to that  bit of wooden web hanging from the roof!
+Where was Miss Bareaud that she permitted it?  Ah, if Betty had been
+Fanchon and madwoman enough to have accepted this madman, she would have
+compelled him to come down at once, and thereafter would lock him up in
+the house whenever the bells rang!
+
+But the roof was to be mounted or Robert Carewe's property lost.  Already
+little flames were dancing up from the shingles, where firebrands had
+fallen, their number increasing with each second.  So Vanrevel raised his
+arms, took a hard grip upon the lowest rung of the grappling-ladder and
+tried it with his weight; the iron hooks bit deeper into the roof; they
+held.  He swung himself out into the air with nothing beneath him, caught
+the rung under his knee, and for a moment hung there while the crowd
+withheld from breathing; then a cloud of smoke, swirling that way, made
+him the mere ghostly nucleus of himself, blotted him out altogether, and,
+as it rose slowly upward, showed the ladder free and empty, so that at
+first there was an instant when they thought that he had fallen.  But, as
+the smoke cleared, there was the tall figure on the roof.
+
+It was an agile and daring thing to do, and the man who did it was
+mightily applauded.  The cheering bothered him, however, for he was trying
+to make them understand, below, what would happen to the "Engine Company"
+in case the water was not sent through the lines directly; and what he
+said should be done to the engineers included things that would have
+blanched the cheek of the most inventive Spanish Inquisitor that ever
+lived.
+
+Miss Betty made a gesture as if to a person within whispering distance.
+"Your coat is on fire," she said in an ordinary conversational tone,
+without knowing she had spoken aloud, and Mr. Vanrevel, more than one
+hundred feet away, seemed particularly conscious of the pertinence of her
+remark.  He removed the garment with alacrity, and, for the lack of the
+tardy water, began to use it as a flail upon the firebrands and little
+flames about him; the sheer desperate best of a man in a rage, doing what
+he could when others failed him.  Showers of sparks fell upon him; the
+smoke was rising everywhere from the roof and the walls below; and,
+growing denser and denser, shrouded him in heavy veils, so that, as he ran
+hither and thither, now visible, now unseen, stamping and beating and
+sweeping away the brands that fell, he seemed but the red and ghostly
+caricature of a Xerxes, ineffectually lashing the sea.  They were calling
+to him imploringly to come down, in heaven's name to come down!
+
+The second man had followed to the top of the ladder against the wall, and
+there he paused, waiting to pass up the line of hose when the word should
+come that the force-pump had been repaired; but the people thought that he
+waited because he was afraid to trust himself to the grappling-ladder.  He
+was afraid, exceedingly afraid; though that was not why he waited; and he
+was still chuckling over the assault of the axes.
+
+His situation had not much the advantage of that of the chief: his red
+shirt might have been set with orange jewels, so studded it was with the
+flying sparks; and, a large brand dropping upon his helmet, he threw up
+his hand to dislodge it and lost the helmet.  The great light fell upon
+his fair hair and smiling face, and it was then that Miss Betty recognized
+the Incroyable of her garden.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The Ever Unpractical Feminine
+
+It was an investigating negro child of tender years, who, possessed of a
+petty sense of cause and effect, brought an illuminative simplicity to
+bear upon the problem of the force-pump; and a multitudinous agitation
+greeted his discovery that the engineers had forgotten to connect their
+pipes with the river.
+
+This na‹ve omission was fatal to the second warehouse; the wall burst into
+flame below Crailey Gray, who clung to the top of the ladder, choking,
+stifled, and dizzily fighting the sparks that covered him, yet still
+clutching the nozzle of the hose-line they had passed to him.  When the
+stream at last leaped forth, making the nozzle fight in his grasp, he sent
+it straight up into the air and let the cataract fall back upon himself
+and upon the two men beneath him on the ladder.
+
+There came a moment of blessed relief; and he looked out over the broad
+rosy blur of faces in the street, where no one wondered more than he how
+the water was to reach the roof. Suddenly he started, wiped his eyes with
+his wet sleeve, and peered intently down from under the shading arm. His
+roving glance crossed the smoke and flame to rest upon a tall, white
+figure that stood, full-length above the heads of the people, upon a
+pedestal wrought with the grotesque images of boys: a girl's figure, still
+as noon, enrapt, like the statue of some young goddess for whom were made
+these sacrificial pyres. Mr. Gray recognized his opportunity.
+
+A blackened and unrecognizable face peered down from the eaves, and the
+voice belonging to it said, angrily: "Why didn't they send up that line
+before they put the water through it?"
+
+"Never mind, Tom," answered Crailey cheerfully, "I'll bring it up."
+"You can't; I'll come down for it. Don't be every kind of a fool!"
+
+"You want a monopoly, do you?" And Crailey, calling to Tappingham Marsh,
+next below him, to come higher, left the writhing nozzle in the latter's
+possession, swung himself out upon the grappling-ladder, imitating the
+chief's gymnastics, and immediately, one hand grasping the second rung,
+one knee crooked over the lowest, leaned head down and took the nozzle
+from Marsh.  It was a heavy weight, and though Marsh supported the line
+beneath it, the great stream hurtling forth made it a difficult thing to
+manage, for it wriggled, recoiled and struggled as if it had been alive.
+Crailey made three attempts to draw himself up; but the strain was too
+much for his grip, and on the third attempt his fingers melted from the
+rung, and he swung down fearfully, hanging by his knee, but still clinging
+to the nozzle.
+
+"Give it up, Crailey; it isn't worth it," Vanrevel called from overhead,
+not daring the weight of both on the light grappling-ladder.
+
+But though Crailey cared no more for the saving of Robert Carewe's
+property than for a butterfly's wing in China, he could not give up now,
+any more than as a lad be could have forborne to turn somersaults when the
+prettiest little girl looked out of the school-house window. He passed the
+nozzle to Tappingham, caught the second rung with his left hand, and, once
+more hanging head downward, seized the nozzle; then, with his knee hooked
+tight, as the gushing water described a huge semicircle upon the smoke and
+hot vapor, he made a mad lurch through the air, while women shrieked; but
+he landed upright, half-sitting on the lowest rung. He climbed the
+grappling-ladder swiftly, in spite of the weight and contortions of the
+unmanageable beast he carried with him; Tom leaned far down and took it
+from him; and Crailey, passing the eaves, fell, exhausted, upon the roof.
+Just as he reached this temporary security, a lady was borne, fainting,
+out of the acclaiming crowd. Fanchon was there.
+
+Word had been passed to the gentlemen of the "Engine Company" to shut off
+the water in order to allow the line to be carried up the ladder, and they
+received the command at the moment Tom lifted the nozzle, so that the
+stream dried up in his hands. This was the last straw, and the blackened,
+singed and scarred chief, setting the trumpet to his lips, gave himself
+entirely to wrath.
+
+It struck Crailey, even as be lay, coughing and weeping with smoke, that
+there was something splendid and large in the other's rage.  Vanrevel was
+ordinarily so steady and cool that this was worth seeing, this berserker
+gesture; worth hearing, this wonderful profanity, like Washington's one
+fit of cursing; and Crailey, knowing Tom, knew, too, that it had not come
+upon him because Carewe had a daughter into whose eyes Tom had looked; nor
+did he rage because he believed that Crailey's life and his were in the
+greater hazard for the lack of every drop of water that should have issued
+from the empty nozzle.  Their lungs were burdened with smoke, while the
+intolerable smarting of throat, eyes, and nostrils was like the incision
+of a thousand needles in the membranes; their clothes were luminous with
+glowing circles where the sparks were eating; the blaze widened on the
+wall beneath them, and Marsh was shouting hoarsely that he could no longer
+hold his position on the ladder; yet Crailey knew that none of this was in
+Tom's mind as he stood, scorched, blistered, and haggard, on the edge of
+the roof, shaking his fist at the world. It was because his chance of
+saving the property of a man he despised was being endangered.
+
+Crailey stretched forth a hand and touched his friend's knee. "Your side
+of the conversation is a trifle loud, Tom," he said. "Miss Carewe is down
+there, across the street, on a pile of boxes."
+
+Tom stopped in the middle of a word, for which he may have received but
+half a black stroke from the recording angel. He wheeled toward the
+street, and, shielding his inflamed eyes with his hand, gazed downward in
+a stricken silence. From that moment Mr. Vanrevel's instructions to his
+followers were of a decorum at which not the meekest Sunday-school scholar
+dare have cavilled.
+
+The three men now on the long ladder, Marsh, Eugene Madrillon, and Will
+Cummings, found their position untenable; for the flames, reaching all
+along the wall, were licking at the ladder itself, between Marsh and
+Eugene. "I can't stand this any longer," gasped Tappingham, "but I can't
+leave those two up there, either."
+
+"Not alone," shouted Cummings from beneath Madrillon. "Let's go up."
+
+Thus it happened, that when the water came again, and Vanrevel let it fall
+in a grateful cascade upon Crailey and himself, three manly voices were
+heard singing, as three men toiled through the billows of rosy gray, below
+the beleaguered pair:
+
+"Oh the noble Duke of York,
+He had Ten thousand men;
+He marched them up the side of a house,
+And marched them down again!"
+
+
+A head appeared above the eaves, and Marsh, then Eugene, then Cummings,
+came crawling over the cornice in turn, to join their comrades. They were
+a gallant band, those young gentlemen of Rouen, and they came with the
+ironical song on their lips, and, looking at one another, ragged and
+scarified, burst into hoarse but indomitable laughter.
+
+Two others made an attempt to follow, and would not be restrained. It was
+noticed that parts of the lower ladder had been charring; and the ladder-
+men were preparing to remove it to a less dangerous point, when old
+General Trumble and young Jefferson Bareaud made a rush to mount it, and
+were well upon their upward way before the ladder, weakened at the middle,
+sagged, splintered, and broke, Trumble and Bareaud falling with it. And
+there was the grappling-ladder, dangling forty feet above the ground; and
+there were the five upon the roof.
+
+The Department had no other ladder of more than half the length of the
+shattered one. Not only the Department, but every soul in Rouen, knew
+that; and there rose the thick, low sigh of a multitude, a sound frightful
+to hear. It became a groan, then swelled into a deep cry of alarm and
+lamentation.
+
+And now, almost simultaneously, the west wall of the building, and the
+south wall, and all the southwestern portions of the roof, covered them-
+selves with voluminous mantles of flame, which increased so hugely and
+with such savage rapidity that the one stream on the roof was seen to be
+but a ridiculous and useless opposition.
+
+Everybody began to shout advice to his neighbor; and nobody listened even
+to himself.  The firemen were in as great a turmoil as was the crowd,
+while women covered their eyes. Young Frank Chenoweth was sobbing curses
+upon the bruised and shaking Trumble and Jefferson Bareaud, who could only
+stand remorseful, impotently groaning, and made no answer.
+
+The walls of the southernmost warehouse followed the roof, crashing inward
+one after the other, a sacrificial pyre with its purpose consummated; and
+in the seeth and flare of its passing, Tom Vanrevel again shaded his eyes
+with his hand, and looked down across the upturned faces.  The pedestal
+with the grotesque carvings was still there; but the crowning figure had
+disappeared--the young goddess was gone.  For she, of all that throng, had
+an idea in her head, and, after screaming it to every man within reach,
+only to discover the impossibility of making herself understood in that
+Babel, she was struggling to make her way toward the second warehouse,
+through the swaying jam of people. It was a difficult task, as the farther
+in she managed to go, the denser became the press and the more tightly she
+found the people wedged, until she received involuntary aid from the
+firemen.  In turning their second stream to play ineffectually upon the
+lower strata of flame, they accidentally deflected it toward the crowd,
+who separated wildly, leaving a big gap, of which Miss Betty took instant
+advantage. She darted across, and the next moment, unnoticed, had entered
+the building through the door which Crailey Gray had opened.
+
+The five young men on the roof were well aware that there was little to do
+but to wait, and soon they would see which was to win, they or the fire;
+so they shifted their line of hose to the eastern front of the building--
+out of harm's way, for a little time, at least--and held the muzzle
+steady, watching its work.  And in truth it was not long before they
+understood which would conquer. The southern and western portions of the
+building had flung out great flames that fluttered and flared on the
+breeze like Titanic flags; and steadily, slowly, at first, then faster as
+the seconds flew, the five were driven backward, up the low slope of the
+roof toward the gable-ridge. Tom Vanrevel held the first joint of the
+nozzle, and he retreated with a sulky face, lifting his foot grudgingly at
+each step. They were all silent, now, and no one spoke until Will Cummings
+faltered:
+
+"Surely they'll get a rope up to us some way?"
+
+Will knew as well as did the others that there was no way; but his speech
+struck the sullen heart of the chief with remorse.  He turned. " I hope
+you'll all forgive me for getting you up here."
+
+A sound, half sob, half giggle, came from the parched lips of Eugene
+Madrillon, as he patted Tom on the shoulder without speaking, and Crailey
+nodded quietly, then left the group and went to the eastern edge of the
+roof and looked out upon the crowd. Cummings dropped the line and sat
+down, burying his hot face in his arms, for they all saw that Vanrevel
+thought "it was no use," but a question of a few minutes, and they would
+retreat across the gable and either jump or go down with the roof.
+
+Since the world began, idle and industrious philosophers have speculated
+much upon the thoughts of men about to die; yet it cannot be too ingenuous
+to believe that such thoughts vary as the men, their characters, and
+conditions of life vary.  Nevertheless, pursuant with the traditions of
+minstrelsy and romance, it is conceivable that young, unmarried men,
+called upon to face desperate situations, might, at the crucial moment,
+rush to a common experience of summoning the vision, each of his heart's
+desire, and to meet, each his doom, with her name upon his lips.
+
+An extraordinary thing occurred in the present instance, for, by means of
+some fragmentary remarks let fall at the time, and afterward recalled such
+as Tappingham Marsh's gasping: "At least it will be on her father's roof!"
+and from other things later overheard, an inevitable deduction has been
+reached that four of the five gentlemen in the perilous case herein
+described were occupied with the vision of the same person, to wit: Miss
+Elizabeth Carewe, "the last--the prettiest--to come to town!"
+
+Crailey Gray, alone, spoke not at all; but why did he strain and strain
+his eyes toward that empty' pedestal with the grotesque carvings?  Did he
+seek Fanchon there, or was Miss Carewe the last sweet apparition in the
+fancies of all five of the unhappy young men?
+
+The coincidence of the actual appearance of the lady among them, therefore
+seemed the more miraculous, when, wan and hopeless, staggering desperately
+backward to the gable-ridge, they heard a clear contralto voice behind
+them:
+
+"Hadn't you better all come down now?" it said.--"The stairway will be on
+fire before long."
+
+Only one thing could have been more shockingly unexpected to the five than
+that there should be a sixth person on the roof, and this was that the
+sixth person should be Miss Betty Carewe.
+
+They turned, aghast, agape, chopfallen with astonishment, stunned, and
+incredulous.
+
+She stood just behind the gable-ridge, smiling amiably, a most incongruous
+little pink fan in her hand, the smoke-wreaths partly obscuring her and
+curling between the five and her white dress, like mists floating across
+the new moon.
+
+Was it but a kindly phantasm of the brain? Was it the incarnation of the
+last vision of the lost Volunteers? Was it a Valkyrie assuming that lovely
+likeness to perch upon this eyrie, waiting to bear their heroic souls to
+Valhalla, or--was it Miss Betty Carewe?
+
+To the chief she spoke--all of them agreed to that afterward--but it was
+Crailey who answered, while Tom could only stare, and stand wagging his
+head at the lovely phantom, like a Mandarin on a shelf.
+
+"My mother in heaven!" gasped Crailey.  "How did you come up here?"
+
+"There's a trap in the roof on the other side of the ridge," she said, and
+she began to fan herself with the pink fan. "A stairway runs all the way
+down--old Nelson showed me through these buildings yesterday--and that
+side isn't on fire yet.  I'm so sorry I didn't think of it until a moment
+ago, because you could have brought the water up that way.  But don't you
+think you'd better come down now?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The Comedian
+
+Not savage Hun, nor "barbarous Vandyke," nor demon Apache, could wish to
+dwell upon the state of mind of the Chief of the Rouen Volunteer Fire
+Department; therefore, let the curtain of mercy descend.  "Without a word,
+he turned and dragged the nozzle to the eastern eaves, whence, after a
+warning gesture to those below, he dropped it to the ground. And, out of
+compassion, it should be little more than hinted that the gesture of
+warning was very slight.
+
+When the rescued band reached the foot of the last flight of stairs, they
+beheld the open doorway as a frame for a great press of intent and con-
+torted faces, every eye still strained to watch the roof; none of the
+harrowed spectators comprehending the appearance of the girl's figure
+there, nor able to see whither she had led the five young men, until
+Tappingham Marsh raised a shout as he leaped out of the door and danced
+upon the solid earth again.
+
+Then, indeed, there was a mighty uproar; cheer after cheer ascended to the
+red vault of heaven; women wept, men whooped, and the people rushed for
+the heroes with wide-open, welcoming arms. Jefferson Bareaud and Frank
+Chenoweth and General Trumble dashed at Tom Vanrevel with incoherent cries
+of thanksgiving, shaking his hands and beating him hysterically upon the
+back. He greeted them with bitter laughter.
+
+"Help get the water into the next warehouse; this one is beyond control,
+but we can save the other two. Take the lines in through the door!"  He
+brushed the rejoicing friends off abruptly, and went on in a queer, hollow
+voice: "There are stairs--and I'm so sorry I didn't think of it until a
+moment ago, because you could have brought the water up that way!"
+
+A remarkable case of desertion had occurred, the previous instant, under
+his eyes. As the party emerged from the warehouse into the street, Tom
+heard Crailey say hurriedly to Miss Carewe: "Let me get you away come
+quickly!" saw him suddenly seize her band, and, eluding the onrushing
+crowd, run with her round the corner of the building.  And somehow,
+through what inspiration, or through what knowledge of his partner's
+"temperament," heaven knows, the prophetic soul of the chief was unhappily
+assured that Crailey would offer himself as escort to her home, and find
+acceptance. But why not?  Was it Crailey who had publicly called his
+fellow-man fool, idiot, imbecile, at the top of his lungs, only to find
+himself the proven numskull of the universe!  Tom stood for a moment
+staring after the vanishing pair, while over his face stole the strangest
+expression that ever man saw there; then, with meekly bowed shoulders, be
+turned again to his work.
+
+At the corner of the warehouse, Miss Carewe detached her hand from
+Crailey's, yet still followed him as he made a quick detour round the next
+building.  A minute or two later they found themselves, undetected, upon
+Main Street in the rear of the crowd.  There Crailey paused.
+
+"Forgive me," he said, breathlessly, "for taking your hand. I thought you
+would like to get away."
+
+She regarded him gravely, so that he found it difficult to read her look,
+except that it was seriously questioning; but whether the interrogation
+was addressed to him or to herself he could not determine. After a silence
+she said:
+
+"I don't know why I followed you. I believe it must have been because you
+didn't give me time to think."
+
+This, of course, made him even quicker with her than before. "It's all
+over," he said briskly.  "The first warehouse is gone; the second will go,
+but they'll save the others easily enough, now that you have pointed out
+that the lines may be utilized otherwise than as adjuncts of performances
+on the high trapeze!" They were standing by a picket-fence, and he leaned
+against it, overcome by mirth in which she did not join. Her gravity
+reacted upon him at once, and his laughter was stopped short. "Will you
+not accept me as an escort to your home?" he said formally.  "I do not
+know," she returned simply, the sort of honest trouble in her glance that
+is seen only in very young eyes.
+
+"`What reason in the world!" he returned, with a crafty sharpness of
+astonishment.
+
+She continued to gaze upon him thoughtfully, while he tried to look into
+her eyes, but was baffled because the radiant beams from the lady's orbs
+(as the elder Chenoweth might have said) rested somewhere dangerously near
+his chin, which worried him, for, though his chin made no retreat and was
+far from ill-looking, it was, nevertheless, that feature which he most
+distrusted. "Won't you tell me why not?" he repeated, uneasily.
+
+"Because," she answered at last, speaking hesitatingly, "because it isn't
+so easy a matter for me as you seem to think. You have not been introduced
+to me, and I know you never will be, and that what you told me was true."
+
+"Which part of what I told you?" The question escaped from him instantly.
+
+"That the others might come when they liked, but that you could not."
+
+"Oh yes, yes." His expression altered to a sincere dejection; his
+shoulders drooped, and his voice indicated supreme annoyance.  "I might
+have known someone would tell you! Who was it? Did they say why I--"
+
+"On account of your quarrel with my father."
+
+"My quarrel with your father!" he exclaimed; and his face lit with an
+elated surprise; his shoulders straightened.  He took a step nearer her,
+and asked, eagerly: "Who told you that?"
+
+"My father himself. He spoke of a Mr. Vanrevel whom he--disliked, and whom
+I must not meet; and, remembering what you had said, of course I knew that
+you were he."
+
+"Oh!" Crailey's lips began to form a smile of such appealing and
+inimitable sweetness that Voltaire would have trusted him; a smile alto-
+gether rose-leaves.  "Then I lose you," he said, "for my only chance to
+know you was in keeping it hidden from you. And now you understand!"
+
+"No," she answered, gravely, "I don't understand; that is what troubles
+me.  If I did, and believed you had the right of the difference, I could
+believe it no sin that you should speak to me, should take me home now.  I
+think it is wrong not to act from your own understanding of things."
+
+The young man set his expression as one indomitably fixed upon the course
+of honor, cost what it might; and, in the very action, his lurking
+pleasure in doing it hopped out in the flicker of a twinkle in his eyes,
+and as instantly sought cover again--the flea in the rose-jar.
+
+"Then you must ask some other," he said, firmly. "A disinterested person
+should tell you.  The difference was political in the beginning, but
+became personal afterward; and it is now a quarrel which can never be
+patched up, though, for my part, I wish that it could be.  I can say no
+more, because a party to it should not speak."
+
+She met his level look squarely at last; and no man ever had a more
+truthful pair of eyes than Crailey Gray, for it was his great
+accomplishment that he could adjust his emotion, his reason, and something
+that might be called his faith, to fit any situation in any character.
+
+"You may take me home," she answered. "I may be wrong, and even disloyal;
+but I do not feel it so, now.  You did a very brave thing tonight to save
+him from loss, and I think that what you have said was just what you
+should have said."
+
+So they went down the street, the hubbub and confusion of the fire growing
+more and more indistinct behind them. They walked slowly, and, for a time,
+neither spoke; yet the silence was of a kind which the adept rejoiced to
+have produced thus soon--their second meeting.  For he believed there were
+more strange things in heaven and earth than Horatio wot; and one of the
+strangest was that whenever he was near an attractive woman during a
+silence such as this, something not to be defined, but as effective as it
+was indefinite, always went out from him to her.  It was like a word of
+tenderness, a word too gentle, too compelling, too sweet, to be part of
+any tongue, spoken or written.  And more: this ineffable word had an echo,
+and came back to him from the woman.
+
+As his partner had in dress, so Crailey had with women, some color of the
+Beau; but it was not in what experience had given him to recognize as a
+fact: that they were apt to fall in love with him. (That they were apt to
+remain in love with him-- he understood perfectly--was another matter.)
+And he knew when they were doing it; could have told them accurately, at
+each step, what they were feeling, thinking, dreaming, during the process,
+because he was usually exhibiting the same symptoms to himself at the same
+time.
+
+Thus, his own breast occupied with that dizzy elation which followed its
+reception of the insane young god's arrows, and his heart warm with the
+rise of the old emotion that he knew so well, he was nevertheless able to
+walk with his finger on the pulse of the exquisite moment, counting her
+heartbeats and his own.
+
+So, to his fancy, as they walked, the little space between them was hung
+with brilliant strands, like gossamer chains of gold, already linking them
+together; every second fixing another slender, precious fetter, binding
+them closer, drawing her nearer.  He waited until they passed into the
+shadows of the deserted Carewe Street before he spoke.  There be stopped
+abruptly; at which she turned, astonished.
+
+"Now that you have saved my life," he said, in a low, tremulous tone,
+"what are you going to do with it?"
+
+Her eyes opened almost as widely as they had at her first sight of him in
+her garden. There was a long pause before she replied, and when she did,
+it was to his considerable surprise.
+
+"I have never seen a play, except the funny little ones we acted at the
+convent," she said, "but isn't that the way they speak on the stage?"
+
+Crailey realized that his judgment of the silence bad been mistaken, and
+yet it was with a thrill of delight that he recognized her clear reading
+of him. He had been too florid again.
+
+"Let us go."  His voice was soft with restrained forgiveness.  "You mocked
+me once before.
+
+"Mocked you?" she repeated, as they went on.
+
+"Mocked me," he said, firmly.  "Mocked me for seeming theatrical, and yet
+you have learned that what I said was true; as you will again."
+
+She mused upon this; then, as in whimsical indulgence to an importunate
+child:
+
+"Well, tell me what you mean when you say I saved your life."
+
+"You came alone," be began, hastily, "to stand upon that burning roof--"
+
+"Whence all but him had fled!" Her laughter rang out, interrupting him.
+"My room was on the fourth floor at St. Mary's, and I didn't mind climbing
+three flights this evening."
+
+Crailey's good-nature was always perfect.  "You mock me and you mock me!"
+he cried, and made her laughter but part of a gay duet.  "I know I have
+gone too fast, have said things I should have waited to say; but, ah!
+remember the small chance I have against the others who can see you when
+they like. Don't flout me because I try to make the most of a rare, stolen
+moment with you."
+
+"Do!" she exclaimed, grave upon the instant.  "Do make the most of it! I
+have nothing but inexperience.  Make the most by treating me seriously.
+Won't you?  I know you can, and I--I--" She faltered to a full stop.  She
+was earnest and quiet, and there had been something in her tone, too--as
+very often there was--that showed how young she was.  "Oh!" she began
+again, turning to him impulsively, "I have thought about you since that
+evening in the garden, and I have wished I could know you.  I can't be
+quite clear how it happened, but even those few minutes left a number of
+strong impressions about you.  And the strongest was that you were one
+with whom I could talk of a great many things, if you would only be real
+with me.  I believe--though I'm not sure why I do--that it is very
+difficult for you to be real; perhaps because you are so different at
+different times that you aren't sure, yourself, which the real you is.
+But the person that you are beginning to be for my benefit must be the
+most trifling of all your selves, lighter and easier to put on than the
+little mask you carried the other night.  If there were nothing better
+underneath the mask, I might play, too."
+
+"Did you learn this at the convent?" gasped Crailey.
+
+"There was a world there in miniature," she answered, speaking very
+quickly.  "I think all people are made of the same materials, only in such
+different proportions.  I think a little world might hold as much as the
+largest, if you thought it all out hard enough, and your experience might
+be just as broad and deep in a small corner of the earth as anywhere else.
+But I don't know!  I want to understand--I want to understand everything!
+I read books, and there are people--but no one who tells me what I want--
+I--"
+
+"Stop." He lifted his hand. "I won't act; I shall never `play' for you
+again."  He was breathless; the witching silence was nothing to what
+stirred him now.  A singular exaltation rose in him, together with the
+reckless impulse to speak from the mood her vehement confidence had in-
+spired. He gave way to it.
+
+"I know, I know," he said huskily.  "I understand all you mean, all you
+feel, all you wish. It is all echoing here, and here, and here!"  He
+touched his breast, his eyes, and his forehead with the fingers of his
+long and slender hand. "We sigh and strain our eyes and stretch out our
+arms in the dark, groping always for the strange blessing that is just
+beyond our grasp, seeking for the precious unknown that lies just over the
+horizon!  It's what they meant by the pot of gold where the rainbow ends--
+only, it may be there, after all!"
+
+They stopped unconsciously, and remained standing at the lower end of the
+Carewe hedge. The western glow had faded, and she was gazing at him
+through the darkness, leaning forward, never dreaming that her tight grasp
+had broken the sticks of the little pink fan.
+
+"Yes," she whispered, eagerly. "You are right: you understand!"
+
+He went on, the words coming faster and faster:  "We are haunted--you and
+I--by the wish to know all things, and by the question that lies under
+every thought we have: the agonizing Whither?  Isn't it like that?  It is
+really death that makes us think.  You are a good Catholic: you go to
+mass; but you wish to know.  Does God reign, or did it all happen?
+Sometimes it seems so deadly probable that the universe just was, no God
+to plan it, nothing but things; that we die as sparrows die, and the brain
+is all the soul we have, a thing that becomes clogged and stops some day.
+And is that all?"
+
+She shivered slightly, but her steadfast eyes did not shift from him.  He
+threw back his head, and his face, uplifted to the jewelled sky of the
+moonless night, was beatific in its peacefulness, as he continued in an
+altered tone, gentle and low:
+
+"I think all questions are answered there.  The stars tell it all.  When
+you look at them you know! They have put them on our flag.  There are
+times when this seems but a poor nation: boastful, corrupt, violent, and
+preparing, as it is now, to steal another country by fraud and war; yet
+the stars on the flag always make me happy and confident.  Do you see the
+constellations swinging above us, such unimaginable vastnesses, not roving
+or crashing through the illimitable at haphazard, but moving in more
+excellent measure, and to a finer rhythm, than the most delicate clockwork
+man ever made?  The great ocean-lines mark our seas with their paths
+through the water; the fine brains of the earth are behind the ships that
+sail from port to port, yet how awry the system goes!  When does a ship
+come to her harbor at an hour determined when she sailed?  What is a ship
+beside the smallest moon of the smallest world?  But, there above us,
+moons, worlds, suns, all the infinite cluster of colossi, move into place
+to the exactness of a hair at the precise instant. That instant has been
+planned, you see; it is part of a system--and can a system exist that no
+mind made?  Think of the Mind that made this one!  Do you believe so
+inconceivably majestic an Intelligence as that could be anything but good?
+Ah, when you wonder, look above you; look above you in the night, I say,"
+he cried, his hand upraised like his transfigured face.  "Look above you
+and you will never fear that a sparrow's fall could go unmarked!"
+
+It was not to the stars that she looked, but to the orator, as long as he
+held that pose, which lasted until a hard-ridden horse came galloping down
+the street.  As it dashed by, though the rider looked neither to right nor
+left, Miss Betty unconsciously made a feverish clutch at her companion's
+sleeve, drawing him closer to the hedge.
+
+"It is my father," she said hurriedly in a low voice.  "He must not see
+you.  You must never come here.  Perhaps--" She paused, then quickly
+whispered: "You have been very kind to me.  Good-night."
+
+He looked at her keenly, and through the dimness saw that her face was
+shining with excitement.  He did not speak again, but, taking a step back-
+ward, smiled faintly, bent his head in humble acquiescence, and made a
+slight gesture of his hand for her to leave him.  She set her eyes upon
+his once more, then turned swiftly and almost ran along the hedge to the
+gate; but there she stopped and looked back.  He was standing where she
+had left him, his face again uplifted to the sky.
+
+She waved him an uncertain farewell, and ran into the garden, both palms
+against her burning cheeks.
+
+Night is the great necromancer, and strange are the fabrics he weaves; he
+lays queer spells;  breathes so eerie an intoxication through the dusk; he
+can cast such glamours about a voice!  He is the very king of fairyland.
+
+Miss Betty began to walk rapidly up and down the garden paths, her head
+bent and her bands still pressed to her cheeks; now and then an
+unconscious exclamation burst from her, incoherent, more like a gasp than
+a word.  A long time she paced the vigil with her stirring heart, her
+skirts sweeping the dew from the leaning flowers.  Her lips moved often,
+but only the confused, vehement" Oh, oh!" came from them, until at last
+she paused in the middle of the garden, away from the trees, where all was
+open to the sparkling firmament, and extended her arms over her head.
+
+"O, strange teacher," she said aloud, "I take your beautiful stars!  I
+shall know how to learn from them!"
+
+She gazed steadily upward, enrapt, her eyes resplendent with their own
+starlight.
+
+"Oh, stars, stars, stars!" she whispered.
+
+In the teeth of all wizardry, Night's spells do pass at sunrise;
+marvellous poems sink to doggerel, mighty dreams to blown ashes and solids
+regain weight.  Miss Betty, waking at daybreak, saw the motes dancing in
+the sun at her window, and watched them with a placid, unremembering eye.
+She began to stare at them in a puzzled way, while a look of wonder slowly
+spread over her face.  Suddenly she sat upright, as though something had
+startled her.  Her fingers clenched tightly.
+
+"Ah, if that was playing!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A Tale of a Political Difference
+
+Mr. Carewe was already at the breakfast-table, but the light of his
+countenance, hidden behind the Rouen Journal, was not vouchsafed to his
+daughter when she took her place opposite him, nor did he see fit to
+return her morning greeting, from which she generously concluded that the
+burning of the two warehouses had meant a severe loss to him.
+
+"I am so sorry, father," she said gently. (She had not called him "papa"
+since the morning after her ball.)  "I hope it isn't to be a great trouble
+to you."  There was no response, and, after waiting for some time, she
+spoke again, rather tremulously, yet not timidly: "Father?"
+
+He rose, and upon his brow were marked the blackest lines of anger she had
+ever seen, so that she leaned back from him, startled; but he threw down
+the open paper before her on the table, and struck it with his clenched
+fist.
+
+"Read that!" he said. And he stood over her while she read.
+
+There were some grandiloquent headlines: "Miss Elizabeth Carewe an Angel
+of Mercy! Charming Belle Saves the Lives of Five Prominent Citizens! Her
+Presence of Mind Prevents Conflagration from Wiping Out the City!"  It may
+be noted that Will Cummings, editor and proprietor of the Journal, had
+written these tributes, as well as the whole account of the evening's
+transactions, and Miss Betty loomed as large in Will's narrative as in his
+good and lovelorn heart.  There was very little concerning the fire in the
+Journal; it was nearly all about Betty. That is one of the misfortunes
+which pursue a lady who allows an editor to fall in love with her.
+
+However, there was a scant mention of the arrival of the Volunteers "upon
+the scene" (though none at all at the cause of their delay) and an elo-
+quent paragraph was devoted to their handsome appearance, Mr. Cummings
+having been one of those who insisted that the new uniforms should be
+worn.  "Soon," said the Journal, "through the daring of the Chief of the
+Department, and the Captain of the Hook-and-Ladder Company, one of whom
+placed and mounted the grappling-ladder, over which he was immediately
+followed by the other carrying the hose, a stream was sent to play upon
+the devouring element, a feat of derring-do personally witnessed by a
+majority of our readers.  Mr. Vanrevel and Mr. Gray were joined by Eugene
+Madrillon, Tappingham Marsh, and the editor of this paper, after which
+occurred the unfortunate accident to the long ladder, leaving the five
+named gentlemen in their terrible predicament, face to face with death in
+its most awful form. At this frightful moment "--and all the rest was
+about Miss Carewe.
+
+As Will himself admitted, he had "laid himself out on that description."
+One paragraph was composed of short sentences, each beginning with the
+word "alone."  "Alone she entered the shattered door!  Alone she set foot
+upon the first flight of stairs!  Alone she ascended the second!  Alone
+she mounted the third.  Alone she lifted her hand to the trap!  Alone she
+opened it!"  She was declared to have made her appearance to the
+unfortunate prisoners on the roof, even as "the palm-laden dove to the
+despairing Noah," and Will also asserted repeatedly that she was the
+"Heroine of the Hour."
+
+Miss Betty blushed to see her name so blazoned forth in print; but she
+lacked one kind of vanity, and failed to find good reason for more than a
+somewhat troubled laughter, the writer's purpose was so manifestly kind in
+spite of the bizarre result.
+
+"Oh, I wish Mr. Cummings hadn't!" she exclaimed. "It would have been
+better not to speak of me at all, of course; but I can't see that there is
+anything to resent--it is so funny!"
+
+"Funny!"  Mr. Carewe repeated the word in a cracked falsetto, with the
+evident intention of mocking her, and at the same time hideously contorted
+his face into a grotesque idiocy of expression, pursing his lips so
+extremely, and setting his brows so awry, that his other features were
+cartooned out of all familiar likeness, effecting an alteration as
+shocking to behold, in a man of his severe cast of countenance, as was his
+falsetto mimicry to hear. She rose in a kind of terror, perceiving that
+this contortion was produced in burlesque of her own expression, and, as
+he pressed nearer her, stepped back, overturning her chair.  She had
+little recollection of her father during her childhood; and as long as she
+could remember, no one had spoken to her angrily, or even roughly.
+
+As she retreated from him, he leaned forward, thrusting the hideous mask
+closer to her white and horror-stricken face.
+
+"You can't see anything to resent in that!" he gibbered.  "It's so funny,
+is it? Funny! Funny! Funny!  I'll show you whether it's funny or not, I'll
+show you!"  His voice rose almost to a shriek.  "You hang around fires, do
+you, on the public streets at night?  You're a nice one for me to leave in
+charge of my house while I'm away, you trollop!  What did you mean by
+going up on that roof?  You knew that damned Vanrevel was there!  You did,
+I say, you knew it!"
+
+She ran toward the door with a frightened cry; but he got between it and
+her, menacing her with his upraised open hands, shaking them over her.
+
+"You're a lovely daughter, aren't you!" he shouted hoarsely.  "You knew
+perfectly well who was on that roof, and you went!  Didn't you go?  Answer
+me that!  If I'd had arms about me when I got there, I'd have shot that
+man dead!  He was on my property, giving orders, the black hound!  And
+when I ordered him out, he told me if I interfered with his work before it
+was finished, he'd have me thrown out--me that owned the whole place; and
+there wasn't a man that would lend me a pistol!  `Rescue!'  You'd better
+rescue him from me, you palm-laden dove, for I'll shoot him, I will!  I'll
+kill that dog; and he knows it.  He can bluster in a crowd, but he'll hide
+now!  He's a coward and--"
+
+"He came home with me; he brought me home last night!"  Her voice rang out
+in the room like that of some other person, and she hardly knew that it
+was herself who spoke.
+
+"You lie!" he screamed, and fell back from her, his face working as though
+under the dominance of some physical disorder, the flesh of it plastic
+beyond conception, so that she cried out and covered her face with her
+arm.  "You lie!  I saw you at the hedge with Crailey Gray, though you
+thought I didn't.  What do you want to lie like that for?  Vanrevel didn't
+even speak to you.  I asked Madrillon.  You lie!"
+
+He choked upon the words; a racking cough shook him from head to foot; he
+staggered back and dropped upon her overturned chair, his arms beating the
+table in front of him, his head jerking spasmodically backward and forward
+as he gasped for breath.
+
+"Ring the bell," be panted thickly, with an incoherent gesture. "Nelson
+knows.  Ring!"
+
+Nelson evidently knew. He brought brandy and water from the sideboard with
+no stinting hand, and within ten minutes Mr. Carewe was in his accustomed
+seat, competent to finish his breakfast.  In solitude, however, he sat,
+and no one guessed his thoughts.
+
+For Miss Betty had fled to her own room, and had bolted the door.  She lay
+upon the bed, shuddering and shivering with nausea and cold, though the
+day was warm.  Then, like a hot pain in her breast, came a homesickness
+for St. Mary's, and the flood-tide of tears, as she thought of the quiet
+convent in the sunshine over to the west, the peace of it, and the
+goodness of everybody there.
+
+"Sister Cecilia!" Her shoulders shook with the great sob that followed
+this name, dearest to her in the world, convulsively whispered to the pil-
+low   "Dear Sister Cecilia!"  She patted the white pillow with her hand,
+as though it were the cool cheek against which she yearned to lay her own.
+"Ah, you would know--you would know!"  With the thought of the serene face
+of the good Sister, and of the kind arms that would have gone round her in
+her trouble, her sobbing grew loud and uncontrollable.  But she would not
+have her father hear it, and buried her face deep in the pillow.  After a
+time, she began to grow quieter, turned, and lay with wet eyes staring
+unseeingly at the wall, her underlip quivering with the deep intake of
+each broken sigh.
+
+"Oh, stars, stars, stars!" she whispered.
+
+"Missy?" There came a soft knock upon the door and the clink of silver
+upon china. " Missy?
+
+" What is it?"
+
+So quick was Miss Betty that, although she answered almost at once, the
+tears were washed away, and she was passing a cool, wet towel over her
+eyes at the moment she spoke.
+
+"Jass me. I brung yo' breakfas', honey."
+
+Old Nelson's voice was always low and gentle, with a quaver and hesitancy
+in the utterance; now it was tender and comforting with the comprehension
+of one in suffering, the extraordinary tact, which the old of his race
+nearly all come to possess.  "Li'l chicken-wing on piece brown toast,
+honey."
+
+When she opened the door he came in, bending attentively over his tray,
+and, without a glance toward his young mistress, made some show of fuss
+and bustle, as he placed it upon a table near the window and drew up a
+chair for her so that she could sit with her back to the light.
+
+"Dah now!"  he exclaimed softly, removing the white napkin and displaying
+other dainties besides the chicken wing.  "Dass de way!  Dat ole Mamie in
+de kitchen, she got her failin's an' her grievin' sins; but de way she do
+han'le chicken an' biscuit sutney ain't none on `em!  She plead fo' me to
+ax you how you like dem biscuit."
+
+He kept his head bent low over the table, setting a fork closer to Betty's
+hand; arranging the plates, then rearranging them, but never turning his
+eyes in her direction.
+
+"Dat ole Mamie mighty vain, yessuh!"  He suffered a very quiet chuckle to
+escape him.  "She did most sutney `sist dat I ax you ain't you like dem
+biscuit.  She de ve'y vaines' woman in dis State, dat ole Mamie, yessuh!"
+And now he cast one quick glance out of the corner of his eye at Miss
+Betty, before venturing a louder chuckle.  "She reckon dem biscuit goin'
+git her by Sain' Petuh when she `proach de hevumly gates!  Uhuh!  I tell
+her she got git redemption fo' de aigs she done ruin dese many yeahs;
+`cause she as useless wid an ommelick as a two-day calf on de slick ice!"
+Here he laughed loud and long. "You jass go and talk wid dat Mamie, some
+day, Missy; you'll see how vain dat woman is."
+
+"Has father gone out, Nelson?" asked Betty in a low voice.
+
+"Yes'm; he up town."  The old man's tone sank at once to the level of her
+own; became confidential, as one speaks to another in a room where
+somebody is ill.  "He mekkin' perpetration to go down de rivuh dis
+aft'noon.  He say he done broke de news to you dat he goin' `way.  Dey
+goin' buil' dem wa'house right up, an' yo' pa he necistate go `way `count
+de contrack.  He be gone two week', honey," Nelson finished, without too
+much the air of imparting cheery tidings, but with just enough.
+
+"I am to stay here alone?"
+
+"Law no, Missy!  Dat big Miz Tanberry, dass de bes' frien' we all got, she
+home ag'in, an' yo' pa goin' invite her visit at de house, whiles he gone,
+an' to stay a mont' aftuh he git back, too, soze she kin go to all de
+doin's an' junketin's wid you, and talk wid de young mens dat you don'
+like whiles you talks wid dem you does like."
+
+"What time will father come home?"
+
+"Home? He be gone two week', honey!"
+
+No; I mean to-day."
+
+"Law! He ain' comin' back. Bid me pack de trunk an' ca'y um down to de
+boat at noon. Den he bid me say far'-ye-well an' a kine good-bye fo' him,
+honey.  `Say he think you ain't feelin' too well, soze he won't `sturb ye,
+hisself, an' dat he unestly do hope you goin' have splen'id time whiles he
+trabblin'."  (Nelson's imagination covered many deficits in his master's
+courtesy.)  "Say he reckon you an' ole Miz Tanberry goin' git `long mighty
+nice wid one'nurr.  An' dass what me an' Mamie reckon `spechually boun' to
+take place, `cause dat a mighty gay lady, dat big Miz Tanberry, an' ole
+frien' `er owah fambly.  She `uz a frien' er yo' momma's, honey."
+
+Miss Betty had begun by making a pretence to eat, only to please the old
+man, but the vain woman's cookery had been not unduly extolled, and Nelson
+laughed with pleasure to see the fluffy hiscuits and the chicken wing not
+nibbled at but actually eaten.  This was a healthy young lady, he thought,
+one who would do the household credit and justify the extravagant pride
+which kitchen and stable already had in her.  He was an old house-servant,
+therefore he had seen many young ladies go through unhappy hours, and he
+admired Miss Betty the more because she was the first who had indulged in
+strong weeping and did not snuffle at intervals afterward. He understood
+perfectly everything that had passed between father and daughter that
+morning.
+
+When her breakfast was finished, she turned slowly to the window, and,
+while her eyes did not refill, a slight twitching of the upper lids made
+him believe that she was going over the whole scene again in her mind;
+whereupon he began to move briskly about the room with a busy air, picking
+up her napkin, dusting a chair with his hand, exchanging the position of
+the andirons in the fireplace; and, apparently discovering that the por-
+trait of Georges Meilhac was out of line, he set it awry, then straight
+again, the while be hummed an old "spiritual" of which only the words
+"Chain de Lion Down" were allowed to be quite audible.  They were repeated
+often, and at each repetition of them he seemed profoundly, though
+decorously, amused, in a way which might have led to a conjecture that the
+refrain bore some distant reference to his master's eccentricity of
+temper.  At first be chuckled softly, but at the final iteration of "Chain
+de Lion Down" burst into outright laughter.
+
+"Honey, my Law!" he exclaimed, "But yo' pa de `ceivin'dest man!  He mighty
+proud er you!"
+
+"Proud of me!" She turned to him in astonishment.
+
+Nelson's laughter increased. "Hain't be jass de `ceivin'dest man!  Yessuh,
+he de sot-uppest man in dis town `count what you done last night. What he
+say dis mawn', dat jass his way!"
+
+"Ah, no!" said Miss Betty, sadly.
+
+"Yes'm! He proud er you, but he teahbul mad at dat man.  He hain't mad at
+you, but he gotter cuss somebody!  Jass reach out fo' de nighes' he kin
+lay han's on, an' dis mawn' it happen soze it were you, honey.  Uhuh!  You
+oughter hearn him ins' night when he come home.  Den it were me.  Bless
+God, I ain't keerin'.  He weren't mad at me, no mo'n' he were at you. He
+jass mad!"
+
+Miss Betty looked at the old fellow keenly.  He remained, however,
+apparently unconscious of her scrutiny, and occupied himself with
+preparations for removing the tray.
+
+"Nelson, what is the quarrel between my father and Mr. Vanrevel?"
+
+He had lifted the tray, but set it down precipitately, bending upon her a
+surprised and sobered countenance.
+
+"Missy," he said, gravely, "Dey big trouble `twix' dem two."
+
+"I know," she returned quietly. "What is it?"
+
+"Wha' fo' you ax me, Missy?"
+
+"Because you're the only one I can ask.  I don't know anyone here well
+enough, except you."
+
+Nelson's lips puckered solemnly. "Mist' Vanrevel vote Whig; but he ag'in
+Texas."
+
+"Well, what if he is?"
+
+"Yo' pa mighty strong fo' Texas."
+
+"No'm, dat ain't hardly de beginnin'. Mist' lanrevel he a Ab'litionist."
+
+"Well? Won't you tell me?"
+
+"Honey, folks roun' heah mos' on `em like Mist' Vanrevel so well dey ain't
+hole it up ag'in' him-- but, Missy, ef dey one thing topper God's worl'
+yo' pa do desp'itly and contestably despise, hate, cuss, an' outrageously
+`bominate wuss'n' a yaller August spiduh it are a Ab'litionist!  He want
+stomple `em eve'y las' one under he boot-heel, `cep'n dat one Mist'
+Crailey Gray.  Dey's a considabul sprinklin' er dem Ab'litionists `bout de
+kentry, honey; dey's mo' dat don' know w'ich dey is; an' dey's mo' still
+dat don' keer.  Soze dat why dey go git up a quo'l twix' yo' pa an' dat
+man; an' `range to have `er on a platfawm, de yeah `fo' de las' campaign;
+an', suh, dey call de quo'l a de-bate; an' all de folks come in f'um de
+kentry, an' all de folks in town come, too.  De whole possetucky on `em
+sit an' listen.
+
+"Fus' yo' pa talk; den Mist' Vanrevel, bofe on `em mighty cole an'
+civilized. Den yo' pa git wo'm up, Missy, like he do, `case he so useter
+have his own way; `tain't his fault, he jass cain't help hollerin' an'
+cussin' if anybody `pose him; but Mist' Vanrevel he jass as suvvige, but
+he stay cole, w'ich make yo' pa all de hotter.  He holler mighty strong,
+Missy, an' some de back ranks `gun snickerin' at him.  Uhuh!  He fa'r
+jump, he did; an' den bimeby Mist' Vanrevel he say dat no man oughter be
+given de pilverige to sell another, ner to wollop him wid a blacksnake,
+whether he `buse dat pilverige er not.  `My honabul `ponent,' s's he,
+`Mist' Carewe, rep'sent in hisseif de `ristocratic slave-ownin' class er
+de Souf, do' he live in de Nawf an' `ploy free labor; yit it sca'sely to
+be b'lieve dat any er you would willin'ly trus' him wid de powah er life
+an' death ovah yo' own chillun, w'ich is virchously what de slave-ownah
+p'sess.'
+
+"Missy, you jass oughter see yo' pa den!  He blue in de face an' dance de
+quadrille on de boa'ds.  He leave his cha'h, git up, an' run `cross to de
+odder side de platfawm, an' shake be fis' ovah dat man's head, an' screech
+out how it all lies dat de slaves evah `ceive sich a treatments.  `Dat all
+lies, you pu'juh!' he holler.  `All lies, you misabul thief,' he holler.
+`All lies, an' you know it, you low-bawn slandah' an' scoun'le!'
+
+"An' wid dat Mist' Vanrevel, be laff in yo' pa face, an' tuhn to de crowd,
+he did, an' say:  `You reckon dat if dish yuh man a slave-ownah, an' a
+slave had anguhed him as I have anguhed him tonight, does any er you
+b'lieve dat dat slave wouldn' be tied up an' whipped tell de blood run,
+an' den sole down de rivuh to-morrer?'
+
+"Well, suh, `co'se mos' on `em b'lieve same as yo' pa; but dat sutney
+fotch `em, an' win de de-bate, `case dey jass natchully lay back an' roah,
+dey did, Missy; dey laff an' stomp an' holler tell you could a hearn `em a
+mild away.  An' honey, yo' pa'd a millyum times druther Mist' Vanrevel'd a
+kilt him dan tuhn de laff on him.  He'd shoot a man, honey, ef he jass
+s'picion him to grin out de cornder his eye at him; an' to stan' up dah
+wid de whole county fa'r roahin' at him--it's de God's mussy be did'n have
+no ahms wid him, dat night!  Ole Mist' Chen'eth done brung him home, an'
+yo' pa reach out an' kick me squah' out'n' de liberry winder soon's he
+ketch sight er me!"  The old man's gravity gave way to his enjoyment of
+the recollection, and he threw back his head to laugh.  "He sho' did,
+honey!  Uhuh!  Ho, ho, ho!  He sho' did, honey, he sho' did!"
+
+Nevertheless, as he lifted the tray again and crossed the room to go, his
+solemnity returned. "Missy," he said earnestly," ef dat young gelmun fall
+in love wid you, w'ich I knows he will ef he ketch sight er you, lemme say
+dis, an' please fo' to ba'h in mine: better have nuttin' do wid him fo' he
+own sake; an' `bove all, keep him fur sway f'um dese p'emises.  Don' let
+him come in a mild er dis house."
+
+"Nelson, was that all the quarrel between them?"
+
+"Blessed Mussy! ain' dat `nough?  Ef dey's any mo' I ain' hearn what dat
+part were," he answered quickly, but with a dogged tightening of the lips
+which convinced Miss Betty that he knew very well.
+
+"Nelson, what was the rest of it?"
+
+"Please, Missy, I got pack yo' pa trunk; an' it time, long ago, fer me to
+be at my wu'k." He was half out of the door.
+
+"What was the rest of it? " she repeated quietly.
+
+"Now, honey," he returned with a deprecatory shake of his head, "I got my
+own wu'k `tend to; an' I ain't nevah ax nobody what `twas, an' I ain't
+goin' ax `em.  An' lemme jass beg you f oiler de ole man's advice: you do
+de same, `case nobody ain't goin' tell you.  All I know is dat it come
+later and were somep'n `bout dat riprarin Crailey Gray.  Yo' pa he sent a
+channelge to Mist' Vanrevel, an' Mist' Vanrevel `fuse to fight him `cause
+he say he don' b'lieve shootin' yo' pa goin' do yo' pa any good, an' he
+still got hope mekkin' good citizen outer him.  Dat brung de laff on yo'
+pa ag'in; an' he `clare to God ef he ketch Vanrevel on any groun' er hisn
+he shoot him like a mad dog.  `Pon my livin' soul he mean dem wuds, Missy!
+Dey had hard `nough time las' night keepin' him fum teahin' dat man to
+pieces at de fiah.  You mus' keep dat young gelmun `way fum heah!"
+
+"He came home with me last night, Nelson; I told father so."
+
+"Yes'm. Yo' pa tole me you say dat, but he reckon you done it to mek him
+madder, `cause you mad, too. He say he done see dat Crailey Gray comin'
+`long de hedge wid you."
+
+"He was mistaken, it was Mr. Vanrevel."
+
+Nelson rolled his eyes fervently to heaven. "Den dat young man run
+pintedly on he death!  Ef you want keep us all dis side er de Jawdan
+Rivuh, don' let him set foot in dis neighbo'hood when yo' pa come back!
+An', honey--" his voice sank to a penetrating whisper--" `fo' I do a lick
+er wu'k I goin' out in de stable an' git down on my knees an' retu'n
+thanksgiving to de good God `case he hole Carewe Street in de dahkness
+las' night!"
+
+This was the speech he chose for his exit, but, after closing the door
+behind him, he opened it again, and said, cheerfully:
+
+"Soon's I git de trunk fix f' yo' pa, I bring `roun' dat bay colt wid de
+side saddle. You better set `bout gittin' on yo' ridin'-habit, Missy. De
+roads is mighty good dis sunshiny wedduh."
+
+" Nelson? "
+
+ "Do you think such an attack as father had this morning--is--dangerous?"
+
+He had hoped for another chance to laugh violently before he left her, and
+this completely fitted his desire.  "Ho, ho, he!" he shouted.  "No'm, no,
+no, honey!  He jass git so mad it mek him sick.  You couldn' kill dat man
+wid a broad-ax, Missy!"
+
+And he went down the hail leaving the reverberations of his hilarity
+behind him.  The purpose of his visit had been effected, for, when Miss
+Betty appeared upon the horse-block in her green habit and gauntlets, she
+was smiling; so that only a woman--or a wise old man--could have guessed
+that she had wept bitterly that morning.
+
+She cantered out to the flat, open country to the east, where she found
+soft dirt-roads that were good for the bay colt's feet, and she reached a
+cross-road several miles from town before she was overcome by the
+conviction that she was a wicked and ungrateful girl.  She could not place
+the exact spot of her guilt, but she knew it was there, somewhere, since
+she felt herself a guilty thing.
+
+For the picture which Nelson had drawn rose before her: the one man
+standing alone in his rage on the platform, overwhelmed by his calm young
+adversary, beaten and made the butt of laughter for a thousand.  Her
+father had been in the wrong in that quarrel, and somehow she was sure,
+too, he must have been wrong in the "personal" one, as well: the
+mysterious difficulty over Fanchon's Mr. Gray, who had looked so ashamed
+last night. What feud could they make over him, of all people in the
+world?  He looked strong enough to take care of his own quarrels, even if
+he was so rigorously bound by Fanchon's apron-string when it came to a
+word with another girl!
+
+But the conclusion that her father had been in error did not lessen the
+pathetic appeal of the solitary figure facing the ridicule of the crowd.
+She felt that he always honestly believed himself in the right; she knew
+that he was vain; that he had an almost monstrous conception of his
+dignity; and, realizing the bitterness of that public humiliation which he
+had undergone, she understood the wrath, the unspeakable pain and sense of
+outrage, which must have possessed him.
+
+And now she was letting him go forth upon a journey--his way beset with
+the chances of illness and accident--whence he might never return; she was
+letting him go without seeing him again; letting him go with no word of
+farewell from his daughter.  In brief: she was a wicked girl.  She turned
+the colt's head abruptly to the west and touched his flanks with her whip.
+
+So it fell out that as the packet foamed its passage backward from
+Carewe's wharf into the current, the owner of the boat, standing upon the
+hurricane deck, heard a cry from the shore, and turned to behold his
+daughter dash down to the very end of the wharf on the well-lathered colt.
+Miss Betty's hair was blown about her face; her cheeks were rosy, her
+eager eyes sparkling from more than the hard riding.
+
+"Papa!" she cried, "I'm sorry!"
+
+She leaned forward out of the saddle, extending her arms to him
+appealingly in a charming gesture, and, absolutely ignoring the idlers on
+the wharf and the passengers on the steamer, was singly intent upon the
+tall figure on the hurricane-deck. "Papa--good-by. Please forgive me!"
+
+"By the Almighty, but that's a fine woman!" said the captain of the boat
+to a passenger from Rouen.  "Is she his daughter?"
+
+"Please forgive me!" the clear voice came again, with its quaver of
+entreaty, across the widening water; and then, as Mr. Carewe made no sign,
+by word or movement, of hearing her, and stood without the slightest
+alteration of his attitude, she cried to him once more:
+
+"Good-by!"
+
+The paddle-wheels reversed; the boat swung down the river, Mr. Carewe
+still standing immovable on the hurricane-deck, while, to the gaze of
+those on the steamer, the figure on the bay colt at the end of the wharf
+began to grow smaller and smaller. She was waving her handkerchief in
+farewell, and they could see the little white speck in the distance,
+dimmer and dimmer, yet fluttering still as they passed out of sight round
+the bend nearly three-quarters of a mile below.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Rule of the Regent
+
+Betty never forgot her first sight of the old friend of her family.
+Returning with a sad heart, she was walking the colt slowly through the
+carriage-gates, when an extravagantly stout lady, in green muslin
+illustrated with huge red flowers, came out upon the porch and waved a fat
+arm to the girl.  The visitor wore a dark-green turban and a Cashmere
+shawl, while the expanse of her skirts was nothing short of magnificent:
+some cathedral-dome seemed to have been misplaced and the lady dropped
+into it.  Her outstretched hand terrified Betty: how was she to approach
+near enough to take it?
+
+Mrs. Tanberry was about sixty, looked forty, and at first you might have
+guessed she weighed nearly three hundred, but the lightness of her smile
+and the actual buoyancy which she somehow imparted to her whole dominion
+lessened that by at least a hundred-weight.  She ballooned out to the
+horse-block with a billowy rush somewhere between bounding and soaring;
+and Miss Betty slid down from the colt, who shied violently, to find
+herself enveloped, in spite of the dome, in a vast surf of green and red
+muslin.
+
+"My charming girl!" exclaimed the lady vehemently, in a voice of such
+husky richness, of such merriment and unction of delight, that it fell
+upon Miss Betty's ear with more of the quality of sheer gayety than any
+she had ever heard.  "Beautiful child! What a beautiful child you are!"
+
+She kissed the girl resoundingly on both cheeks; stepped back from her and
+laughed, and clapped her fat hands, which were covered with flashing
+rings.  "Oh, but you are a true blue Beauty! You're a Princess!  I am Mrs.
+Tanberry, Jane Tanberry, young Janie Tanberry.  I haven't seen you since
+you were a baby and your pretty mother was a girl like us!"
+
+"You are so kind to come," said Betty hesitatingly.  "I shall try to be
+very obedient."
+
+"Obedient!" Mrs. Tanberry uttered the word with a shriek.  "You'll be
+nothing of the kind. I am the light-mindedest woman in the universe, and
+anyone who obeyed me would be embroiled in everlasting trouble every
+second in the day.  You'll find that I am the one that needs looking
+after, my charmer!"
+
+She tapped Miss Betty's cheek with her jeweled fingers as the two mounted
+the veranda steps. "It will be worry enough for you to obey yourself; a
+body sees that at the first blush.  You have conscience in your forehead
+and rebellion in your chin.  Ha, ha, ha!"  Here Mrs. Tanberry sat upon,
+and obliterated, a large chair, Miss Carewe taking a stool at her knee.
+
+"People of our age oughtn't to be bothered with obeying; there'll be time
+enough for that when we get old and can't enjoy anything.  Ha, ha!"
+
+Mrs. Tanberry punctuated her observations with short volleys of husky
+laughter, so abrupt in both discharge and cessation that, until Miss Betty
+became accustomed to the habit, she was apt to start slightly at each
+salvo.  "I had a husband--once," the lady resumed, "but only once, my
+friend!  He had ideas like your father's-- your father is such an
+imbecile!--and he thought that wives, sisters, daughters, and such like
+ought to be obedient: that is, the rest of the world was wrong unless it
+was right; and right was just his own little, teeny-squeeny prejudices and
+emotions dressed up for a crazy masquerade as Facts.  Poor man!  He only
+lasted about a year!"  And Mrs. Tanberry laughed heartily.
+
+"They've been at me time and again to take another."  She lowered her
+voice and leaned toward Betty confidentially.  "Not I! I'd be willing to
+engage myself to Crailey Gray (though Crailey hasn't got round to me yet)
+for I don't mind just being engaged, my dear; but they'll have to invent
+something better than a man before I marry any one of `em again!  But I
+love `em, I do, the Charming Billies!  And you'll see how they follow me!"
+She patted the girl's shoulder, her small eyes beaming quizzically.
+"We'll have the gayest house in Rouen, ladybird!  The young men all go to
+the Bareauds', but they'll come here now, and we'll have the Bareauds
+along with `em.  I've been away a long time, just finished unpacking
+yesterday night when your father came in after the fire--Whoo! what a
+state he was in with that devilish temper of his!  Didn't I snap him up
+when he asked me to come and stay with you?  Ha, ha!  I'd have come, even
+if you hadn't been beautiful; but I was wild to be your playmate, for I'd
+heard nothing but `Miss Betty Carewe, Miss Betty Carewe' from everybody I
+saw, since the minute my stage came in.  You set `em all mad at your ball,
+and I knew we'd make a glorious house-full, you and I!  Some of the
+vagabonds will turn up this very evening, you'll see if they don't.  Ha,
+ha!  The way they follow me!"
+
+Mrs. Tanberry was irresistible: she filled the whole place otherwise than
+by the mere material voluminousness of her; bubbling over with froth of
+nonsense which flew through the house, driven by her energy, like sea-foam
+on a spring gale; and the day, so discordantly begun for Miss Betty, grew
+musical with her own laughter, answering the husky staccato of the
+vivacious newcomer.  Nelson waited upon them at table, radiant, his smile
+like the keyboard of an ebony piano, and his disappearances into the
+kitchen were accomplished by means of a surreptitious double-shuffle, and
+followed by the cachinnating echoes of the vain Mamie's reception of the
+visitor's sallies, which Nelson hastily retailed in passing.
+
+Nor was Mrs. Tanberry's prediction allowed to go unfulfilled regarding the
+advent of those persons whom she had designated as vagabonds.  It may have
+been out of deference to Mr. Carewe's sense of decorum (or from a cautious
+regard of what he was liable to do when he considered that sense outraged)
+that the gallants of Rouen had placed themselves under the severe
+restraint of allowing three days to elapse after their introduction to
+Miss Carewe before they "paid their respects at the house ;" but, be that
+as it may, the dictator was now safely under way down the Rouen River, and
+Mrs. Tanberry reigned in his stead.  Thus, at about eight o'clock that
+evening, the two ladies sat in the library engaged in conversation--
+though, for the sake of accuracy, it should be said that Mrs. Tanberry was
+engaged in conversation, Miss Betty in giving ear--when their attention
+was arrested by sounds of a somewhat musical nature from the lawn, which
+sounds were immediately identified as emanating from a flute and violin.
+
+Mrs. Tanberry bounded across the room like a public building caught by a
+cyclone, and, dashing at the candles, "Blow `em out, blow `em out!" she
+exclaimed, suiting the action to the word in a fluster of excitement.
+
+"Why?" asked Miss Carewe, startled, as she rose to her feet.  The candles
+were out before the question.
+
+"`Why!" repeated the merry, husky voice in the darkness.  "My goodness,
+child precious, those vagabonds are here!  To think of your never having
+been serenaded before!"
+
+She drew the girl to the window and pointed to a group of dim figures near
+the iliac bushes.  "The dear, delightful vagabonds!" she chuckled.  "I
+knew they'd come!  It's the beautiful Tappingham Marsh with his fiddle,
+and young Jeff Bareaud with his flute, and `Gene Madrillon and little
+Frank Chenowith and thin Will Cummings to sing.  Hark to the rascals!"
+
+It is perfectly truthful to say that the violin and flute executed the
+prelude, and then the trio sounded full on the evening air, the more
+effective chords obligingly drawn out as long as the breath in the singers
+could hold them, in order to allow the two fair auditors complete benefit
+of the harmony.  They sang "The Harp that Once Thro' Tara's Halls," and
+followed it with "Long, Long Ago."
+
+"That," Mrs. Tanberry whispered, between stifled gusts of almost
+uncontrollable laughter, "is meant for just me!"
+
+"Tell me the tales that to me were so dear," entreated the trio.
+
+"I told `em plenty!" gurgled the enlivening widow.  "And I expect between
+us we can get up some more."   "Now you are come my grief is removed,"
+they sang.
+
+"They mean your father is on his way to St. Louis," remarked Mrs.
+Tanberry.
+
+"Let me forget that so long you have roved,
+Let me believe that you love as you loved,
+Long, long ago, long ago."
+
+"Applaud, applaud!" whispered Mrs. Tanberry, encouraging the minstrels by
+a hearty clapping of hands.
+
+Hereupon dissension arose among the quintet, evidently a dispute in regard
+to their next selection; one of the gentlemen appearing more than merely
+to suggest a solo by himself, while the others too frankly expressed
+adverse opinions upon the value of the offering.  The argument became
+heated, and in spite of many a "Sh!" and "Not so loud!" the ill-suppressed
+voice of the intending soloist, Mr. Chenoweth, could be heard vehemently
+to exclaim: "I will! I learned it especially for this occasion. I will
+sing it!"
+
+His determination, patently, was not to be balked without physical
+encounter, consequently he was permitted to advance some paces from the
+lilac bushes, where he delivered himself, in an earnest and plaintive
+tenor, of the following morbid instructions, to which the violin played an
+obligato in tremulo, so execrable, and so excruciatingly discordant, that
+Mr. Chenoweth's subsequent charge that it was done with a deliberately
+evil intention could never be successfully opposed:
+
+"Go! Forget me! Why should Sorrow
+O'er that brow a shadow fling?
+Go! Forget me, and, to-morrow,
+Brightly smile and sweetly sing!
+
+Smile! tho' I may not be near thee;
+Smile! tho' I may never see thee;
+May thy soul with pleasure shine
+Lasting as this gloom of mine!"
+
+Miss Carewe complied at once with the request; while her companion, unable
+to stop with the slight expression of pleasure demanded by the songster,
+threw herself upon a sofa and gave way to the mirth that consumed her.
+
+Then the candles were relit, the serenaders invited within; Nelson came
+bearing cake and wine, and the house was made merry.  Presently, the romp,
+Virginia Bareaud, making her appearance on the arm of General Trumble,
+Mrs. Tanberry led them all in a hearty game of Blind-man's Buff, followed
+by as hearty a dancing of Dan Tucker.  After that, a quadrille being
+proposed, Mrs. Tanberry suggested that Jefferson should run home and bring
+Fanchon for the fourth lady. However, Virginia explained that she had
+endeavored to persuade both her sister and Mr. Gray to accompany the
+General and herself, but that Mr. Gray had complained of indisposition,
+having suffered greatly from headache, on account of inhaling so much
+smoke at the warehouse fire; and, of course, Fanchon would not leave him.
+(Miss Carewe permitted herself the slightest shrug of the shoulders.)
+
+So they danced the quadrille with Jefferson at the piano and Mr. Marsh
+performing in the character of a lady, a proceeding most unacceptable to
+the General, whom Mrs. Tanberry forced to be his partner.  And thus the
+evening passed gayly away, and but too quickly, to join the ghosts of all
+the other evenings since time began; and each of the little company had
+added a cheerful sprite to the long rows of those varied shades that the
+after years bring to revisit us, so many with pathetic reproach, so many
+bearing a tragic burden of faces that we cannot make even to weep again,
+and so few with simple merriment and lightheartedness.  Tappingham Marsh
+spoke the truth, indeed, when he exclaimed in parting, "O rare Mrs.
+Tanberry!"
+
+But the house had not done with serenades that night.  The guests had long
+since departed; the windows were still and dark under the wan old moon,
+which had risen lamely, looking unfamiliar and not half itself; the air
+bore an odor of lateness, and nothing moved; when a delicate harmony stole
+out of the shadows beyond the misty garden.  Low but resonant chords
+sounded on the heavier strings of a guitar, while above them, upon the
+lighter wires, rippled a slender, tinkling melody that wooed the slumberer
+to a delicious half-wakefulness, as dreamily, as tenderly, as the croon of
+rain on the roof soothes a child to sleep.  Under the artist's cunning
+touch the instrument was both the accompaniment and the song; and Miss
+Betty, at first taking the music to be a wandering thread in the fabric of
+her own bright dreams, drifted gradually to consciousness to find herself
+smiling.  Her eyes opened wide, but half closed again with the ineffable
+sweetness of the sound.
+
+Then a voice was heard, eerily low, yet gallant and clear, a vibrant
+baritone, singing to the guitar.
+
+"My lady's hair,
+That dark delight,
+Is both as fair
+And dusk as night.
+I know some lovelorn hearts that beat
+In time to moonbeam twinklings fleet,
+That dance and glance like jewels there,
+Emblazoning the raven hair!
+
+"Ah, raven hair!
+So dark and bright,
+What loves lie there
+Enmeshed, to-night?
+I know some sighing lads that say
+Their hearts were snared and torn away;
+And now as pearls one fate they share,
+Entangled in the raven hair.
+
+"Ah, raven hair,
+>From such a plight
+Could you not spare
+One acolyte?
+I know a broken heart that went
+To serve you but as ornament.
+Alas! a ruby now you wear,
+Ensanguining the raven hair!"
+
+The song had grown fainter and fainter, the singer moving away as he sang,
+and the last lines were almost inaudible in the distance  The guitar could
+be heard for a moment or two more, then silence came again.  It was broken
+by a rustling in the room next to Miss Betty's, and Mrs. Tanberry called
+softly through the open door:
+
+"Princess, are you awake? Did you hear that serenade? "
+
+After a pause the answer came hesitatingly in a small, faltering voice:
+"Yes--if it was one.  I thought perhaps he was only singing as he passed
+along the street."
+
+"Aha!" ejaculated Mrs. Tanberry, abruptly, as though she had made an
+unexpected discovery.  "You knew better; and this was a serenade that you
+did not laugh at.  Beautiful, I wouldn't let it go any farther, even while
+your father is gone.  Something might occur that would bring him home
+without warning--such things have happened.  Tom Vanrevel ought to be kept
+far away from this house."
+
+"Oh, it was not he," returned Miss Betty, quickly. "It was Mr. Gray.
+Didn't you--"
+
+"My dear," interrupted the other, "Crailey Gray's specialty is talking.
+Most of the vagabonds can sing and play a bit, and so can Crailey,
+particularly when he's had a few bowls of punch; but when Tom Vanrevel
+touches the guitar and lifts up his voice to sing, there isn't an angel in
+heaven that wouldn't quit the place and come to hear him!  Crailey wrote
+those words to Virginia Bareaud.  (Her hair is even darker than yours, you
+know.)  That was when he was being engaged to her; and Tom must have set
+the music to `em lately, and now comes here to sing `em to you; and well
+enough they fit you!  But you must keep him away, Princess."
+
+Nevertheless, Betty knew the voice was not that which had bid her look to
+the stars, and she remained convinced that it belonged to Mr. Crailey
+Gray, who had been too ill, a few hours earlier, to leave the Bareaud
+house, and now, with Fanchon's kisses on his lips, came stealing into her
+garden and sang to her a song he had made for another girl!
+
+And the angels would leave heaven to listen when he sang, would they?
+Poor Fanchon!  No wonder she held him so tightly in leading strings!  He
+might risk his life all he wished at the end of a grappling-ladder,
+dangling in a fiery cloud above nothing; but when it came to--ah, well,
+poor Fanchon!  Did she invent the headaches for him, or did she make him
+invent them for himself?
+
+If there was one person in the world whom Miss Betty held in bitter
+contempt and scorn, it was the owner of that voice and that guitar.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Echoes of a Serenade
+
+More than three gentlemen of Rouen wore their hearts in their eyes for any
+fool to gaze upon; but three was the number of those who told their love
+before the end of the first week of Mr. Carewe's absence, and told it in
+spite of Mrs. Tanberry's utmost effort to preserve, at all times, a
+conjunction between herself and Miss Betty.  For the good lady, foreseeing
+these declarations much more surely than did the subject of them, wished
+to spare her lovely charge the pain of listening to them.
+
+Miss Carewe honored each of the lorn three with  few minutes of gravity;
+but the gentle refusal prevented never a swain from being as truly her
+follower as before; not that she resorted to the poor device of half-
+dismissal, the every-day method of the school-girl flirt, who thus keeps
+the lads in dalliance, but because, even for the rejected, it was a
+delight to be near her.  For that matter, it is said that no one ever had
+enough of the mere looking at her.  Also, her talk was enlivening even to
+the lively, being spiced with surprising turns and amiably seasoned with
+the art of badinage.  To use the phrase of the time, she possessed the
+accomplishments, an antiquated charm now on the point of disappearing, so
+carefully has it been snubbed under whenever exhibited.  The pursuing
+wraith of the young, it comes to sit, a ghost at every banquet, driving
+the flower of our youth to unheard-of exertions in search of escape, to
+dubious diplomacy, to dismal inaction, or to wine; yet time was when they
+set their hearts on "the accomplishments."
+
+Miss Betty Carewe at her harp, ah! it was a dainty picture: the clear
+profile, with the dark hair low across the temple, silhouetted duskily, in
+the cool, shadowy room, against the open window; the slender figure, one
+arm curving between you and the strings, the other gleaming behind them;
+the delicate little sandal stealing from the white froth of silk and lace
+to caress the pedal; the nimble hands fluttering across the long strands,
+"Like white blossoms borne on slanting lines of rain ;" and the great gold
+harp rising to catch a javelin of sunshine that pierced the vines at the
+window where the honeysuckles swung their skirts to the refrain--it was a
+picture to return many a long year afterward, and thrill the reveries of
+old men who were then young.  And, following the light cascading ripples
+of the harp, when her low contralto lifted in one of the "old songs," she
+often turned inquiringly to see if the listener liked the music, and her
+brilliant, dark eyes would rest on his with an appeal that blinded his
+entranced soul.  She meant it for the mere indication of a friendly wish
+to suit his tastes, but it looked like the divine humility of love.
+Nobody wondered that General Trumble should fall to verse-making in his
+old age.
+
+She sketched magnificently. This is the very strongest support for the
+assertion: Frank Chenoweth and Tappingham Marsh agreed, with tears of
+enthusiasm, that "magnificently" was the only word.  They came to this
+conclusion as they sat together at the end of a long dinner (at which very
+little had been eaten) after a day's picnic by the river.  Miss Carewe had
+been of their company, and Tappingham and Chenoweth found each his
+opportunity in the afternoon.  The party was small, and no one had been
+able to effect a total unconsciousness of the maneuvers of the two gentle-
+men.  Even Fanchon Bareaud comprehended languidly, though she was more
+blurred than ever, and her far-away eyes belied the mechanical vivacity of
+her manner, for Crailey was thirty miles down the river, with a fishing-
+rod neatly packed in a leather case.
+
+Mr. Vanrevel, of course, was not invited; no one would have thought of
+asking him to join a small party of which Robert Carewe's daughter was to
+be a member.  But it was happiness enough for Tom, that night, to lie
+hidden in the shrubbery, looking up at the stars between the leaves, while
+he listened to her harp, and borne through the open window on enchanted
+airs, the voice of Elizabeth Carewe singing "Robin Adair."
+
+It was now that the town indulged its liveliest spirit; never an evening
+lacked its junketing, while the happy folk of Rouen set the early summer
+to music.  Serenade, dance, and song for them, the light-hearts, young and
+old making gay together!  It was all laughter, either in sunshine or by
+candlelight, undisturbed by the far thunder below the southern horizon,
+where Zachary Taylor had pitched his tent, upon the Rio Grande.
+
+One fair evening, soon after that excursion which had proved fatal to the
+hopes of the handsome Tappingham and of the youthful Chenoweth, it was the
+privilege of Mr. Thomas Vanrevel to assist Miss Carewe and her chaperon
+from their carriage, as they drove up to a dance at the Bareauds'.  This
+good fortune fell only to great deserving, for he had spent an hour
+lurking outside the house in the hope of performing such offices for them.
+
+Heaven was in his soul and the breath departed out of his body, when,
+after a moment of hesitation, Miss Betty's little lace-gauntleted glove
+was placed in his hand, and her white slipper shimmered out from the lilac
+flounces of her dress to fall like a benediction, he thought, on each of
+the carriage-steps.
+
+It was the age of garlands; they wreathed the Muses, the Seasons, and
+their speech, so the women wore wreaths in their hair, and Miss Betty's
+that night was of marguerites.  "Read your fortune in them all," whispered
+Tom's heart, "and of whomsoever you wish to learn, every petal will say
+`He loves you; none declare, He loves you not!'"
+
+She bowed slightly, but did not speak to him, which was perhaps a better
+reception than that accorded the young man by her companion. "Oh, it's
+you, is it!" was Mrs. Tanberry's courteous observation as she canted the
+vehicle in her descent.  She looked sharply at Miss Betty, and even the
+small glow of the carriage-lamps showed that the girl's cheeks had flushed
+very red.  Mr. Vanrevel, on the contrary, was pale.
+
+They stood for a moment in awkward silence, while, from the lighted house
+where the flying figures circled, came the waltz: " I dreamt that I dwe-
+helt in ma-har-ble halls." Tom's own dreams were much wilder than the
+gypsy girl's; he knew that; yet he spoke out bravely:
+
+"Will you dance the two first with me?"
+
+Miss Betty bit her lip, frowned, turned away, and, vouchsafing no reply,
+walked toward the house with her eyes fixed on the ground; but just as
+they reached the door she flashed over him a look that scorched him from
+head to foot, and sent his spirits down through the soles of his boots to
+excavate a grotto in the depths of the earth, so charged it was with
+wrathful pity and contempt.
+
+"Yes!" she said abruptly, and followed Mrs. Tanberry to the dressing-room.
+
+The elder lady shook her head solemnly as she emerged from the enormous
+folds of a yellow silk cloak. "Ah, Princess," she said, touching the
+girl's shoulder with her jeweled hand, "I told you I was a very foolish
+woman, and I am, but not so foolish as to offer advice often.  Yet,
+believe me, it won't do.  I think that is one of the greatest young men I
+ever knew, and it's a pity--but it won't do."
+
+Miss Betty kept her face away from her guardian for a moment.  No
+inconsiderable amount of information had drifted to her, from here and
+there, regarding the career of Crailey Gray, and she thought how intensely
+she would have hated any person in the world except Mrs. Tanberry for pre-
+suming to think she needed to be warned against the charms of this
+serenading lady-killer, who was the property of another girl.
+
+"You must keep him away, I think," ventured Mrs. Tanberry, gently.
+
+At that Betty turned to her and said, sharply:
+
+"I will.  After this, please let us never speak of him again."
+
+A slow nod of the other's turbaned head indicated the gravest
+acquiescence.  She saw that her companion's cheeks were still crimson.  "I
+understand," said she.
+
+A buzz of whispering, like a July beetle, followed Miss Carewe and her
+partner about the room during the next dance.  How had Tom managed it?
+Had her father never told her?  Who had dared to introduce them?  Fanchon
+was the only one who knew, and as she whirled by with Will Cummings, she
+raised her absent glance long enough to give Tom an affectionate and
+warning shake of the head.
+
+Tom did not see this; Miss Carewe did.  Alas! She smiled upon him
+instantly and looked deep into his eyes.  It was the third time.
+
+She was not afraid of this man-flirt; he was to be settled with once and
+forever.  She intended to avenge both Fanchon and herself; yet it is a
+hazardous game, this piercing of eye with eye, because the point which
+seeks to penetrate may soften and melt, leaving one defenseless.  For
+perhaps ten seconds that straight look lasted, while it seemed to her that
+she read clear into the soul of him, and to behold it, through some
+befooling magic, as strong, tender, wise, and true, as his outward ap-
+pearance would have made an innocent stranger believe him; for he looked
+all these things; she admitted that much; and he had an air of distinction
+and resource beyond any she had ever known, even in the wild scramble for
+her kitten he had not lost it.  So, for ten seconds, which may be a long
+time, she saw a man such as she had dreamed, and she did not believe her
+sight, because she had no desire to be as credulous as the others, to be
+as easily cheated as that poor Fanchon!
+
+The luckless Tom found his own feet beautiful on the mountains, and,
+treading the heights with airy steps, appeared to himself wonderful and
+glorified--he was waltzing with Miss Betty He breathed the entrancing
+words to himself, over and over: it was true, he was waltzing with Miss
+Betty Carewe!  Her glove lay warm and light within his own; his fingers
+clasped that ineffable lilac and white brocade waist.  Sometimes her hair
+came within an inch of his cheek, and then he rose outright from the
+hilltops and floated in a golden mist.  The glamour of which the
+Incroyable had planned to tell her some day, surrounded Tom, and it seemed
+to him that the whole world was covered with a beautiful light like a
+carpet, which was but the radiance of this adorable girl whom his gloves
+and coat-sleeve were permitted to touch.  When the music stopped, they
+followed in the train of other couples seeking the coolness of out-of-
+doors for the interval, and Tom, in his soul, laughed at all other men
+with illimitable condescension.
+
+"Stop here," she said, as they reached the open gate. He was walking out
+of it, his head in the air, and Miss Betty on his arm.  Apparently, he
+would have walked straight across the State.  It was the happiest moment
+he had ever known.
+
+He wanted to say something wonderful to her; his speech should be like the
+music and glory and lire that was in him; therefore he was shocked to hear
+himself remarking, with an inanity of utterance that sickened him:
+
+"Oh, here's the gate, isn't it?"
+
+Her answer was a short laugh. "You mean you wish to persuade me that you
+had forgotten it was there?"
+
+"I did not see it," he protested, lamentably.
+
+"No?"
+
+"I wasn't thinking of it."
+
+"Indeed! You were `lost in thoughts of `--"
+
+"Of you!" he said, before he could check himself.
+
+"Yes?" Her tone was as quietly contemptuous as she could make it.  "How
+very frank of you!  May I ask: Are you convinced that speeches of that
+sort are always to a lady's liking?"
+
+"No," he answered humbly, and hung his head.  Then she threw the question
+at him abruptly:
+
+"Was it you who came to sing in our garden?"
+
+There was a long pause before a profound sigh came tremulously from the
+darkness, like a sad and tender confession.  "Yes."
+
+"I thought so!" she exclaimed. "Mrs. Tanberry thought it was someone else;
+but I knew that it was you."
+
+"Yes, you are right," he said, quietly.  "It was I. It was my only way to
+tell you what you know now."
+
+"Of course!" She set it all aside with those two words and the slightest
+gesture of her hand.  " It was a song made for another girl, I believe?"
+she asked lightly, and with an icy smile, inquired farther: "For the one--
+the one before the last, I understand?"
+
+He lifted his head, surprised. "What has that to do with it?  The music
+was made for you-- but then, I think all music was made for you."
+
+"Leave the music out of it, if you please," she said, impatiently.  "Your
+talents make you modest!  No doubt you consider it unmaidenly in me to
+have referred to the serenade before you spoke of it; but I am not one to
+cast down my eyes and let it pass.  No, nor one too sweet to face the
+truth, either!" she cried with sudden passion.  "To sing that song in the
+way you did, meant-oh, you thought I would flirt with you!  What right had
+you to come with such a song to me?
+
+Tom intended only to disclaim the presumption, so far from his thoughts,
+that his song had moved her, for he could see that her attack was prompted
+by her inexplicable impression that he had assumed the attitude of a
+conqueror, but his explanation began unfortunately.
+
+"Forgive me. I think you have completely misunderstood; you thought it
+meant something I did not intend, at all, and--"
+
+"What!" she said, and her eyes blazed, for now she beheld him as the
+arrant sneak of the world.  He, the lady-killer, with his hypocritical air
+of strength and melancholy sweetness, the leader of drunken revels, and,
+by reputation, the town Lothario and Light-o'-Love, under promise of
+marriage to Fanchon Bareaud, had tried to make love to another girl, and
+now his cowardice in trying to disclaim what he had done lent him the
+insolence to say to this other: "My child, you are betrayed by your youth
+and conceit; you exaggerate my meaning.  I had no intention to distinguish
+you by coquetting with you!"  This was her interpretation of him; and her
+indignation was not lessened by the inevitable conclusion that he, who had
+been through so many scenes with women, secretly found her simplicity
+diverting.  Miss Betty had a little of her father in her; while it was
+part of her youth, too, that, of all things she could least endure the
+shadow of a smile at her own expense.
+
+"Oh, oh!" she cried, her voice shaking with anger.  "I suppose your bad
+heart is half-choked with your laughter at me."
+
+She turned from him swiftly, and left him.
+
+Almost running, she entered the house, and hurried to a seat by Mrs.
+Tanberry, nestling to her like a young sapling on a hillside.
+Instantaneously, several gentlemen, who had hastily acquitted themselves
+of various obligations in order to seek her, sprang forward with eager
+greetings, so that when the stricken Tom, dazed and confounded by his evil
+luck, followed her at about five paces, he found himself confronted by an
+impenetrable abbatis formed by the spiked tails of the coats of General
+Trumble, Madrillon, Tappingham Marsh, Cummings and Jefferson Bareaud.
+Within this fortification rang out laughter and sally from Miss Carewe;
+her color was high and her eyes sparkled never more brightly.
+
+Flourish and alarums sounded for a quadrille.  Each of the semi-circle,
+firmly elbowing his neighbor, begged the dance of Miss Betty; but Tom was
+himself again, and laid a long, strong hand on Madrillon's shoulder,
+pressed him gently aside, and said:
+
+"Forgive me; Miss Carewe has honored me by the promise of this quadrille."
+
+He bowed, offering his arm, and none of them was too vain to envy that bow
+and gesture.
+
+For a moment he remained waiting. Miss Carewe rose slowly, and, directly
+facing him, said in composed and even voice:  "You force me to beg you
+never to address me again."
+
+She placed her hand on the General's arm, turning her back squarely upon
+Tom.
+
+In addition to those who heard, many persons in that part of the room saw
+the affront and paused in arrested attitudes; others, observing these,
+turned inquiringly, so that sudden silence fell, broken only by the voice
+of Miss Betty as she moved away, talking cheerily to the General.  Tom was
+left standing alone in the broken semicircle.
+
+All the eyes swept from her to him and back; then everyone began to talk
+hastily about nothing. The young man's humiliation was public.
+
+He went to the door under cover of the movement of the various couples to
+find places in the quadrille, yet every sidelong glance in the room still
+rested upon him, and he knew it.  He remained in the ball, alone, through
+that dance, and at its conclusion, walked slowly through the rooms,
+speaking to people, here and there, as though nothing had happened, but
+when the music sounded again, he went to the dressing-room, found his hat
+and cloak, and left the house.  For a while he stood on the opposite side
+of the street, watching the lighted windows, and twice he caught sight of
+the lilac and white brocade, the dark hair, and the wreath of marguerites.
+Then, with a hot pain in his breast, and the step of a Grenadier, he
+marched down the street.
+
+In the carriage Mrs. Tanberry took Betty's hand in hers.  "I'll do as you
+wish, child," she said, "and never speak to you of him again as long as I
+live, except this once.  I think it was best for his own sake as well as
+yours, but--"
+
+"He needed a lesson," interrupted Miss Betty, wearily.  She had danced
+long and hard, and she was very tired.
+
+Mrs. Tanberry's staccato laugh came out irrepressibly.  "All the vagabonds
+do, Princess!" she cried.  "And I think they are getting it."
+
+"No, no, I don't mean--"
+
+"We've turned their heads, my dear, between us, you and I; and we'll have
+to turn `em again, or they'll break their necks looking over their shoul-
+ders at us, the owls!"  She pressed the girl's hand affectionately.  "But
+you'll let me say something just once, and forgive me because we're the
+same foolish age, you know.  It's only this: The next young man you
+suppress, take him off in a corner!  Lead him away from the crowd where he
+won't have to stand and let them look at him afterward. That's all, my
+dear, and you mustn't mind."
+
+"I'm not sorry!" said Miss Betty hotly. "I'm not sorry!"
+
+"No, no," said Mrs. Tanberry, soothingly.  "It was better this time to do
+just what you did.  I'd have done it myself, to make quite sure he would
+keep away--because I like him."
+
+"I'm not sorry!" said Miss Betty again.
+
+"I'm not sorry!" she repeated and reiterated to herself after Mrs.
+Tanberry had gone to bed.  She had sunk into a chair in the library with a
+book, and "I'm not sorry!" she whispered as the open unread page blurred
+before her, "I'm not sorry!"  He had needed his lesson; but she had to
+bear the recollection of how white his face went when he received it.  Her
+affront had put about him a strange loneliness: the one figure with the
+stilled crowd staring; it had made a picture from which her mind's eye had
+been unable to escape, danced she never so hard and late.  Unconsciously,
+Robert Carewe's daughter had avenged the other figure which had stood in
+lonely humiliation before the staring eyes.
+
+"I'm not sorry!"  Ah, did they think it was in her to hurt any living
+thing in the world?  The book dropped from her lap, and she bowed her head
+upon her hands. "I'm not sorry! "--and tears upon the small lace
+gauntlets!
+
+She saw them, and with an incoherent exclamation, half self-pitying, half
+impatient, ran out to the stars above her garden.
+
+She was there for perhaps half an hour, and just before she returned to
+the house she did a singular thing.
+
+Standing where all was clear to the sky, where she had stood after her
+talk with the Incroyable, when he had bid her look to the stars, she
+raised her arms to them again, her face, pale with a great tenderness,
+uplifted.
+
+"You, you, you! "she whispered.  "I love you!"
+
+And yet it was to nothing definite, to no man, nor outline of a man, to no
+phantom nor dream-lover, that she spoke; neither to him she had affronted,
+nor to him who had bidden her look to the stars.  Nor was it to the stars
+themselves.
+
+She returned slowly and thoughtfully to the house, wondering what she had
+meant.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A Voice in a Garden
+
+Crailey came home the next day with a new poem, but no fish. He lounged up
+the stairs, late in the afternoon, humming cheerfully to himself, and,
+dropping his rod in a corner of Tom's office, laid the poem on the desk
+before his partner, produced a large, newly-replenished flask, opened it,
+stretched himself comfortably upon a capacious horse-hair sofa, drank a
+deep draught, chuckled softly, and requested Mr. Vanrevel to set the
+rhymes to music immediately.
+
+"Try it on your instrument," he said. "It's a simple verse about nothing
+but stars, and you can work it out in twenty minutes with the guitar."
+
+"It is broken," said Tom, not looking up from his work.
+
+"Broken! When?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+"Who broke it?"
+
+"It fell from the table in my room."
+
+"How?  Easily mended, isn't it?"
+
+"I think I shall not play it soon again."
+
+Crailey swung his long legs off the sofa and abruptly sat upright.
+"What's this?" he asked gravely.
+
+Tom pushed his papers away from him, rose and went to the dusty window
+that looked to the west, where, at the end of the long street, the sun was
+setting behind the ruin of charred timbers on the bank of the shining
+river.
+
+"It seems that I played once too often," he said.
+
+Crailey was thoroughly astonished. He took a long, affectionate pull at
+the flask and offered it to his partner.
+
+"No," said Tom, turning to him with a troubled face, "and if I were you, I
+wouldn't either.  These fishing trips of yours--"
+
+"Fishing!"  Crailey laughed.  "Trips of a poetaster!  It's then I write
+best, and write I will!  There's a poem, and a damned good one, too, old
+preacher, in every gill of whiskey, and I'm the lad that can extract it!
+Lord! what's better than to be out in the open, all by yourself in the
+woods, or on the river?  Think of the long nights alone with the glory of
+heaven and a good demijohn.  Why, a man's thoughts are like actors
+performing in the air and all the crowding stars for audience!  You know
+in your soul you'd rather have me out there, going it all by myself, than
+raising thunder over town.  And you know, too, it doesn't tell on me; it
+doesn't show!  You couldn't guess, to save your life, how much I've had
+to-day, now, could you?"
+
+"Yes," returned the other, "I could."
+
+"Well, well," said Crailey, good-naturedly, "we weren't talking of me."
+He set down the flask, went to his friend and dropped a hand lightly on
+his shoulder.  "What made you break the guitar?  Tell me."
+
+"What makes you think I broke it?" asked his partner sharply.
+
+"Tell me why you did it," said Crailey.
+
+And Tom, pacing the room, told him, while Crailey stood in silence,
+looking him eagerly in the eye whenever Tom turned his way.  The listener
+interrupted seldom; once it was to exclaim:  "But you haven't said why you
+broke the guitar?"
+
+If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out!'  I ought to have cut off the
+hands that played to her."  "And cut your throat for singing to her?"
+
+"She was right!" the other answered, striding up and down the room.
+"Right--a thousand times! in everything she did.  That I should even ap-
+proach her, was an unspeakable insolence.  I had forgotten, and so,
+possibly, had she, but I had not even been properly introduced to her."
+
+"No, you hadn't, that's true," observed Crailey, reflectively.  "You don't
+seem to have much to reproach her with, Tom."
+
+"Reproach her!" cried the other.  "That I should dream she would speak to
+me or have anything to do with me, was to cast a doubt upon her loyalty as
+a daughter.  She was right, I say!  And she did the only thing she could
+do: rebuked me before them all.  No one ever merited what he got more
+roundly than I deserved that.  Who was I, in her eyes, that I should
+besiege her with my importunities, who but her father's worst enemy?"
+
+Deep anxiety knitted Crailey's brow.  "I understood she knew of the
+quarrel," he said, thoughtfully.  "I saw that, the other evening when I
+helped her out of the crowd.  She spoke of it on the way home, I remember;
+but how did she know that you were Vanrevel?  No one in town would be apt
+to mention you to her."
+
+"No, but she did know, you see."
+
+"Yes," returned Mr. Gray slowly.  "So it seems! Probably her father told
+her to avoid you, and described you so that she recognized you as the man
+who caught the kitten."
+
+He paused, picked up the flask, and again applied himself to its contents,
+his eyes peering over the up-tilted vessel at Tom, who continued to pace
+up and down the length of the office.  After a time, Crailey, fumbling in
+his coat, found a long cheroot, and, as he lit it, inquired casually:
+
+"Do you remember if she addressed you by name?"
+
+"I think not," Tom answered, halting. "What does it matter?"
+
+Crailey drew a deep breath.
+
+"It doesn't," he returned.
+
+"She knew me well enough," said Tom, sadly, as he resumed his sentry-go.
+
+"Yes," repeated Crailey, deliberately.  "So it seems; so it seems!"  He
+blew a long stream of smoke out into the air before him, and softly mur-
+mured again: " So it seems, so it seems."
+
+Silence fell, broken only by the sound of Tom's footsteps, until,
+presently, some one informally shouted his name from the street below.  It
+was only Will Cummings, passing the time of day, but when Tom turned from
+the window after answering him, Crailey, his poem, and his flask were
+gone.
+
+That evening Vanrevel sat in the dusty office, driving himself to his work
+with a sharp goad, for there was a face that came between him and all else
+in the world, and a voice that sounded always in his ears.  But the work
+was done before he rose from his chair, though he showed a haggard visage
+as he bent above his candles to blow them out.
+
+It was eleven o'clock; Crailey had not come back, and Tom knew that his
+light-hearted friend would not return for many hours; and so, having no
+mind to read, and no belief that he could if he tried, he went out to walk
+the streets.  He went down to the river first, and stood for a little
+while gazing at the ruins of the two warehouses, and that was like a man
+with a headache beating his skull against a wall.  As he stood on the
+blackened wharf, he saw how the charred beams rose above him against the
+sky like a gallows, and it seemed to him that nothing could have been a
+better symbol, for here he had hanged his self-respect.  "Reproach her!"
+He, who had so displayed his imbecility before her!  Had he been her
+father's best friend, he should have had too great a sense of shame to
+dare to speak to her after that night when her quiet intelligence had
+exhibited him to himself, and to all the world, as nought else than a
+fool--and a noisy one at that!
+
+Suddenly a shudder convulsed him; he struck his open palm across his
+forehead and spoke aloud, while, from horizon to horizon, the night air
+grew thick with the whispered laughter of observing hobgoblins:
+
+"And even if there had been no stairway, we could have slid down the hose-
+line!"
+
+He retraced his steps, a tall, gray figure moving slowly through the blue
+darkness, and his lips formed the heart-sick shadow of a smile when he
+found that he had unconsciously turned into Carewe Street.  Presently he
+came to a gap in a hedge, through which he had sometimes stolen to hear
+the sound of a harp and a girl's voice singing; but he did not enter there
+tonight, though he paused a moment, his head bowed on his breast.
+
+There came a sound of voices; they seemed to be moving toward the hedge,
+toward the gap where he stood; one a man's eager, quick, but very musical;
+the other, a girl's, a rich and clear contralto that passed into Tom's
+soul like a psalm of rejoicing and like a scimitar of flame.  He shivered,
+and moved away quickly, but not before the man's voice, somewhat louder
+for the moment, came distinctly from the other side of the hedge:
+
+"After all," said the voice, with a ripple of laughter, "after all,
+weren't you a little hard on that poor Mr. Gray?"
+
+Tom did not understand, but he knew the voice. It was that of Crailey
+Gray.
+
+He heard the same voice again that night, and again stood unseen.  Long
+after midnight he was still tramping the streets on his lonely rounds,
+when he chanced to pass the Rouen House, which hostelry bore, to the
+uninitiated eye, the appearance of having closed its doors upon all
+hospitalities for the night, in strict compliance with the law of the city
+fathers, yet a slender wand of bright light might be discovered underneath
+the street door of the bar-room.
+
+>From within the merry retreat issued an uproar of shouting, raucous
+laughter and the pounding of glasses on tables, heralding all too plainly
+the hypocrisy of the landlord, and possibly that of the city fathers also.
+Tom knew what company was gathered there: gamblers, truckmen, drunken
+farmers, men from the river steamers making riot while their boats lay at
+the wharf, with a motley gathering of good-for-nothings of the back-
+alleys, and tippling clerks from the Main Street stores.  There came loud
+cries for a song, and, in answer, the voice of Crailey rose over the
+general din, somewhat hoarse, and never so musical when he sang as when he
+spoke, yet so touching in its dramatic tenderness that soon the noise fell
+away, and the roisterers sat quietly to listen.  It was not the first time
+Ben Jonson's song had stilled a disreputable company.
+
+"I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
+Not so much honoring thee,
+As giving it the hope that there
+It might not withered be."
+
+Perhaps, just then, Vanrevel would have wished to hear him sing anything
+in the world rather than that, for on Crailey's lips it carried too much
+meaning tonight, after the voice in the garden.  And Tom lingered no more
+near the betraying sliver of light beneath the door than he had by the gap
+in the hedge, but went steadily on his way.
+
+Not far from the hotel he passed a small building brightly lighted and
+echoing with unusual clamors of industry: the office of the Rouen Journal.
+The press was going, and Mr. Cummings's thin figure crossed and recrossed
+the windows, while his voice could be heard energetically bidding his as-
+sistants to "Look alive!" so that Tom imagined that something might have
+happened between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande; but he did not stop
+to ask the journalist, for he desired to behold the face of none of his
+friends until he had fought out some things within himself.  So he strode
+on toward nowhere.
+
+Day was breaking when Mr. Gray climbed the stairs to his room. There were
+two flights, the ascent of the first of which occupied about half an hour
+of Crailey's invaluable time; and the second might have taken more of it,
+or possibly consumed the greater part of the morning, had he received no
+assistance.  But, as he reclined to meditate upon the first landing,
+another man entered the hallway from without, ascended quickly, and
+Crailey became pleasantly conscious that two strong hands had lifted him
+to his feet; and, presently, that he was being borne aloft upon the new-
+comer's back.  It seemed quite a journey, yet the motion was soothing, so
+he made no effort to open his eyes, until he found himself gently
+deposited upon the couch in his own chamber, when he smiled amiably, and,
+looking up, discovered his partner standing over him.
+
+Tom was very pale and there were deep, violet scrawls beneath his eyes.
+For once in his life he bad come home later than Crailey.
+
+"First time, you know," said Crailey, with difficulty.  "You'll admit
+first time completely incapable?  Often needed guiding hand, but never--
+quite--before."
+
+"Yes," said Tom, quietly, "it is the first time I ever saw you quite
+finished."
+
+"Think I must be growing old and constitution refuses bear it.
+Disgraceful to be seen in condition, yet celebration justified.  H'rah for
+the news!"  He waved his hand wildly.  "Old red, white, and blue!
+American eagle now kindly proceed to scream!  Starspangled banner intends
+streaming to all the trade winds!  Sea to sea!  Glorious victories on
+political thieving exhibition--no, expedition!  Everybody not responsible
+for the trouble to go and get himself patriotically killed!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Water!" said the other, feebly.  Tom brought the pitcher, and Crailey,
+setting his hot lips to it, drank long and deeply; then, with his friend's
+assistance, he tied a heavily moistened towel round his head.  "All right
+very soon and sober again," he muttered, and lay back upon the pillow with
+eyes tightly closed in an intense effort to concentrate his will.  When he
+opened them again, four or five minutes later, they had marvellously
+cleared and his look was self-contained and sane.
+
+"Haven't you heard the news?"  He spoke much more easily now.  "It came at
+midnight to the Journal."
+
+"No; I've been walking in the country."
+
+"The Mexicans crossed the Rio Grande on the twenty-sixth of last month,
+captured Captain Thornton and murdered Colonel Crook.  That means war is
+certain."
+
+ "It has been certain for a long time," said Tom.  "Polk has forced it
+from the first."
+
+"Then it's a devil of a pity he can't be the only man to die!"
+
+"Have they called for volunteers?" asked Tom, going toward the door.
+
+"No; but if the news is true, they will."
+
+"Yes," said Tom; and as he reached the hallway he paused.  "Can I help you
+to undress?"
+
+"Certainly not!" Crailey sat up, indignantly.  "Can't you see that I'm
+perfectly sober?  It was the merest temporary fit, and I've shaken it off.
+Don't you see?"  He got upon his feet, staggered, but shook himself like a
+dog coming out of the water, and came to the door with infirm steps.
+
+"You're going to bed, aren't you?" asked Tom.  "You'd much better."
+
+"No," answered Crailey. "Are you?
+
+"No. I'm going to work."
+
+"You've been all up night, too, haven't you?"  Crailey put his hand on the
+other's shoulder.  "Were you hunting for me?"
+
+"No; not last night."
+
+Crailey lurched suddenly, and Tom caught him about the waist to steady
+him.
+
+"Sweethearting, tippling, vingt-et-un, or poker, eh, Tom?" he shouted,
+thickly, with a wild laugh.  "Ha, ha, old smug-face, up to my bad tricks
+at last!"  But, recovering himself immediately, he pushed the other off at
+arm's length, and slapped himself smartly on the brow.  "Never mind; all
+right, all right--only a bad wave, now and then.  A walk will make me more
+a man than ever."
+
+"You'd much better go to bed, Crailey."
+
+"I can't. I'm going to change my clothes and go out."
+
+"Why?"
+
+Crailey did not answer, but at that moment the Catholic church-bell,
+summoning the faithful to mass, pealed loudly on the morning air; and the
+steady glance of Tom Vanrevel rested upon the reckless eyes of the man
+beside him as they listened together to its insistent call.  Tom said,
+gently, almost timidly:
+
+"You have an--engagement?"
+
+This time the answer came briskly.  "Yes; I promised to take Fanchon to
+the cemetery before breakfast, to place some flowers on the grave of the
+little brother who died.  This happens to be his birthday."
+
+It was Tom who averted his eyes, not Crailey.
+
+"Then you'd best hurry," he said, hesitatingly; "I mustn't keep you," and
+went downstairs to his office with flushed cheeks, a hanging head, and an
+expression which would have led a stranger to believe that he had just
+been caught in a lie.
+
+He went to the Main Street window, and seated himself upon the ledge, the
+only one in the room not too dusty for occupation; for here, at this hour,
+Tom had taken his place every morning since Elizabeth Carewe had come from
+the convent.  The window was a coign of vantage, commanding the corner of
+Carewe and Main streets.  Some distance west of the corner, the Catholic
+church cast its long shadow across Main Street, and, in order to enter the
+church, a person who lived upon Carewe Street must pass the corner, or
+else make a half-mile detour and approach from the other direction--which
+the person never did.  Tom had thought it out the first night that the
+image of Miss Betty had kept him awake--and that was the first night Miss
+Carewe spent in Rouen--the St. Mary's girl would be sure to go to mass
+every day, which was why the window-ledge was dusted the next morning.
+
+The glass doors of the little corner drug-store caught the early sun of
+the hot May morning and became like sheets 0f polished brass; a farmer's
+wagon rattled down the dusty street; a group of Irish waitresses from the
+hotel made the boardwalk rattle under their hurried steps as they went
+toward the church, talking busily to one another; and a blinking youth in
+his shirt-sleeves, who wore the air of one newly, but not gladly, risen,
+began to struggle mournfully with the shutters of Madrillon's bank.  A
+moment later, Tom heard Crailey come down the stairs, sure of foot and
+humming lightly to himself.  The door of the office was closed; Crailey
+did not look in, but presently appeared, smiling, trim, immaculate, all in
+white linen, on the opposite side of the street, and offered badinage to
+the boy who toiled at the shutters.
+
+The bell had almost ceased to ring when a lady, dressed plainly in black,
+but graceful and tall, came rapidly out of Carewe Street, turned at the
+corner by the little drug-store, and went toward the church.  The boy was
+left staring, for Crailey's banter broke off in the middle of a word.
+
+He overtook her on the church steps, and they went in together.
+
+That afternoon Fanchon Bareaud told Tom how beautiful her betrothed had
+been to her; he had brought her a great bouquet of violets and lilies-of-
+the-valley, and had taken her to the cemetery to place them on the grave
+of her baby brother, whose birthday it was.  Tears came to Fanchon's eyes
+as she spoke of her lover's goodness, and of how wonderfully he had talked
+as they stood beside the little grave.
+
+"He was the only one who remembered that this was poor tiny Jean's
+birthday!" she said, and sobbed.  "He came just after breakfast and asked
+me to go out there with him."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Room in the Cupola
+
+Mr. Carewe returned, one warm May afternoon, by the six o'clock boat,
+which was sometimes a day late and sometimes a few hours early; the latter
+contingency arising, as in the present instance, when the owner was
+aboard.  Nelson drove him from the wharf to the bank, where he conferred
+briefly, in an undertone, with Eugene Madrillon; after which Eugene sent a
+note containing three words to Tappingham Marsh.  Marsh tore up the note,
+and sauntered over to the club, where he found General Trumble and
+Jefferson Bareaud amicably discussing a pitcher of cherry bounce.
+
+"He has come," said Tappingham, pleased to find the pair the only
+occupants of the place.  "He saw Madrillon, and there's a session to-
+night."
+
+"Praise the Lord!" exclaimed the stout General, rising to his feet.  "I'll
+see old Chenoweth at once. My fingers have the itch."
+
+"And mine, too," said Bareaud. "I'd begun to think we'd never have a go
+with him again."
+
+"You must see that Crailey comes.  We want a full table. Drag him, if you
+can't get him any other way."
+
+"He won't need urging," said Jefferson.
+
+"But he cut us last time."
+
+"He won't cut tonight.  What hour?"
+
+"Nine," answered Tappingham. "It's to be a full sitting, remember."
+
+"Don't fear for us," laughed Trumble.
+
+"Nor for Crailey," Jefferson added.  "After so long a vacation you
+couldn't keep him away if you chained him to the court-house pillars; he'd
+tear `em in two!"
+
+"Here's to our better fortunes, then! said the old soldier, filling a
+glass for Tappingham; and, "Here's to our better fortunes!" echoed the
+young men, pouring off the gentle liquor heartily.  Having thus made
+libation to their particular god, the trio separated.  But Jefferson did
+not encounter the alacrity of acceptance he expected from Crailey, when he
+found him, half an hour later, at the hotel bar.  Indeed, at first, Mr.
+Gray not oniy refused outright to go, but seriously urged the same course
+upon Jefferson; moreover, his remonstrance was offered in such evident
+good faith that Bareaud, in the act of swallowing one of his large doses
+of quinine, paused with only half the powder down his throat, gazing,
+nonplussed, at his prospective brother-in-law.
+
+"My immortal soul!" he gasped.  "Is this Crailey Gray? What's the
+trouble?"
+
+"Nothing," replied Crailey, quietly.  "Only don't go, you've lost enough."
+
+"Well, you're a beautiful one!" Jefferson exclaimed, with an incredulous
+laugh.  "You're a master hand; you, to talk about losing enough!"
+
+"I know, I know," Crailey began, shaking his head, "but--"
+
+"You've promised Fanchon never to go again, and you're afraid Miss Betty
+will see or hear us, and tell her you were there."
+
+"I don't know Miss Carewe."
+
+"Then you needn't fear; besides, she'll be out when we come, and asleep
+when we go. She will never know we've been in the house."
+
+"That has nothing to do with it," said Crailey, impatiently; and he was
+the more earnest because he remembered the dangerous geography of the
+Carewe house, which made it impossible for anyone to leave the cupola-room
+except by the long hall which passed certain doors.  "I will not go, and
+what's more, I promised Fanchon I'd try to keep you out of it hereafter."
+
+"Lord, but we're virtuous!" laughed the incredulous Jefferson.  "I'll come
+for you at a quarter to nine."
+
+"I will not go, I tell you."
+
+Jefferson roared. "Yes, you will.  You couldn't keep from it if you
+tried!"  And he took himself off, laughing violently, again promising to
+call for Crailey on his way to the tryst, and leaving him still warmly
+protesting that it would be a great folly for either of them to go.
+
+Crailey looked after the lad's long, thin figure with an expression as
+near anger as he ever wore.  "He'll go," he said to himself.
+
+"And--ah, well--I'll have to risk it!  I'll go with him, but only to try
+and bring him away early-- that is, as early as it's safe to be sure that
+they are asleep downstairs.  And I won't play.  No, I'll not play; I'll
+not play."
+
+He paid his score and went out of the hotel by a side door.  Some distance
+up the street, Bareaud was still to be seen, lounging homeward in the
+pleasant afternoon sunshine, he stopped on a corner and serenely poured
+another quinine powder into himself and threw the paper to a couple of
+pigs who looked up from the gutter maliciously.
+
+"Confound him!" said Crailey, laughing ruefully.  "He makes me a
+missionary--for I'll keep my word to Fanchon in that, at least!  I'll look
+after Jefferson tonight. Ah, I might as well be old Tom Vanrevel, indeed!"
+
+Meanwhile, Mr. Carewe had taken possession of his own again.  His daughter
+ran to the door to meet him; she was trembling a little, and, blushing and
+smiling, held out both her hands to him, so that Mrs. Tanberry vowed this
+was the loveliest creature in the world, and the kindest.
+
+Mr. Carewe bowed slightly, as to an acquaintance, and disregarded the
+extended hands.
+
+At that, the blush faded from Miss Betty's cheeks; she trembled no more,
+and a salutation as icy as her father's was returned to him.  He bent his
+heavy brows upon her, and shot a black glance her way, being, of course,
+immediately enraged by her reflection of his own manner, but he did not
+speak to her.
+
+Nor did he once address her during the evening meal, preferring to honor
+Mrs. Tanberry with his conversation, to that diplomatic lady's secret
+anger, but outward amusement.  She cheerfully neglected to answer him at
+times, having not the slightest awe of him, and turned to the girl
+instead; indeed, she was only prevented from rating him soundly at his own
+table by the fear that she might make the situation more difficult for her
+young charge.  As soon as it was possible, she made her escape with Miss
+Betty, and they drove away in the twilight to pay visits of duty, leaving
+Mr. Carewe frowning at his coffee on the veranda.
+
+When they came home, three hours later, Miss Betty noticed that a fringe
+of illumination bordered each of the heavily curtained windows in the
+cupola, and she uttered an exclamation, for she had never known that room
+to be lighted.
+
+"Look!" she cried, touching Mrs. Tanberry's arm, as the horses trotted
+through the gates under a drizzle of rain, "I thought the room in the
+cupola was empty.  It's always locked, and when I came from St. Mary's he
+told me that old furniture was stored there."
+
+Mrs. Tanberry was grateful for the darkness.  "He may have gone there to
+read," she answered, in a queer voice.  "Let us go quietly to bed, child,
+so as not to disturb him."
+
+Betty had as little desire to disturb her father as she had to see him;
+therefore she obeyed her friend's injunction, and went to her room on tip-
+toe.  The house was very silent as she lit the candles on her bureau.
+Outside, the gentle drizzle and the soothing tinkle from the eaves were
+the only sounds; within, there was but the faint rustle of garments from
+Mrs. Tanberry's room.  Presently the latter ceased to be heard, and a
+wooden moan of protest from the four-poster upon which the good lady
+reposed, announced that she had drawn the curtains and wooed the rulers of
+Nod.
+
+Although it was one of those nights of which they say, "It is a good night
+to sleep," Miss Betty was not drowsy.  She had half-unfastened one small
+sandal, but she tied the ribbons again, and seated herself by the open
+window.  The ledge and casement framed a dim oblong of thin light from the
+candles behind her, a lonely lustre, which crossed the veranda to melt
+shapelessly into darkness on the soggy lawn.  She felt a melancholy in the
+softly falling rain and wet, black foliage that chimed with the sadness of
+her own spirit.  The night suited her very well, for her father's coming
+had brought a weight of depression with it.  Why could he not have spoken
+one word to her, even a cross one?  She knew that he did not love her,
+yet, merely as a fellow-being, she was entitled to a measure of courtesy;
+and the fact that she was his daughter could not excuse his failure to
+render it.  Was she to continue to live with him on their present terms?
+She had no intention to make another effort to alter them; but to remain
+as they were would be intolerable, and Mrs. Tanberry could not stay
+forever, to act as a buffer between her and her father.  Peering out into
+the dismal night, she found her own future as black, and it seemed no
+wonder that the Sisters loved the convent life; that the pale nuns forsook
+the world wherein there was so much useless unkindness; where women were
+petty and jealous, like that cowardly Fanchon, and men who looked great
+were tricksters, like Fanchon's betrothed.  Miss Betty clenched her
+delicate fingers.  She would not remember that white, startled face again!
+
+Another face helped her to shut out the recollection: that of the man who
+had come to mass to meet her yesterday morning, and with whom she had
+taken a long walk afterward.  He had shown her a quaint old English
+gardener who lived on the bank of the river, had bought her a bouquet, and
+she had helped him to select another to send to a sick friend.  How
+beautiful the flowers were, and how happy he had made the morning for her,
+with his gayety, his lightness, and his odd wisdom! Was it only yesterday?
+Her father's coming had made yesterday a fortnight old.
+
+But the continuously pattering rain and the soft drip-drop from the roof,
+though as mournful as she chose to find them, began, afterwhile, to weave
+their somnolent spells, and she slowly drifted from reveries of unhappy
+sorts, into half-dreams, in which she was still aware she was awake; yet
+slumber, heavy-eyed, stirring from the curtains beside her with the small
+night breeze, breathed strange distortions upon familiar things, and
+drowsy impossibilities moved upon the surface of her thoughts.  Her chin,
+resting upon her hand, sank gently, until her head almost lay upon her
+relaxed arms.
+
+"That is mine, Crailey Gray!"
+
+She sprang to her feet, immeasurably startled, one hand clutching the back
+of her chair, the other tremulously pressed to her cheek, convinced that
+her father had stooped over her and shouted the sentence in her ear.  For
+it was his voice, and the house rang with the words; all the rooms, halls,
+and even the walls, seemed still murmurous with the sudden sound, like the
+tingling of a bell after it had been struck.  And yet--everything was
+quiet.
+
+She pressed her fingers to her forehead, trying to untangle the maze of
+dreams which had evolved this shock for her, the sudden clamor in her
+father's voice of a name she hated and hoped never to hear again, a name
+she was trying to forget.  But as she was unable to trace anything which
+had led to it, there remained only the conclusion that her nerves were not
+what they should be.  The vapors having become obsolete for young ladies
+as an explanation for all unpleasant sensations, they were instructed to
+have "nerves."  This was Miss Betty's first consciousness of her own, and,
+desiring no greater acquaintance with them, she told herself it was
+unwholesome to fall asleep in a chair by an open window when the night was
+as sad as she.
+
+Turning to a chair in front of the small oval mirror of her bureau, she
+unclasped the brooch. which held her lace collar, and, seating herself,
+began to unfasten her hair.  Suddenly she paused, her uplifted arms
+falling mechanically to her sides.
+
+Someone was coming through the long hall with a soft, almost inaudible
+step, a step which was not her father's.  She knew at once, with
+instinctive certainty, that it was not he.  Nor was it Nelson, who would
+have shuffled; nor could it be the vain Mamie, nor one of the other
+servants, for they did not sleep in the house.  It was a step more like a
+woman's, though certainly it was not Mrs. Tanberry's.
+
+Betty rose, took a candle, and stood silent for a moment, the heavy
+tresses of her hair, half-unloosed, falling upon her neck and left
+shoulder like the folds of a dark drapery.
+
+At the slight rustle of her rising, the steps ceased instantly. Her heart
+set up a wild beating and the candle shook in her hand.  But she was brave
+and young, and, following an irresistible impulse, she ran across the
+room, flung open the door, and threw the light of the candle into the
+hall, holding it at arm's length before her.
+
+She came almost face to face with Crailey Gray.
+
+The blood went from his cheeks as a swallow flies down from a roof; he
+started back against the opposite wall with a stifled groan, while she
+stared at him blankly, and grew as deathly pale as he.
+
+He was a man of great resource in all emergencies which required a quick
+tongue, but, for the moment, this was beyond him.  He felt himself lost,
+toppling backward into an abyss, and the uselessness of his destruction
+made him physically sick.  For he need not have been there; he had not
+wished to come; he had well counted the danger to himself, and this one
+time in his life had gone to the cupola-room out of good-nature.  But
+Bareaud had been obstinate and Crailey had come away alone, hoping that
+Jefferson might follow.  And here he was, poor trapped rat, convicted and
+ruined because of a good action!  At last he knew consistency to be a
+jewel, and that a greedy boy should never give a crust; that a fool should
+stick to his folly, a villain to his deviltry, and each hold his own; for
+the man who thrusts a good deed into a life of lies is wound about with
+perilous passes, and in his devious ways a thousand unexpected damnations
+spring.
+
+Beaten, stunned, hang-jawed with despair, he returned her long, dumfounded
+gaze hopelessly and told the truth like an inspired dunce.
+
+"I came--I came--to bring another man away," he whispered brokenly; and,
+at the very moment, several heavy, half-suppressed voices broke into eager
+talk overhead.
+
+The white hand that held the candle wavered, and the shadows glided in a
+huge, grotesque dance.  Twice she essayed to speak before she could do so,
+at the same moment motioning him back, for he had made a vague gesture
+toward her.
+
+"I am not faint.  Do you mean, away from up there?"  She pointed to the
+cupola-stairs.
+
+" Yes."
+
+"Have-have you seen my father?"
+
+The question came out of such a depth of incredulousness that it was more
+an articulation of the lips than a sound, but he caught it; and, with it
+not hope, but the shadow of a shadow of hope, a hand waving from the far
+shore to the swimmer who has been down twice.  Did she fear for his sake?
+
+"No--I have not seen him." He was groping blindly.
+
+"You did not come from that "
+
+"How did you enter the house?"
+
+The draught through the hall was blowing upon him; the double doors upon
+the veranda had been left open for coolness.  "There," he said, pointing
+to them.
+
+"But--I heard you come from the other direction."
+
+He was breathing quickly; he saw his chance-- if Jefferson Bareaud did not
+come now.
+
+"You did not hear me come down the stairs."  He leaned toward her, risking
+it all on that.
+
+"Ah!"  A sigh too like a gasp burst from Crailey.  His head lifted a
+little, and his eyes were luminous with an eagerness that was almost
+anguish.  He set his utmost will at work to collect himself and to think
+hard and fast.
+
+"I came here resolved to take a man away, come what would!" he said.  "I
+found the door open, went to the foot of that stairway; then I stopped. I
+remembered something; I turned, and was going away when you opened the
+door."
+
+"You remembered what?"
+
+Her strained attitude did not relax, nor, to his utmost scrutiny, was the
+complete astonishment of her distended gaze altered one whit, but a hint
+of her accustomed high color was again upon her cheek and her lip trembled
+a little, like that of a child about to weep.  The flicker of hope in his
+breast increased prodigiously, and the rush of it took the breath from his
+throat and choked him.  Good God! was she going to believe him?
+
+"I remembered--you!"
+
+"What?" she said, wonderingly.
+
+Art returned with a splendid bound, full-pinioned, his beautiful and
+treacherous Familiar who had deserted him at the crucial instant; but she
+made up for it now, folding him in protective wings and breathing through
+his spirit.  In rapid and vehement whispers he poured out the words upon
+the girl in the doorway.
+
+"I have a friend, and I would lay down my life to make him what he could
+be.  He has always thrown everything away, his life, his talents, all his
+money and all of mine, for the sake of--throwing them away!  Some other
+must tell you about that room; but it has ruined my friend.  Tonight I
+discovered that he had been summoned here, and I made up my mind to come
+and take him away.  Your father has sworn to shoot me if I set foot in his
+house or on ground of his.  Well, my duty was clear and I came to do it.
+And yet--I stopped at the foot of the stair--because--because I remembered
+that you were Robert Carewe's daughter.  What of you, if I went up and
+harm came to me from your father?  For I swear I would not have touched
+him!  You asked me not to speak of `personal' things, and I have obeyed
+you; but you see I must tell you one thing now: I have cared for this
+friend of mine more than for all else under heaven, but I turned and left
+him to his ruin, and would a thousand times, rather than bring trouble
+upon you!  `A thousand times?'  Ah!  I swear it should be a thousand times
+a thousand!"
+
+He had paraded in one speech from the prisoner's dock to Capulet's garden,
+and her eyes were shining into his like a great light when he finished.
+
+"Go quickly," she whispered.  "Go quickly! Go quickly!"
+
+"But do you understand?"
+
+"Not yet, but I shall.  Will you go?  They might come-my father might
+come-at any moment."
+
+"But---"
+
+"Do you want to drive me quite mad?  Please go!"  She laid a trembling,
+urgent hand upon his sleeve.
+
+"Never, until you tell me that you understand," replied Crailey firmly,
+listening keenly for the slightest sound from overhead.  "Never--until
+then!"
+
+"When I do I shall tell you; now I only know that you must go."
+
+"But tell me- "
+
+"You must go!"
+
+There was a shuffling of chairs on the floor overhead, and Crailey went.
+He went even more hastily than might have been expected from the adaman-
+tine attitude he had just previously assumed.  Realizing this as he
+reached the wet path, he risked stealing round to her window:
+
+"For your sake! "he breathed; and having thus forestalled any trifling
+imperfection which might arise in her recollection of his exit from the
+house, he disappeared, kissing his hand to the rain as he ran down the
+street.
+
+Miss Betty locked her door and pulled close the curtains of her window.  A
+numerous but careful sound of footsteps came from the hall, went by her
+door and out across the veranda.  Silently she waited until she heard her
+father go alone to his room.
+
+She took the candle and went in to Mrs. Tanberry.  She set the light upon
+a table, pulled a chair close to the bedside, and placed her cool hand
+lightly on the great lady's forehead.
+
+"Isn't it very late, child?  Why are you not asleep?"
+
+"Mrs. Tanberry, I want to know why there was a light in the cupola-room
+tonight?"
+
+"What?"  Mrs. Tanberry rolled herself as upright as possible, and sat with
+blinking eyes.
+
+"I want to know what I am sure you know, and what I am sure everybody
+knows, except me.  What were they doing there tonight, and what was the
+quarrel between Mr. Vanrevel and my father that had to do with Mr. Gray?"
+
+Mrs. Tanberry gazed earnestly into the girl's face.  After a long time she
+said in a gentle voice:
+
+"Child, has it come to matter that much?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Betty.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Tocsin
+
+Tom Vanrevel always went to the post-office soon after the morning
+distribution of the mail; that is to say, about ten o'clock, and returned
+with the letters for the firm of Gray and Vanrevel, both personal and
+official.  Crailey and he shared everything, even a box at the post-
+office; and in front of this box, one morning, after a night of rain, Tom
+stood staring at a white envelope bearing a small, black seal.  The
+address was in a writing he had never seen before, but the instant it fell
+under his eye he was struck with a distinctly pleasurable excitement.
+
+Whether through some spiritual exhalation of the writer fragrant on any
+missive, or because of a hundred microscopic impressions, there are
+analysts who are able to select, from a pile of letters written by women
+(for the writing of women exhibits certain phenomena more determinably
+than that of men) those of the prettiest or otherwise most attractive.
+And out upon the lover who does not recognize his mistress's hand at the
+first glimpse ever he has of it, without post-mark or other information to
+aid him!  Thus Vanrevel, worn, hollow-eyed, and sallow, in the Rouen post-
+office, held the one letter separate from a dozen (the latter not, indeed,
+from women), and stared at it until a little color came back to his dark
+skin and a great deal of brightness to his eye.  He was no analyst of
+handwritings, yet it came to him instantly that this note was from a
+pretty woman.  To see that it was from a woman was simple, but that he
+knew--and he did know--that she was pretty, savors of the occult.  More
+than this: there was something about it that thrilled him.  Suddenly, and
+without reason, he knew that it came from Elizabeth Carewe.
+
+He walked back quickly to his office with the letter in the left pocket of
+his coat, threw the bundle of general correspondence upon his desk, went
+up to the floor above, and paused at his own door to listen.  Deep
+breathing from across the hall indicated that Mr. Gray's soul was still
+encased in slumber, and great was its need, as Tom had found his partner,
+that morning at five, stretched upon the horsehair sofa in the office,
+lamenting the emptiness of a bottle which had been filled with fiery
+Bourbon in the afternoon.
+
+Vanrevel went to his own room, locked the door, and took the letter from
+his pocket.  He held it between his fingers carefully, as though it were
+alive and very fragile, and he looked at it a long time, holding it first
+in one hand, then in the other, before he opened it.  At last, however,
+after examining all the blades of his pocketknife, he selected one
+brighter than the others, and loosened the flap of the envelope as gently
+and carefully as if it had been the petal of a rose-bud that he was
+opening.
+
+
+"Dear Mr. Vanrevel:
+"I believed you last night, though I did not understand.  But I
+understand, now--everything--and, bitter to me as the truth is, I must
+show you plainly that I know all of it, nor can I rest until I do show
+you.  I want you to answer this letter--though I must not see you again
+for a long time--and in your answer you must set me right if I am anywhere
+mistaken in what I have learned.
+
+"At first, and until after the second time we met, I did not believe in
+your heart, though I did in your mind and humor.  Even since then, there
+have come strange, small, inexplicable mistrustings of you, but now I
+throw them all away and trust you wholly, Monsieur Citizen Georges
+Meilbac!--I shall always think of you in those impossible garnishments of
+my poor great-uncle, and I persuade myself that he must have been a little
+like you.
+
+"I trust you because I have heard the story of your profound goodness.
+The first reason for my father's dislike was your belief in freedom as the
+right of all men.  Ah, it is not your pretty exaggerations and flatteries
+(I laugh at them!) that speak for you, but your career, itself, and the
+brave things you have done.  My father's dislike flared into hatred
+because you worsted him when he discovered that he could not successfully
+defend the wrong against you and fell back upon sheer insult.
+
+"He is a man whom I do not know--strange as that seems as I write it.  It
+is only to you, who have taught me so much, that I could write it.  I have
+tried to know him and to realize that I am his daughter, but we are the
+coldest acquaintances, that is all; and I cannot see how a change could
+come.  I do not understand him; least of all do I understand why he is a
+gambler.  It has been explained to me that it is his great passion, but
+all I comprehend in these words is that they are full of shame for his
+daughter.
+
+"This is what was told me:  he has always played heavily and skillfully--
+adding much to his estate in that way--and in Rouen always with a certain
+coterie, which was joined, several years ago, by the man you came to save
+last night.
+
+"Your devotion to Mr. Gray has been the most beautiful thing in your life.
+I know all that the town knows of that, except the thousand hidden
+sacrifices you have made for him, those things which no one will ever
+know.  (And yet, you see, I know them after all!) For your sake, because
+you love him, I will not even call him unworthy.
+
+"I have heard--from one who told unwillingly--the story of the night two
+years ago, when the play ran so terribly high; and how, in the morning
+when they went away, all were poorer except one, their host!--how Mr. Gray
+had nothing left in the world, and owed my father a great sum which was to
+be paid in twenty-four hours; how you took everything you had saved in the
+years of hard work at your profession, and borrowed the rest on your word,
+and brought it to my father that afternoon; how, when you had paid your
+friend's debt, you asked my father not to play with Mr. Gray again; and my
+father made that his excuse to send you a challenge.  You laughed at the
+challenge--and you could afford to laugh at it.
+
+"But this is all shame, shame for Robert Carewe's daughter.  It seems to
+me that I should hide and not lift my head; that I, being of my father's
+blood, could never look you in the face again.  It is so unspeakably
+painful and ugly.  I think of my father's stiff pride and his look of the
+eagle, --and he still plays with your friend, almost always
+`successfully!' And your friend still comes to play!--but I will not speak
+of that side of it
+
+"Mr. Gray has made you poor, but I know it was not that which made you
+come seeking him last night, when I found you there in the hail.  It was
+for his sake you came--and you went away for mine.  Now that I know, at
+last--now that I have heard what your life has been (and oh I heard so
+much more than I have written!)--now that my eyes have been opened to see
+you as you are, I am proud, and glad and humble that I can believe that
+you felt a friendship for me strong enough to have made you go `for my
+sake.'  You will write to me just once, won't you? and tell me if there
+was any error in what I listened to; but you must not come to the garden.
+Now that I know you, I cannot meet you clandestinely again.  It would hurt
+the dignity which I feel in you now, and my own poor dignity--such as it
+is!  I have been earnestly warned of the danger to you.  Besides, you must
+let me test myself.  I am all fluttering and frightened and excited.  You
+will obey me, won't you ?--do not come until I send for you.
+Elizabeth Carewe."
+
+Mr. Gray, occupied with his toilet about noon, heard his partner
+descending to the office with a heavy step, and issued from his room to
+call a hearty greeting.  Tom looked back over his shoulder and replied
+cheerily, though with a certain embarrassment; but Crailey, catching sight
+of his face, uttered a sharp ejaculation and came down to him.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Tom?  You're not going to be sick?  You look like
+the devil and all!"
+
+"I'm all right, never fear!"  Tom laughed, evading the other's eye.  "I'm
+going out in the country on some business, and I dare say I shall not be
+back for a couple of days; it will be all up and down the county."  He set
+down a travelling-bag he was carrying, and offered the other his hand.
+"Good-by."
+
+"Can't I go for you?  You don't look able "
+
+"No, no. It's something I'll have to attend to myself."
+
+"Ah, I suppose," said Crailey, gently, "I suppose it's important, and you
+couldn't trust me to handle it.  Well--God knows you're right!  I've shown
+you often enough how incompetent I am to do anything but write jingles!"
+
+"You do some more of them--without the whiskey, Crailey.  They're worth
+more than all the lawing Gray and Vanrevel have ever done or ever will do.
+Good-by---and be kind to yourself."
+
+He descended to the first landing, and then, "Oh, Crailey," he called,
+with the air of having forgotten something he had meant to say.
+
+"Yes, Tom?"
+
+"This morning at the post-office  I found a letter addressed to me.  I
+opened it and--"  He hesitated, and uneasily shifted his weight from one
+foot to the other, with a feeble, deprecatory laugh.
+
+"Yes, what of it?"
+
+"Well--there seemed to be a mistake.  I think it must have been meant for
+you.  Somehow, she--she's picked up a good many wrong impressions, and,
+Lord knows how, but she's mixed our names up and--and I've left the letter
+for you.  It's on my table."
+
+He turned and calling a final good-by over his shoulder, went clattering
+noisily down to the street and vanished from Crailey's sight.
+
+Noon found Tom far out on the National Road, creaking along over the
+yellow dust in a light wagon, between bordering forests that smelt spicily
+of wet underbrush and May-apples; and, here and there, when they would
+emerge from the woods to cleared fields, liberally outlined by long snake-
+fences of black walnut, the steady, jog-trotting old horse lifted his head
+and looked interested in the world, but Tom never did either.  Habitually
+upright, walking or sitting, straight, keen, and alert, that day's sun saw
+him drearily hunched over, mile after mile, his forehead laced with lines
+of pain.  He stopped at every farm-house and cabin, and, where the young
+men worked in the fields, hailed them from the road, or hitched his horse
+to the fence and crossed the soft furrows to talk with them.  At such
+times he stood erect again, and spoke stirringly, finding eager listeners.
+There was one question they asked him over and over:
+
+"But are you sure the call will come?"
+
+"As sure as that we stand here; and it will come before the week is out.
+We must be ready!"
+
+Often, when he left them, they would turn from the work in hand, leaving
+it as it was, to lie unfinished in the fields, and make their way slowly
+and thoughtfully to their homes, while Tom climbed into his creaking
+little wagon once more, only to fall into the same dull, hunched-over
+attitude.  He had many things to think out before he faced Rouen and
+Crailey Gray again, and more to fight through to the end with himself.
+Three days he took for it, three days driving through the soft May weather
+behind the kind, old jog-trotting horse; three days on the road, from
+farm-house to farm-house and from field to field, from cabin of the woods
+to cabin in the clearing.  Tossing unhappily at night, he lay sleepless
+till dawn, though not because of the hard beds; and when daylight came,
+journeyed steadily on again, over the vagabond little hills that had
+gypsied it so far into the prairie-land in their wanderings from their
+range on the Ohio, and, passing the hills, went on through the flat
+forest-land, always hunched over dismally in the creaking wagon.
+
+But on the evening of the third day he drove into town, with the stoop out
+of his shoulders and the lustre back in his eyes.  He was haggard, gray,
+dusty, but he had solved his puzzle, and one thing was clear in his mind
+as the thing that he would do.  He patted the old horse a hearty farewell
+as he left him with the liveryman from whom be had hired him, and strode
+up Main Street with the air of a man who is going somewhere.  It was late,
+but there were more lights than usual in the windows and more people on
+the streets.  Boys ran shouting, while, here and there, knots of men
+argued loudly, and in front of the little corner drug-store a noisily
+talkative, widely gesticulative crowd of fifty or more had gathered.  An
+old man, a cobbler, who had left a leg at Tippecanoe and replaced it with
+a wooden one, chastely decorated with designs of his own carving, came
+stumping excitedly down the middle of the street, where he walked for fear
+of the cracks in the wooden pavement, which were dangerous to his art-leg
+when he came from the Rouen House bar, as on the present occasion.  He
+hailed Tom by name.
+
+"You're the lad, Tom Vanrevel," he shouted.  "You're the man to lead the
+boys out for the glory of the State!  You git the whole blame Fire De-
+partment out and enlist `em before morning!  Take `em down to the Rio
+Grande, you hear me?
+
+And you needn't be afraid of their puttin' it out, if it ketches afire,
+neither!"
+
+Tom waved his hand and passed on; but at the open doors of the Catholic
+Church he stopped and looked up and down the street, and then, unnoticed,
+entered to the dim interior, where the few candles showed only a bent old
+woman in black kneeling at the altar.  Tom knew where Elizabeth Carewe
+knelt each morning; he stepped softly through the shadowy silence to her
+place, knelt, and rested his head upon the rail of the bench before him.
+
+The figure at the altar raised itself after a time, and the old woman
+limped slowly up a side aisle, mumbling her formulas, courtesying to the
+painted saints, on her way out.  The very thinnest lingerings of incense
+hung on the air, seeming to Tom like the faint odor that might exhale from
+a heavy wreath of marguerites, worn in dark-brown hair.  Yet, the place
+held nothing but peace and good-will. And he found nothing else in his own
+heart.  The street was quiet when he emerged from that lorn vigil; the
+corner groups had dissolved; shouting youths no longer patrolled the
+sidewalks.  Only one quarter showed signs of life: the little clubhouse,
+where the windows still shown brightly, and whence came the sound of many
+voices settling the destinies of the United States of America.  Thither
+Tom bent his steps, thoughtfully, and with a quiet mind.  There was a
+small veranda at the side of the house; here he stood unobserved to look
+in upon his noisy and agitated friends.
+
+They were all there, from the old General and Mr. Bareaud, to the latter's
+son, Jefferson, and young Frank Chenoweth.  They were gathered about a big
+table upon which stood a punch-bowl and Trumble, his brow as angry red as
+the liquor in the cup he held, was proposing a health to the President in
+a voice of fury.
+
+"In spite of all the Crailey Grays and traitors this side of hell!" he
+finished politely.
+
+Crailey emerged instantaneously from the general throng and mounted a
+chair, tossing his light hair back from his forehead, his eyes sparkling
+and happy.  "You find your own friends already occupying the place you
+mentioned, do you, General?" he asked.
+
+General Trumble stamped and shook his fist.
+
+"You're a spawn of Aaron Burr!" he vociferated.  "There's not a man here
+to stand by your infernal doctrines.  You sneer at your own State, you
+sneer at your own country, you defile the sacred ground!  What are you, by
+the Almighty, who attack your native land in this, her hour of peril!"
+
+"Peril to my native land!" laughed Crailey.  "From Santa Anna?"
+
+"The General's right, sir," exclaimed the elder Chenoweth indignantly, and
+most of the listeners appeared to agree with him.  "It's a poor time to
+abuse the President when he's called for volunteers and our country is in
+danger, sir!"
+
+"Who is in danger?" answered Crailey, lifting his hand to still the clamor
+of approbation that arose.  "Is Polk in danger?  Or Congress?  But that
+would be too much to hope!  Do you expect to see the Greasers in
+Washington?  No, you idiots, you don't!  Yet there'll be plenty of men to
+suffer and die; and the first should be those who thrust this war on us
+and poor little Mexico; but it won't be they; the men who'll do the
+fighting and dying will be the country boys and the like of us from the
+towns, while Mr. Polk sits planning at the White House how he can get
+elected again.  I wish Tom were here, confound you!  You listen to him
+because he always has the facts and I'm just an embroiderer, you think.
+What's become of the gaudy campaign cry you were all wearing your lungs
+out with a few months ago?  `Fifty-four-forty or fight!'  Bah!  Polk
+twisted the lion's tail with that until after election.  Then he saw he
+had to make you forget it, or fight England and be ruined, so he forces
+war on Mexico, and the country does forget it.  That's it: he asks three
+regiments of volunteers from this State to die of fevers and get shot, so
+that he can steal another country and make his own elect him again.  And
+you ask me to drink the health of the politician who sits at home and
+sends his fellowmen to die to fix his rotten jobs for him?"  Crailey had
+persuaded himself into such earnestness, that the depth of his own feeling
+almost choked him, but he finished roundly in his beautiful, strong voice:
+"I'll drink for the good punch's sake--but that health ?--I'll see General
+Trumble in heaven before I'll drink it!"
+
+There rose at once a roar of anger and disapproval, and Crailey became a
+mere storm centre amid the upraised hands gestulating madly at him as he
+stood, smiling again, upon his chair.
+
+"This comes of living with Tom Vanrevel!" shouted the General furiously.
+"This is his damned Abolition teaching!  You're only his echo; you spend
+half your life playing at being Vanrevel!"
+
+"Where is Vanrevel?" said Tappingham Marsh.
+
+"Ay, where is he!" raged Trumble, hammering the table till the glasses
+rang.  "Let him come and answer for his own teaching; it's wasted time to
+talk to this one; he's only the pupil.  Where is the traitor?"
+
+"Here," answered a voice from the doorway; and though the word was spoken
+quietly it was nevertheless, at that juncture, silencing.  Everyone turned
+toward the door as Vanrevel entered.  But the apoplectic General, whom
+Crailey's speech had stirred to a fury beyond control, almost leaped at
+Tom's thoat.
+
+"Here's the tea-sipping old Granny," he bellowed hoarsely.  (He was
+ordinarily very fond of Tom.) "Here's the master! Here's the man whose
+example teaches Crailey Gray to throw mud at the flag.  He'll stay here at
+home with Crailey, of course, and throw more, while the others boys march
+out to die under it."
+
+"On the contrary,  answered Tom, raising his voice, "I think you'll find
+Crailey Gray the first to enlist, and as for myself, I've raised sixty men
+in the country, and I want forty more from Rouen, in order to offer the
+Governor a full company.  So it's come to `the King, not the man'; Polk is
+a pitiful trickster, but the country needs her sons; that's enough for us
+to know; and while I won't drink to James Polk "--he plunged a cup in the
+bowl and drew it out brimming-- "I'll empty this to the President!"
+
+It was then that from fifty throats the long, wild shout went up that
+stirred Rouen, and woke the people from their midnight beds for half a
+mile around.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The Firm of Gray and Vanrevel
+
+For the first time it was Crailey who sat waiting for Tom to come home.
+In a chair drawn to his partner's desk in the dusty office, he half-
+reclined, arms on the desk, his chin on his clenched fists.  To redeem the
+gloom he had lit a single candle, which painted him dimly against the
+complete darkness of his own shadow, like a very old portrait whose
+background time has solidified into shapeless browns; the portrait of a
+fair-haired gentleman, the cavalier, or the Marquis, one might have said
+at first glance; not describing it immediately as that of a poet, for
+there was no mark of art upon Crailey, not even in his hair, for they all
+wore it rather long then.  Yet there was a mark upon him, never more vivid
+than as he sat waiting in the loneliness of that night for Tom Vanrevel;
+though what the mark was and what its significance might have been
+puzzling to define.  Perhaps, after all, Fanchon Bareaud had described it
+best when she told Crailey one day, with a sudden hint of apprehensive
+tears, that he had a "look of fate."
+
+Tom took his own time in coming; he had stayed at the club to go over his
+lists--so he had told Crailey--with the General and old Bareaud.  His
+company was almost complete, and Crailey had been the first to volunteer,
+to the dumfounding of Trumble, who had proceeded to drink his health again
+and again.  But the lists could not detain Tom two hours, Crailey knew,
+and it was two hours since the new volunteers had sung "The Star Spangled
+Banner" over the last of the punch, and had left the club to Tom and the
+two old men.  Only once or twice in that time had Crailey shifted his
+position, or altered the direction of his set gaze at nothing.  But at
+last he rose, went to the window and, leaning far out, looked down the
+street toward the little clubhouse.  Its lights were extinguished and all
+was dark up and down the street. Abruptly Crailey went back to the desk
+and blew out the candle, after which he sat down again in the same
+position.  Twenty minutes later he heard Tom's step on the stair, coming
+up very softly.  Crailey waited in silence until his partner reached the
+landing, then relit the candle.
+
+"Tom," he called.  "Come in, please, I've been waiting for you."
+
+There was a pause before Tom answered from the hall:
+
+"I'm very tired, Crailey.  I think I'll go up to bed."
+
+"No," said Crailey, "come in."
+
+The door was already open, but Tom turned toward it reluctantly.  He
+stopped at the threshold and the two looked at each other.
+
+"I thought you wouldn't come as long as you believed I was up," said
+Crailey, " so I blew out the light.  I'm sorry I kept you outside so long."
+
+"Crailey, I'm going away to-morrow," the other began.  "I am to go over
+and see the Governor and offer him this company, and to-night I need
+sleep, so please-
+
+"No," interrupted Crailey quietly, "I want to know what you're going to
+do."
+
+"To do about what?"
+
+"About me."
+
+"Oh!" Tom's eyes fell at once from his friend's face and rested upon the
+floor.  Slowly he walked to the desk and stood in embarrassed
+contemplation of the littered books and papers, while the other waited.
+
+"I think it's best for you to tell me," said Crailey.
+
+"You think so?"  Tom's embarrassment increased visibly, and there was
+mingled with it an odd appearance of apprehension, probably to relieve
+which he very deliberately took two long cheroots from his pocket, laid
+one on the desk for Crailey and lit the other himself, with extreme
+carefulness, at the candle.  After this ceremonial he dragged a chair to
+the window, tilted back in it with his feet on the low sill, his back to
+the thin light and his friend, and said in a slow, gentle  tone:
+"Well, Crailey?"
+
+"I suppose you mean that I ought to offer my explanation first," said the
+other, still standing.  "Well, there isn't any."  He did not speak dog-
+gedly or sullenly, as one in fault, but more with the air of a man
+curiously ready to throw all possible light upon a cloudy phenomenon.
+"It's very simple--all that I know about it.  I went there first on the
+evening of the Madrillon masquerade and played a little comedy for her, so
+that some of my theatrical allusions--they weren't very illuminating!--to
+my engagement to Fanchon, made her believe I was Vanrevel when her father
+told her about the pair of us.  I discovered that the night his warehouses
+burned--and I saw something more, because I can't help seeing such things:
+that yours was just the character to appeal to a young girl fresh from the
+convent and full of honesty and fine dreams and fire.  Nobody could
+arrange a more fatal fascination for a girl of nineteen than to have a
+deadly quarrel with her father.  And that's especially true when the
+father's like that mad brute of a Bob Carewe!  Then, too, you're more or
+less the town model of virtue and popular hero, in spite of the
+Abolitionism, just as I am the town scamp.  So I let it go on, and played
+a little at being you, saying the things that you only think--that was
+all.  It isn't strange that it's lasted until now, not more than three
+weeks, after all.  She's only seen you four or five times, and me not much
+oftener.  No one speaks of you to her, and I've kept out of sight when
+others were about.  Mrs. Tanberry is her only close friend, and,
+naturally, wouldn't be apt to mention that you are dark and I am fair, or
+to describe us personally, any more than you and I would mention the
+general appearance of people we both meet about town.  But you needn't
+tell me that it can't last much longer.  Some petty, unexpected trifle
+will turn up, of course.  All that I want to know is what you mean to do."
+
+"To do?" repeated Tom softly, and blew a long scarf of smoke out of the
+window.
+
+"Ah!"  Crailey's voice grew sharp and loud.  "There are many things you
+needn't tell me!  You need not tell me what I've done to you--nor what you
+think of me!  You need not tell me that you have others to consider, that
+you have Miss Carewe to think of.  Don't you suppose I know that?  And you
+need not tell me that you have a duty to Fanchon--"
+
+"Yes," Tom broke in, his tone not quite steady.  "Yes, I've thought of
+that."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Have you--did you--" he hesitated, but Crailey understood immediately.
+
+"No; I haven't seen her again."
+
+"But you--"
+
+"Yes--I wrote.  I answered the letter."
+
+"As-"
+
+"Yes; I signed your name.  I told you that I had just let things go on,"
+Crailey answered, with an impatient movement of his hands.  "What are you
+going to do?"
+
+"I'm going over to see the Governor in the morning.  I'll be away two or
+three days, I imagine."
+
+"Vanrevel!" exclaimed Crailey hotly, "Will you give me an answer and not
+beat about the bush any longer?  Or do you mean that you refuse to
+answer?"
+
+Tom dropped his cigar upon the brick window-ledge with an abysmal sigh.
+"Oh, no, it isn't that," he answered mildly   "I've been thinking it all
+over for three days in the country, and when I got back tonight I found
+that I had come to a decision without knowing it, and that I had come to
+it even before I started; my leaving the letter for you proved it.  It's a
+little like this Mexican war, a mixed-up problem and only one thing clear.
+A few schemers have led the country into it to increase the slave-power
+and make us forget that we threatened England when we couldn't carry out
+the threat.  And yet, if you look at it broadly, these are the smaller
+things and they do not last.  The means by which the country grows may be
+wrong, but its growth is right; it is only destiny, working out through
+lies and blood, but the end will be good.  It is bound to happen and you
+can't stop it.  I believe the men who make this war for their own uses
+will suffer in hell-fire for it; but it is made, and there's only one
+thing I can see as the thing for me to do.  They've called me every name
+on earth--and the same with you, too, Crailey--because I'm an
+Abolitionist, but now, whether the country has sinned or not, a good many
+thousand men have got to do the bleeding for her, and I want to be one of
+them.  That's the one thing that is plain to me."
+
+"Yes," returned Crailey.  "You know I'm with you; and I think you're
+always right.  Yes; we'll all be on the way in a fortnight or so.  Do you
+mean you won't quarrel with me because of that?  Do you mean it would be a
+poor time now, when we're all going out to take our chances together?"
+
+"Quarrel with you!"  Tom rose and came to the desk, looking across it at
+his friend. "Did you think I might do that?"
+
+"Yes--I thought so."
+
+"Crailey!"  And now Tom's expression showed desperation; it was that of a
+man whose apprehensions have culminated and who is forced to face a crisis
+long expected, long averted, but imminent at last.  His eyes fell from
+Crailey's clear gaze and his hand fidgeted among the papers on the desk.
+
+"No," he began with a painful lameness and hesitation.  "I did not mean
+it--no; I meant, that, in the same way, only one thing in this other--this
+other affair that seems so confused and is such a problem--only one thing
+has grown clear.  It doesn't seem to me that--that--" here he drew a deep
+breath, before he went on with increasing nervousness--" that if you like
+a man and have lived with him a good many years; that is to say, if you're
+really much of a friend to him, I don't believe you sit on a high seat and
+judge him.  Judging, and all that, haven't much part in it.  And it seems
+to me that you've got yourself into a pretty bad mix-up, Crailey."
+
+"Yes," said Crailey. "It's pretty bad."
+
+"Well," Tom looked up now, with an almost tremulous smile, "I believe that
+is about all I can make of it.  Do you think it's the part of your best
+friend to expose you?  It seems to me that if there ever was a time when I
+ought to stand by you, it's now."
+
+There was a silence while they looked at each other across the desk in the
+faint light.  Tom's eye fell again as Crailey opened his lips.
+
+ "And in spite of everything," Crailey said breathlessly, "you mean that
+you won't tell?"
+
+"How could I, Crailey?" said Tom Vanrevel as be turned away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+When June Came
+
+"Methought I met a Damsel Fair
+And tears were in her eyes;
+Her head and arms were bare,
+I heard her bursting sighs.
+
+"I stopp'd and looked her in the face,
+`Twas then she sweetly smiled.
+Her features shone with mournful grace,
+Far more than Nature's child.
+
+"With diffident and downcast eye,
+In modest tones she spoke;
+She wiped a tear and gave a sigh,
+And then her silence broke--"
+
+So sang Mrs. Tanberry at the piano, relieving the melancholy which
+possessed her; but Nelson, pausing in the hail to listen, and exceedingly
+curious concerning the promised utterance of the Damsel Fair, was to
+suffer disappointment, as the ballad was broken off abruptly and the
+songstress closed the piano with a monstrous clatter.  Little doubt may be
+entertained that the noise was designed to disturb Mr. Carewe, who sat
+upon the veranda consulting a brown Principe, and less that the intended
+insult was accomplished.  For an expression of a vindictive nature was
+precipitated in that quarter so simultaneously that the bang of the piano-
+lid and the curse were even as the report of a musket and the immediate
+cry of the wounded.
+
+Mrs. Tanberry at once debouched upon the piazza, showing a vast, clouded
+countenance.  "And I hope to heaven you already had a headache!" she
+exclaimed.
+
+"The courtesy of your wish, madam," Carewe replied, with an angry flash of
+his eye, "is only equaled by the kindness of heaven in answering it.  I
+have, in fact, a headache. I always have, nowadays."
+
+"That's good news," returned the lady heartily.
+
+"I thank you," retorted her host.
+
+"Perhaps if you treated your daughter even a decent Indian's kind of
+politeness, you'd enjoy better health."
+
+"Ah! And in what failure to perform my duty toward her have I incurred
+your displeasure?"
+
+"Where is she now?" exclaimed the other excitably.  "Where is she now?"
+
+"I cannot say."
+
+"Yes, you can, Robert Carewe!" Mrs. Tanberry retorted, with a wrathful
+gesture.  "You know well enough she's in her own room, and so do I--for I
+tried to get in to comfort her when I heard her crying.  She's in there
+with the door bolted, where you drove her!"
+
+"I drove her!" he sneered.
+
+"Yes, you did, and I heard you. Do you think I couldn't hear you raging
+and storming at her like a crazy man?  When you get in a temper do you
+dream there's a soul in the neighborhood who doesn't know it?  You're a
+fool if you do, because they could have heard you swearing down on Main
+Street, if they'd listened.  What are you trying to do to her?--break her
+spirit?--or what?  Because you'll do it, or kill her.  I never heard
+anybody cry so heart-brokenly."  Here the good woman's own eyes filled.
+"What's the use of pretending?" she went on sorrowfully.  "You haven't
+spoken to her kindly since you came home.  Do you suppose I'm blind to
+that?  You weren't a bad husband to the poor child's mother; why can't you
+be a good father to her?"
+
+"Perhaps you might begin by asking her to be a good daughter to me."
+
+"What has she done?"
+
+"The night before I went away she ran to a fire and behaved there like a
+common street hoyden.  The ladies of the Carewe family have not formerly
+acquired a notoriety of that kind."
+
+"Bah!" said Mrs. Tanberry.
+
+"The next morning, when I taxed her with it, she dutifully defied and
+insulted me."
+
+"I can imagine the delicacy with which you `taxed' her.  What has that to
+do with your devilish tantrums of this afternoon, Robert Carewe?"
+
+"I am obliged to you for the expression," he returned.  "When I came home,
+this afternoon, I found her reading that thing."  He pointed to many very
+small fragments of Mr. Cummings's newspaper, which were scattered about
+the lawn near the veranda.  "She was out here, reading an article which I
+had read downtown and which appeared in a special edition of that rotten
+sheet, sent out two hours ago."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Do you know what that article was, madam, do you know what it was?"
+Although breathing heavily, Mr. Carewe had compelled himself to a certain
+outward calmness, but now, in the uncontrollable agitation of his anger,
+he sprang to his feet and struck one of the wooden pillars of the porch a
+shocking blow with the bare knuckles of his clenched hand.  "Do you know
+what it was?  It was a eulogy of that damned Vanrevel!  It pretended to be
+an account of the enrollment of his infernal company, but it was nothing
+more than a glorification of that nigger-loving hound!  His company--a lot
+of sneaks, who'll run like sheep from the first Greaser--elected him
+captain yesterday, and today he received an appointment as major!  It
+dries the blood in my veins to think of it!--that black dog a major!  Good
+God! am I never to hear the last of him?  Cummings wrote it, the fool, the
+lying, fawning, slobbering fool; he ought to be shot for it!  Neither he
+nor his paper ever enter my doors again!  And I took the dirty sheet from
+her hands and tore it to pieces--"
+
+"Yes," interposed Mrs. Tanberry, "it looks as if you had done it with your
+teeth."
+
+"--And stamped it into the ground!"
+
+"Oh, I heard you!" she said.
+
+Carewe came close to her, and gave her a long look from such bitter eyes
+that her own fell before them.  "If you've been treacherous to me, Jane
+Tanberry," he said, "then God punish you!  If they've met--my daughter and
+that man--while I was away, it is on your head. I don't ask you, because I
+believe if you knew anything you'd lie for her sake.  But I tell you that
+as she read that paper, she did not hear my step on the walk nor know that
+I was there until I leaned over her shoulder.  And I swear that I suspect
+her."
+
+He turned and walked to the door, while the indomitable Mrs. Tanberry,
+silenced for once, sank into the chair he had vacated.  Before he disap-
+peared within the house, he paused.
+
+"If Mr. Vanrevel has met my daughter," he said, in a thick voice,
+stretching out both hands in a strange, menacing gesture toward the town
+that lay darkling in the growing dusk, "if he has addressed one word to
+her, or so much as allowed his eyes to rest on her overlong, let him take
+care of himself!"
+
+"Oh, Robert, Robert," Mrs. Tanberry cried, in a frightened whisper to
+herself, "all the fun and brightness went out of the world when you came
+home!"
+
+For, in truth, the gayety and light-heartedness which, during the great
+lady's too brief reign, had seemed a vital adjunct of the house to make
+the place resound with music and laughter, were now departed.  No more did
+Mrs. Tanberry extemporize Dan Tuckers, mazourkas, or quadrilles in the
+ball-room, nor Blind-Man's Buff in the library; no more did serenaders
+nightly seek the garden with instrumental plunkings and vocal gifts of
+harmony.  Even the green bronze boy of the fountain seemed to share the
+timidity of the other youths of the town where Mr. Carewe was concerned,
+for the goblet he held aloft no longer sent a lively stream leaping into
+the sunshine in translucent gambols, but dribbled and dripped upon him
+like a morbid autumn rain.  The depression of the place was like a drape
+of mourning purple; but not that house alone lay glum, and there were
+other reasons than the return of Robert Carewe why Rouen had lost the joy
+and mirth that belonged to it.  Nay, the merry town had changed beyond all
+credence; it was hushed like a sick-room, and dolefully murmurous with
+forebodings of farewell and sorrow.
+
+For all the very flower of Rouen's youth had promised to follow Tom
+Vanrevel on the long and arduous journey to Mexico, to march burning miles
+under the tropical sun, to face strange fevers and the guns of Santa Anna.
+
+Few were the houses of the more pretentious sort that did not mourn, in
+prospect, the going of son, or brother, or close friend; mothers already
+wept not in secret, fathers talked with husky bravado; and everyone was
+very kind to those who were to go, speaking to them gently and bringing
+them little foolish presents.  Nor could the hearts of girls now longer
+mask as blocks of ice to the prospective conquistadores; Eugene
+Madrillon's young brother, Jean, after a two years' Beatrice-and-Benedict
+wooing of Trixie Chenoweth (that notable spitfire) announced his
+engagement upon the day after his enlistment, and recounted to all who
+would listen how his termagant fell upon his neck in tears when she heard
+the news.  "And now she cries about me all the time," finished the frank
+Jean blithely.
+
+But there was little spirit for the old merriments: there were no more
+carpet-dances at the Bareauds', no masquerades at the Madrillons', no
+picnics in the woods nor excursions on the river; and no more did light
+feet bear light hearts through the "mazes of the intricate schottische,
+the subtle mazourka, or the stately quadrille," as Will Cummings remarked
+in the Journal.  Fanchon, Virginia, and five or six others, spent their
+afternoons mournfully, and yet proudly, sewing and cutting large pieces of
+colored silk, fashioning a great flag for their sweethearts and brothers
+to bear southward and plant where stood the palace of the Montezumas.
+
+That was sad work for Fanchon, though it was not for her brother's sake
+that she wept, since, as everyone knew, Jefferson was already so full of
+malaria and quinine that the fevers of the South and Mexico must find him
+invulnerable, and even his mother believed he would only thrive and grow
+hearty on his soldiering.  But about Crailey, Fanchon had a presentiment
+more vivid than any born of the natural fears for his safety; it came to
+her again and again, reappearing in her dreams; she shivered and started
+often as she worked on the flag, then bent her fair head low over the gay
+silks, while the others glanced at her sympathetically.  She had come to
+feel quite sure that Crailey was to be shot.
+
+"But I've dreamed it--dreamed it six!" she cried, when he laughed, at her
+and tried to cheer her.  "And it comes to me in the day-time as though I
+saw it with my eyes: the picture of you in an officer's uniform, lying on
+the fresh, green grass, and a red stain just below the throat."
+
+"That shows what dreams are made of, dear lady," he smiled. "We'll find
+little green grass in Mexico, and I'm only a corporal; so where's the
+officer's uniform?"
+
+Then Fanchon wept the more, and put her arms about him, while it seemed to
+her that she must cling to him so forever and thus withhold him from
+fulfilling her vision, and that the gentle pressure of her arms must
+somehow preserve him to life and to her.  "Ah, you can't go, darling," she
+sobbed, while he petted her and tried to soothe her.  "You can't leave me!
+You belong to me!  They can't, can't, can't take you away from me!"
+
+And when the flag was completed, save for sewing the stars upon the blue
+ground, she took it away from the others and insisted upon finishing the
+work herself.  To her own room she carried it, and each of the white stars
+that the young men of Rouen were to follow in the struggle that would add
+so many others to the constellation, was jewelled with her tears and
+kissed by her lips as it took its place with its brothers.  Never were
+neater stitches taken, for, with every atom of her body yearning to
+receive the shot that was destined for Crailey, this quiet sewing was all
+that she could do!  She would have followed him, to hold a parasol over
+him under the dangerous sun, to cook his meals properly, to watch over him
+with medicines and blankets and a fan; she would have followed barefoot
+and bareheaded, and yet, her heart breaking with the crucial yearning to
+mother him and protect him, this was all that she could for him, this
+small stitching at the flag he had promised to follow.
+
+When the work was quite finished, she went all over it again with double
+thread, not facing the superstition of her motive, which was to safeguard
+her lover: the bullet that was destined for Crailey might, in the myriad
+chances, strike the flag first and be deflected, though never so slightly,
+by one of these last stitches, and Crailey's heart thus missed by the same
+margin.  It was at this juncture, when the weeping of women was plentiful,
+when old men pulled long faces, and the very urchins of the street
+observed periods of gravity and even silence, that a notion entered the
+head of Mrs. Tanberry--young Janie Tanberry--to the effect that such
+things were all wrong.  She declared energetically that this was no decent
+fashion of farewell; that after the soldiers went away there would be time
+enough to enact the girls they had left behind them; and that, until then,
+the town should be made enlivening.  So she went about preaching a revival
+of cheerfulness, waving her jewelled hand merrily from the Carewe carriage
+to the volunteers she saw upon the street, calling out to them with
+laughter and inspiring quip; everywhere scolding the mourners viciously in
+her husky voice, and leaving so much of heartening vivacity in her wake
+that none could fail to be convinced that she was a wise woman.
+
+Nor was her vigor spent in vain.  It was decided that a ball should be
+given to the volunteers of Rouen two nights before their departure for the
+State rendezvous, and it should be made the noblest festival in Rouen's
+history; the subscribers took their oath to it.  They rented the big
+dining-room at the Rouen House, covered the floor with smooth cloth, and
+hung the walls solidly with banners and roses, for June had come.  More,
+they ran a red carpet across the sidewalk (which was perfectly dry and
+clean) almost to the other side of the street; they imported two extra
+fiddles and a clarionet to enlarge the orchestra; and they commanded a
+supper such as a hungry man beholds in a dream.
+
+Miss Betty laid out her prettiest dress that evening, and Mrs. Tanberry
+came in and worshipped it as it rested, like foam of lavender and white
+and gray, upon the bed, beside the snowy gloves with their tiny, stiff
+lace gauntlets, while two small white sandal-slippers, with jeweled
+buckles where the straps crossed each other, were being fastened upon Miss
+Betty's silken feet by the vain and gloating Mamie.
+
+"It's a wicked cruelty, Princess!" exclaimed Mrs. Tanberry.  "We want
+cheer the poor fellows and help them to be gay, and here do you
+deliberately plan to make them sick at the thought of leaving the place
+that holds you!  Or have you discovered that there's one poor vagabond of
+the band getting off without having his heart broken, and made up your
+mind to do it for him tonight?"
+
+"Is father to go with us?" asked Betty.  It was through Mrs. Tanberry that
+she now derived all information concerning Mr. Carewe, as he had not
+directly addressed her since the afternoon when he discovered her reading
+the Journal's extra.
+
+"No, we are to meet him' there.  He seems rather pleasanter than usual
+this evening," remarked Mrs. Tanberry, hopefully, as she retired.
+
+"Den we mus' git ready to share big trouble tomorrer!" commented the
+kneeling Mamie, with a giggle.
+
+Alas! poor adoring servitress, she received a share unto herself that very
+evening, for her young mistress, usually as amiable as a fair summer sky,
+fidgetted, grumbled, found nothing well done, and was never two minutes in
+the same mind.  After donning the selected dress, she declared it a
+fright, tried two others, abused each roundly, dismissed her almost
+weeping handmaiden abruptly, and again put on the first.  Sitting down to
+the mirror, she spent a full hour over the arrangement of her hair,
+looking attentively at her image, sometimes with the beginning of doubtful
+approval, often angrily, and, now and then, beseechingly, imploring it to
+be lovely.
+
+When Mrs. Tanberry came in to tell her that Nelson was at the block with
+the carriage, Miss Betty did not turn, and the elder lady stopped on the
+threshold and gave a quick, asthmatic gasp of delight.  For the picture
+she saw was, without a doubt in the world, what she proclaimed it, a
+moment later, ravishingly pretty: the girlish little pink and white room
+with all its dainty settings for a background, lit by the dozen candles in
+their sconces and half as many slender silver candlesticks, and, seated
+before the twinkling mirror, the beautiful Miss Carewe, in her gown of
+lace and flounces that were crisp, yet soft, her rope of pearls, her white
+sandals, and all the glory of her youth.  She had wound a wreath of white
+roses into her hair, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes warm and
+glowing, yet inscrutable in their long gaze into the mirror.
+
+"Oh," said Mrs. Tanberry, "you make me want to be a man!  I'd pick you up
+and run to the North Pole, where no one could ever follow.  And I can tell
+you that it hurts not to throw my arms round you and kiss you; but you're
+so exquisite I don't want to touch you!"
+
+In answer, Miss Betty ran to her and kissed her rapturously on both
+cheeks.  "Am I--after all?" she cried.  "Am I?  Is it?  Will the roses
+do?"  And without heeding her companion's staccatoes of approval she went
+rapidly to the open bureau, snatched up a double handful of ribbons and
+furbelows, and dashed out of the room in search of the disgraced Mamie.
+She found her seated on the kitchen door-step in lonely lamentation, and
+showered the gifts into her lap, while the vain one shrieked inimitably
+with pride in the sudden vision of her mistress and joy of the incredible
+possessions.
+
+"Here, and here,and here!" said Miss Betty in a breath, hurling the
+fineries upon her.  "I'm an evil-tongued shrew, Mamie, and these aren't to
+make up for the pain I gave you, but just to show that I'd like to if I
+knew how!  Good-by!"  And she was off like an April breeze.
+
+"Dance wid the han'somdest," screamed Mamie, pursuing uproariously to see
+the last of her as she jumped into the carriage, "bow to de wittriest, an'
+kiss de one you love de bes'!"
+
+"That will be you!" said Miss Betty to Mrs. Tanberry, and kissed the good
+lady again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+"Those Endearing Young Charms"
+
+It is a matter not of notoriety but of the happiest celebrity that Mrs.
+Tanberry danced that night, and not only that she danced, but that she
+waltzed.  To the lot of Tappingham Marsh (whom she pronounced the most
+wheedlmg vagabond, next to Crailey Gray, of her acquaintance) it fell to
+persuade her; and, after a quadrille with the elder Chenoweth, she was
+with Tappingham.  More extraordinary to relate, she danced down both her
+partner and music.  Thereupon did Mr. Bareaud, stung with envy, dare
+emulation and essay a schottische with Miss Trixie Chenoweth, performing
+marvelously well for many delectable turns before he unfortunately fell
+down.  It was a night when a sculptured god would have danced on his
+pedestal:  June, but not over-warm, balm in the air and rose leaves on the
+breeze; and even Minerva's great heels might have marked the time that
+orchestra kept.  Be sure they waltzed again to "Those Endearing Young
+Charms ":
+
+"Oh, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
+But as truly loves on to the close:
+as the sunflower turns on her god when he sets,
+The same look that she gave when he rose."
+
+Three of the volunteers were resplendent in their regimentals:  Mr. Marsh
+(who had been elected captain of the new company to succeed Vanrevel), and
+Will Cummings and Jean Madrillon, the lieutenants.  This glory was
+confined to the officers, who had ordered their uniforms at home, for the
+privates and non-commissioned officers were to receive theirs at the State
+rendezvous. However, although this gala adornment was limited to the three
+gentlemen mentioned, their appearance added "an indescribable air of
+splendor and pathos to the occasion," to quote Mr. Cummings once more. A
+fourth citizen of the town who might have seized upon this opportunity to
+display himself as a soldier neglected to take advantage of it and stole
+in quietly, toward the last, in his ordinary attire, leaving his major's
+uniform folded on a chair in his own room. The flag was to be presented to
+the volunteers at the close of the evening, and Tom came for that--so he
+claimed to his accusing soul.
+
+He entered unobserved and made his way, keeping close to the wall, to
+where Mrs. Bareaud sat, taking a chair at her side; but Robert Carewe,
+glancing thither by chance, saw him, and changed countenance for an
+instant.  Mr. Carewe composed his features swiftly, excused himself with
+elaborate courtesy from Miss Chenoweth, with whom he was talking, and
+crossed the room to a corner near his enemy.  Presently, as the music
+ceased, the volunteers were bidden to come forward, whereupon Tom left
+Mrs. Bareaud and began to work his way down the room.  Groups were forming
+and breaking up in the general movement of the crowd, and the dissolving
+of one brought him face to face with Elizabeth Carewe, who was moving
+slowly in the opposite direction, a small flock of suitors in her train.
+
+The confrontation came so suddenly and so unexpectedly that, before either
+was aware, they looked squarely into each other's eyes, full and straight,
+and both stopped instantly as though transfixed, Miss Betty leaving a
+sentence forever half-complete.  There was a fierce, short vocal sound
+from the crowd behind Vanrevel; but no one noticed Mr. Carewe; and then
+Tom bowed gravely, as in apology for blocking the way, and passed on.
+
+Miss Betty began to talk again, much at random, with a vivacity too
+greatly exaggerated to be genuine, while the high color went from her
+cheeks and left her pale.  Nothing could have enraged her more with
+herself than the consciousness, now suddenly strong within her, that the
+encounter had a perceptible effect upon her.  What power had this man to
+make her manner strained and mechanical?  What right had his eyes always
+to stir her as they did?  It was not he for whom she had spent an hour
+over her hair; not he for whom she had driven her poor handmaiden away in
+tears: that was for one who had not come, one great in heart and goodness,
+one of a pure and. sacrificial life who deserved all she could give, and
+for whose sake she had honored herself in trying to look as pretty as she
+could.  He had not come; and that hurt her a little, but she felt his gen-
+erosity, believing that his motive was to spare her, since she could not
+speak to him in Mr Carewe's presence without open and public rupture with
+her father.  Well, she was almost ready for that, seeing how little of a
+father hers was!  Ah! that other should have come, if only to stand
+between her and this tall hypocrite whose dark glance had such strength to
+disturb her.  What lies that gaze contained, all in the one flash!--the
+strange pretence of comprehending her gently but completely,  a sad
+compassion, too, and with it a look of farewell, seeming to say: "Once
+more I have come for this--and just, `Good-by!"  For she knew that he was
+going with the others, going perhaps forever, only the day after tomorrow-
+--then she would see him no more and be free of him.  Let the day after
+tomorrow come soon!  Miss Betty hated herself for understanding the adieu,
+and hated herself more because she could not be sure that, in the startled
+moment of meeting before she collected herself, she had let it go
+unanswered.
+
+She had done more than that: without knowing it she had bent her head to
+his bow, and Mr. Carewe had seen both the salutation and the look.
+
+The young men were gathered near the orchestra, and, to the hilarious
+strains of "Yankee Doodle," the flag they were to receive for their
+regiment was borne down the room by the sisters and sweethearts who had
+made it, all of whom were there, except Fanchon Bareaud.  Crailey had
+persuaded her to surrender the flag for the sake of spending this evening-
+-next to his last in Rouen--at home alone with him.
+
+The elder Chenoweth made the speech of presentation, that is, he made part
+of it before he broke down, for his son stood in the ranks of the devoted
+band.  Until this incident occurred, all had gone trippingly, for everyone
+had tried to put the day after to-morrow from his mind.  Perhaps there
+might not have been so many tears even now, if the young men had not stood
+together so smilingly to receive their gift; it was seeing them so gay and
+confident, so strong in their youth and so unselfish of purpose; it was
+this, and the feeling that all of them must suffer and some of them die
+before they came back.  So that when Mr. Chenoweth, choking in his
+loftiest flight, came to a full stop, and without disguise buried his face
+in his handkerchief, Mrs. Tanberry, the apostle of gayety, openly sobbed.
+Chenoweth, without more ado, carried the flag over to Tappingham Marsh,
+whom Vanrevel directed to receive it, and Tappingham thanked the donors
+without many words, because there were not then many at his command.	.
+
+Miss Carewe bad been chosen to sing "The Star Spangled Banner," and she
+stepped out a little from the crowd to face the young men as the orchestra
+sounded the first chord. She sang in a full, clear voice, but when the
+volunteers saw that, as she sang, the tears were streaming down her cheeks
+in spite of the brave voice, they began to choke with the others.  If Miss
+Betty found them worth weeping for, they could afford to cry a little for
+themselves.  Yet they joined the chorus nobly, and raised the roof with
+the ringing song, sending the flamboyant, proud old words thunderously to
+heaven.
+
+That was not the last song of the night.  General Trumble and Mr.
+Chenoweth had invited their young friends to attend, after the ball, a
+collation which they chose to call a supper, but which, to accord with the
+hour, might more aptly have been designated a breakfast.  To afford a
+private retreat for the scene of this celebration, they had borrowed the
+offices of Gray and Vanrevel, and Crailey hospitably announced that any
+guest was welcome to stay for a year or two, since, probably, neither of
+the firm would have need of an office for at least that length of time.
+Nine men gathered about the table which replaced Tom's work-a-day old
+desk: the two Chenoweths, Eugene Madrillon, Marsh, Jefferson Bareaud, the
+stout General, Tom Vanrevel, Crailey, and Will Cummings, the editor coming
+in a little late, but rubbing his hands cheerfully over what he declared
+was to be the last column from his pen to rear its length on the Journal's
+front page for many a long day--a description of the presentation of the
+flag, a bit of prose which he considered almost equal to his report of the
+warehouse fire.
+
+This convivial party made merry and tried to forget that most of them had
+"been mighty teary," as Marsh said, an hour earlier; while Mr. Chenoweth
+sat with his hand on his son's shoulder, unconsciously most of the time,
+apologetically removing, it when he observed it.  Many were the witticisms
+concerning the difference in rank hence forth to be observed between the
+young men, as Tom was now a major, Marsh a captain, Will Cummings a second
+lieutenant, and the rest mere privates, except Crailey, who was a
+corporal.  Nevertheless, though the board was festive, it was somewhat
+subdued and absent until they came to the toasts.
+
+It was Tappingham who proposed Miss Betty Carewe. "I know Tom Vanrevel
+will understand--nay, I know he's man enough to join us," said Marsh as he
+rose.  "Why shouldn't I say that we may hail ourselves as patriots,
+indeed, since at the call of our country we depart from the town which is
+this lady's home, and at the trumpet's sound resign the gracious blessing
+of seeing her day by day, and why shouldn't we admit loyally and openly
+that it is her image alone which shines in the hearts of most of us here?"
+
+And no man arose to contradict that speech, which appears to have rung
+true, seeing that four of those present had proposed to her (again) that
+same evening.  "So I give you," cried Tappingham, gallantly, "the health
+of Miss Betty Carewe, the loveliest rose of our bouquet!  May she remember
+us when we come home!"
+
+They rose and drank it with a shout.  But Tom Vanrevel, not setting down
+his cup, went to the window and threw wide the shutters, letting in a
+ruddy shaft of the morning sun, so that as he stood in the strong glow he
+looked like a man carved out of red gold. He lifted his glass, not toward
+the table and his companions, while they stared at him, surprised, but
+toward the locusts of Carewe Street.
+
+"To Miss Betty Carewe," he said, "the finest flower of them all!  May she
+remember those who  never come home!"
+
+And, without pausing, he lifted his rich baritone in an old song that had
+been vastly popular with the young men of Rouen ever since the night of
+Miss Betty's debut; they had hummed it as they went about their daily
+work, they had whistled it on the streets; they had drifted, into dreams
+at night with the sound of it still chiming in their ears; and now, with
+one accord, as they stood gathered together for the last time in Rouen,
+they joined Tom Vanrevel and sang it again.  And the eyes of Crailey Gray
+rested very gently upon his best friend as they sang:
+
+"Believe me, If all those endearing young charms,
+Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
+Were to change by to-morrow and fleet from my arms,
+Like fairy gifts fading away,
+Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art:
+Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
+And around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart
+Would entwine itself verdantly still."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The Price of Silence
+
+It was the misfortune of Mr. Cummings's first literary offering to annoy
+one of the editor's friends.  The Journal was brought to the corporal at
+noon, while he was considering whether he should rise from his couch or
+sleep another hour.  Reclining among his pillows, he glanced through
+Cummings's description with the subdued giggle he always had for the good
+William's style but as his eye fell upon one paragraph he started sat
+upright, and proceeded to read the passage several times with anxious
+attention.
+
+"Only two or three sources of regret occurred to mar the delight (in which
+young and old participated) of that festal and dazzling scene.  One was
+the absence of Miss Fanchon Bareaud, one the donors; another, that of
+Corporal Gray; a third was the excessive modesty of Major Vanrevel,
+although present at the time, refused to receive the ladies' sumptuous
+offering and insisted that Captain Marsh was the proper person to do the
+honors, to which the latter reluctantly, though gracefully consented.
+Also, we were sorry that the Major appeared in citizen's dress, as all
+were anxious to witness him in his uniform.  However, in our humble
+judgment, he will be compelled by etiquette to don it this afternoon, to
+receive the officers of the regular army, who will arrive by the stage
+about five o'clock, it is expected, to inspect the company and swear them
+into the service of the Federal Government at the Court House. We, for
+one, have little doubt that, owing to the Major's well-known talent in
+matters of apparel, his appearance will far eclipse in brilliancy that of
+his fellow-officers."
+
+Crailey dressed slowly, returning to the paper, now and then, with a
+perturbed countenance.  How would Miss Betty explain this paragraph to
+herself, and how account for the fact that she had not seen Crailey, how
+for the fact that she had seen Tom?  It seemed unlikely that she could
+have overlooked the latter--Tom was one of those whom everybody saw,
+wherever he went. And what inquiries would she make?  For Crailey had no
+means of knowing that she would not see the Journal.  Tomorrow he would be
+gone, it would be all over, but he wanted this last day to run smoothly.
+What wild hopes he had of things that should happen when they all came
+marching home, no one can say; even if it were not to be doubted that
+Crailey ever entertained hopes of any kind whatever, since to hope is to
+bestow thought upon the future.
+
+But, however affairs ran with him so far as hope was concerned, he seldom
+lacked an idea; and one came to him presently, a notion that put the frown
+to rout and brought the old smile to his lips, his smile of the world-worn
+and tolerant prelate.  He flicked the paper lightly from him, and it sped
+across the room like a big bird in awkward flight.  For he knew how to
+preserve his last day as he wished, and to make all smooth.
+
+He finished his toilet with particular care, took a flower from a vase on
+his table, placed it in his coat, and went down to the dusty street, where
+everything was warm and bright with summer.  It was joy to be alive; there
+was wine enough in the air; and Crailey made up his mind not to take a
+drink that day--the last day!  The last day!  The three words kept ringing
+through his head like a minor phrase from a song.  Tomorrow, at noon, they
+would be churning down the river; and this was the last day--the last day!
+
+"Still not too late to make another friend at home," he said, stopping to
+pat the head of a mangy street cur that came crouching and wobbling toward
+him like a staveless little keg worried by scurries of wind.  Dogs and
+children always fell in love with Crailey at first sight, and he never
+failed to receive them in the spirit of their approach.  Now the mongrel,
+at his touch, immediately turned himself over and lay upon the pavement
+with all paws in air, to say: "Great lord, magnificent in the graciousness
+which deigns to cast a glimpse upon this abject cluster of ribs, I
+perceive that your heart is too gentle to kick me in my present
+helplessness; yet do with me as you will."
+
+"I doubt if you've breakfasted, brother," Crailey responded aloud, rubbing
+the dog's head softly with the tip of his boot.  "Will you share the
+meagre fare of one who is a poet, should be a lawyer, but is about to
+become a soldier?  Eh, but a corporal!  Rise, my friend.  Up! and be in
+your own small self a whole Corporal's Guard!  And if your Corporal
+doesn't come home from the wars, perhaps you'll remember him kindly?
+Think?"
+
+He made a vivacious gesture, the small animal sprang into the air,
+convoluted with gratitude and new love, while Crailey, laughing softly,
+led the way to the hotel.  There, while he ate sparsely himself, he
+provided munificently for his new acquaintance, and recommended him, with
+an accompaniment of silver, to the good offices of the Rouen House
+kitchen.  After that, out into the sunshine again he went, with elastic
+step, and a merry word and a laugh for everyone he met.  At the old
+English gardener's he bought four or five bouquets, and carried them on a
+round of visits of farewell to as many old ladies who had been kind to
+him.  This done, leaving his laughter and his flowers behind him, he went
+to Fanchon and spent part of the afternoon bringing forth cunning ar-
+guments cheerily, to prove to her that General Taylor would be in the
+Mexican capital before the volunteers reached New Orleans, and urging upon
+her his belief that they would all be back in Rouen before the summer was
+gone.
+
+But Fanchon could only sob and whisper, "Hush, hush!" in the dim room
+where they sat, the windows darkened so that, after he had gone, he should
+not remember how red her eyes were, and the purple depths under them, and
+thus forget how pretty she had been at her best.  After a time, finding
+that the more he tried to cheer her, the more brokenly she wept, he grew
+silent, only stroking her head, while the summer sounds came in through
+the window:  the mill-whir of locusts, the small monotone of distant farm-
+bells, the laughter of children in the street, and the gay arias of a
+mocking-bird singing in the open window of the next house.  So they sat
+together through the long, still afternoon of the last day.
+
+No one in Rouen found that afternoon particularly enlivening.  Even Mrs.
+Tanberry gave way to the common depression, and, once more, her doctrine
+of cheerfulness relegated to the ghostly ranks of the purely theoretical,
+she bowed under the burden of her woe so far as to sing "Methought I Met a
+Damsel Fair" (her of the bursting sighs) at the piano.  Whenever sadness
+lay upon her soul she had acquired the habit of resorting to this unhappy
+ballad;  today she sang it four times. Mr. Carewe was not at home, and had
+announced that though he intended to honor the evening meal by his
+attendance, he should be away for the evening itself; as comment upon
+which statement Mrs. Tanberry had offered ambiguously the one word,
+"Amen!"  He was stung to no reply, and she had noted the circumstance as
+unusual, and also that he had appeared to labor with the suppression of a
+keen excitement, which made him anxious to escape from her sharp little
+eyes; an agitation for which she easily accounted when she recalled that
+he had seen Vanrevel on the previous evening.  Mr. Carewe had kept his
+promise to preserve the peace, as he always kept it when the two met on
+neutral ground, but she had observed that his face showed a kind of hard-
+leashed violence whenever he had been forced to breathe the air of the
+same room with his enemy, and that the thing grew on him.
+
+Miss Betty exhibited not precisely a burning interest in the adventure of
+the Damsel Fair, wandering out of the room during the second rendition,
+wandering back again, and once more away.  She had moved about the house
+in this fashion since early morning, wearing what Mamie described as a
+"peak-ed look." White-faced and restless, with distressed eyes, to which
+no sleep had come in the night, she could not read; she could no more than
+touch her harp; she could not sleep; she could not remain quiet for three
+minutes together.  Often she sank into a chair with an air of languor and
+weariness, only to start immediately out of it and seek some other part of
+the house, or to go and pace the garden.  Here, in the air heavy with
+roses and tremulous with June, as she walked rapidly up and down, late in
+the afternoon, at the time when the faraway farm-bells were calling men
+from the fields to supper, the climax of her restlessness came.  That
+anguish and desperation, so old in her sex, the rebellion against the law
+that inaction must be her part, had fallen upon her for the first time.
+She came to an abrupt stop and struck her hands together despairingly, and
+spoke aloud.
+
+"What shall I do!  What shall I do!"
+
+"Ma'am?" asked a surprised voice, just behind her.
+
+She wheeled quickly about, to behold a shock-headed urchin of ten in the
+path near the little clearing.  He was ragged, tanned, dusty, neither
+shoes nor coat trammelling his independence; and be had evidently entered
+the garden through the gap in the hedge.
+
+"I thought you spoke to me?" he said, inquiringly.
+
+"I didn't see you," she returned. "What is it?"
+
+"You Miss Carewe?" he asked; but before she could answer he said,
+reassuringly, "Why, of course you are!  I remember you perfect, now I git
+the light on you, so to speak.  Don't you remember me?"
+
+"No, I don't think I do."
+
+"Lord!" he responded, wonderingly.  "I was one of the boys with you on
+them boxes the night of your pa's fire!"  Mingled with the surprise in his
+tone was a respectful unction which intimated how greatly he honored her
+father for having been the owner of so satisfactory a conflagration.
+
+"Were you?  Perhaps I'll remember you if you give me time."
+
+But at this point the youth recalled the fact that he had an errand to
+discharge, and, assuming an expression of businesslike haste too pressing
+to permit farther parley, sought in his pocket and produced a sealed
+envelope, with which he advanced upon her.
+
+"Here.  There's an answer.  He told me not to tell nobody who sent it, and
+not to give it to nobody on earth but you, and how to slip in through the
+hedge and try and find you in the garden when nobody was lookin', and he
+give a pencil for you to answer on the back of it, and a dollar."
+
+Miss Betty took the note, glancing once over her shoulder at the house,
+but Mrs. Tanberry was still occupied with the Maiden, and no one was in
+sight.  She read the message hastily.
+
+"I have obeyed you, and shall always.   You have not sent for me.  Perhaps
+that was because there was no time when you thought it safe.  Perhaps you
+have still felt there would be a loss of dignity.  Does that weigh with
+you against good-by?  Tell me, if you can, that you have it in your heart
+to let me go without seeing you once more, without good-by--for the last
+time.  Or was it untrue that you wrote me what you did?  Was that dear
+letter but a little fairy dream of mine?  Ah, will you see me again, this
+once--this once--let me look at you, let me talk with you, hear your
+voice?  The last time!"
+
+There was no signature.
+
+Miss Betty quickly wrote four lines upon the same sheet:  "Yes--yes!  I
+must see you, must talk with you before you go.  Come at dusk.  The
+garden--near the gap in the hedge.  It will be safe for a little while.
+He will not be here."  She replaced the paper in its envelope, drew a line
+through her own name on the letter, and wrote "Mr. Vanrevel" underneath.
+
+"Do you know the gentleman who sent you? "she asked.
+
+"No'm; but he'll be waitin' at his office, `Gray and Vanrevel,' on Main
+Street, for the answer."
+
+"Then hurry!" said Betty.
+
+He needed no second bidding, but, with wings on his bare heels, made off
+through the gap in the hedge.  At the corner of the street he encountered
+an adventure, a gentleman's legs and a heavy hand at the same time.  The
+hand fell on his shoulder, arresting his scamper with a vicious jerk; and
+the boy was too awed to attempt an escape, for he knew his captor well by
+sight, although never before had he found himself so directly in the
+company of Rouen's richest citizen.  The note dropped from the small
+trembling fingers, yet those fingers did not shake as did the man's when,
+like a flash, Carewe seized upon the missive with his disengaged hand and
+saw what two names were on the envelope.
+
+"You were stealing, were you! " he cried, savagely. "I saw you sneak
+through my hedge!"
+
+"I didn't, either!"
+
+Mr. Carewe ground his teeth, "What were you doing there?"
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+"Nothing!" mocked Carewe. "Nothing!
+
+You didn't carry this to the young lady in there and get her answer?"
+
+"No, sir!" answered the captive, earnestly.
+
+"Cross my heart I didn't. I found it!"
+
+Slowly the corrugations of anger were levelled from the magnate's face,
+the white heat cooled, and the prisoner marvelled to find himself in the
+presence of an urbane gentleman whose placidity made the scene of a moment
+ago appear some trick of distorted vision.  And yet, curious to behold,
+Mr. Carewe's fingers shook even more violently than before, as he released
+the boy's shoulder and gave him a friendly tap on the head, at the same
+time smiling benevolently.
+
+"There, there," he said, bestowing a wink upon the youngster.  "It's all
+right; it doesn't matter--only I think I see the chance of a jest in this.
+You wait, while I read this little note, this message that you found!"  He
+ended by winking again with the friendliest drollery.
+
+He turned his back to the boy, and opened the note; continuing to stand in
+that position while he read the two messages.  It struck the messenger
+that, after this, there need be no great shame in his own lack of this
+much-vaunted art of reading, since it took so famous a man as Mr. Carewe
+such length of time to peruse a little note.  But perhaps the great
+gentleman was ill, for it appeared to the boy that he lurched several
+times, once so far that he would have gone over if he had not saved
+himself by a lucky stagger.  And once, except for the fact that the face
+that had turned away had worn an expression of such genial humor, the boy
+would have believed that from it issued a sound like the gnashing of
+teeth.
+
+But when it was turned to him again, it bore the same amiable jocosity of
+mouth and eye, and nothing seemed to be the matter, except that those
+fingers still shook so wildly, too wildly, indeed, to restore the note to
+its envelope.
+
+"There," said Mr. Carewe, "put it back, laddie, put it back yourself.
+Take it to the gentleman who sent you.  I see he's even disguised his hand
+a trifle-ha! ha!--and I suppose he may not have expected the young lady to
+write his name quite so boldly on the envelope!  What do you suppose?"
+
+"I d'know," returned the boy.  "I reckon I don't hardly understand."
+
+"No, of course not," said Mr. Carewe, laughing rather madly.  "Ha, ha, ha!
+Of course you wouldn't.  And how much did he give you?"
+
+"Yay!" cried the other, joyously.  "Didn't he go and hand me a dollar!"
+
+"How much will you take not to tell him that I stopped you and read it;
+how much not to speak of me at all?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"It's a foolish kind of joke, nothing more.  I'll give you five dollars
+never to tell anyone that you saw me today."
+
+"Don't shoot, Colonel," exclaimed the youth, with a riotous fling of bare
+feet in the air, "I'll come down!"
+
+"You'll do it?"
+
+"Five!" he shouted, dancing upon the boards.  "Five!  I'll cross my heart
+to die I never hear tell of you, or ever knew they was sich a man in the
+world!"
+
+Carewe bent over him.  "No!  Say: `God strike me dead and condemn me
+eternally to the everlasting flames of hell if I ever tell!"
+
+This entailed quick sobriety, though only benevolence was in the face
+above him.  The jig-step stopped, and the boy pondered, frightened.
+
+"Have I got to say that?"
+
+Mr. Carewe produced a bank-bill about which the boy beheld a halo.
+Clearly this was his day; heaven showed its approval of his conduct by an
+outpouring of imperishable riches.  And yet the oath misliked him; there
+was a savor of the demoniacal contract; still that was to be borne and the
+plunge taken, for there fluttered the huge sum before his dazzled eyes.
+He took a deep breath. "`God strike me dead' "--he began, slowly--"` if I
+ever `--"
+
+"No.  `And condemn me to the everlasting flames of hell `--"
+
+"Have I got to?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+--" `And condemn me to--to the everlasting flames of--of hell, if I ever
+tell!'"
+
+He ran off, pale with the fear that he might grow up, take to drink and
+some day tell in his cups, but so resolved not to coquet with temptation
+that he went round a block to avoid the door of the Rouen House bar.
+Nevertheless, the note was in his hand and the fortune in his pocket
+
+And Mr. Carewe was safe.  He knew that the boy would never tell, and he
+knew another thing, for he had read the Journal, though it came no more to
+his house: he knew that Tom Vanrevel wore his uniform that evening, and
+that, even in the dusk, the brass buttons on an officer's breast make a
+good mark for a gun steadied along the ledge of a window.  As he entered
+the gates and went toward the house he glanced up at the window which
+overlooked his garden from the cupola.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The Uniform
+
+Crailey was not the only man in Rouen who had been saying to himself all
+day that each accustomed thing he did was done for the last time.  Many of
+his comrades went about with "Farewell, old friend," in their hearts, not
+only for the people, but for the usual things of life and the actions of
+habit, now become unexpectedly dear and sweet to know or to perform.  So
+Tom Vanrevel, relieved of his hot uniform, loose as to collar, wearing a
+big dressing-gown, and stretched in a chair, watched the sunset from the
+western window of the dusty office, where he had dreamed through many sun-
+sets in summers past, and now took his leave of this old habit of his in
+silence, with a long cigar, considering the chances largely against his
+ever seeing the sun go down behind the long wooden bridge at the foot of
+Main Street again.
+
+The ruins of the warehouses had been removed, and the river was laid clear
+to his sight; it ran between brown banks like a river of rubies, and, at
+the wharf, the small evening steamboat, ugly and grim enough to behold
+from near by, lay pink and lovely in that broad glow, tooting imminent
+departure, although an hour might elapse before it would back into the
+current.  The sun widened, clung briefly to the horizon, and dropped
+behind the low hills beyond the bottom lands; the stream grew purple, then
+took on a lustre of pearl as the stars came out, while rosy distances
+changed to misty blue; the chatter of the birds in the Main Street maples
+became quieter, and, through lessening little choruses of twittering, fell
+gradually to silence.  And now the blue dusk crept on the town, and the
+corner drug-store window-lights threw mottled colors on the pavement.
+>From the hall, outside the closed office-door, came the sound of quick,
+light footsteps; it was Crailey going out; but Tom only sighed to himself,
+and did not hail him.  So these light footsteps of Crailey Gray echoed but
+a moment in the stairway and were heard no more.
+
+A few moments later a tall figure, dressed from neck to heels in a gray
+cloak crossed the mottled lights, and disappeared into Carewe Street.
+This cloaked person wore on his head a soldier's cap, and Tom, not
+recognizing him surely, vaguely wondered why Tappingham Marsh chose to
+muffle himself so warmly on a evening.  He noted the quick, alert tread as
+like Marsh's usual gait, but no suspicion crossed his mind that the figure
+might be that of partner.
+
+A rocket went up from the Rouen House, then another, followed by a salvo
+of anvils and rackety discharge of small-arms; the beginning a noble
+display of fireworks in celebration of prospective victories of the United
+States and utter discomfiture of the Mexicans when the Rouen Volunteers
+should reach the seat of war, an Exhibition of patriotism which brought
+little pleasure to Mr. Vanrevel.
+
+But over the noise of the street he heard his own name shouted from the
+stairway, and almost instantly a violent knocking assailed the door.  Be-
+fore he could bid the visitor enter, the door was flung open by a stout
+and excited colored woman, who, at sight of him, threw up her hands in
+tremulous thanksgiving.  It was the vain Mamie.
+
+She sank into a chair, and rocked herself to and fro, gasping to regain
+her lost breath.  "Bless de good God `Imighty you am' gone out!" she
+panted.  "I run an' I run, an' I come so fas' I got stitches in de side
+f'um head to heel!"
+
+Tom brought her a glass of water, which she drank between gasps.
+
+"I nevah run so befo' enduin' my livin' days," she asserted.  "You knows
+me, who I am an' whum I cum f'um, nigh's well's I knows who you is, I
+reckon, Maje' Vanrevel?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know.  Will you tell me who sent you?"
+
+"Miz Tanberry, suh, dat who sended me, an' in a venomous hurry she done de
+same!"
+
+"Yes.  Why?  Does she want me?"
+
+Mamie emitted a screech.  "`Deed she mos' everlas'in'ly does not!  Dat de
+ve'y exackindes' livin' t'ing she does not want!"
+
+"Then what is it, Mamie?"
+
+"Lemme git my bref, suh, an' you hole yo'ne whiles I tell you!  She say to
+me, she say:  `Is you `quainted Maje' Vanrevel, Mamie?' s' she, an' I
+up'n' ansuh, `Not to speak wid, but dey ain; none on `em I don' knows by
+sight, an' none betterer dan him,' I say.  Den she say, she say:  `You run
+all de way an' fin' dat young man,' she say, s' she, `an' if you don' git
+dah fo' he leave, er don' stop him on de way, den God `imighty fergive
+you!' she say.  `But you tell him f'um Jane Tanberry not to come nigh dis
+house or dis gyahden dis night!  Tell him dat Jane Tanberry warn him he
+mus' keep outer Carewe's way ontel he safe on de boat to-morrer.  Tell him
+Jane Tanberry beg him to stay in he own room dis night, an' dat she beg it
+on her bented knees!'  An' dis she say to me when I tole her what Nelson
+see in dat house dis evenin'. An' hyuh I is, an' hyuh yew is, an' de
+blessed Jesus be thank', you ir hyuh!"
+
+Tom regarded her with a grave attention.  "What made Mrs. Tanberry think I
+might be coming there to-night?"
+
+"Dey's cur'ous goin's-on in dat house, suh!  De young lady she ain' like
+herself; all de day long she wanduh up an' down an' roun' about.  Miz
+Tanberry are a mighty guessifying woman, an' de minute I tell her what
+Nelse see, she s'pec' you a-comin' an' dat de boss mos' pintedly preparin'
+fo' it!"
+
+"Can you make it a little clearer for me, Mamie?  I'm afraid I don't
+understand."
+
+"Well, suh, you know dat ole man Nelson, he allays tell me ev'yt'ing he
+know, an' ev'yt'ing he think he know, jass de same, suh.  An' dat ole
+Nelse, he mos' `sessful cull'd man in de worl' to crope roun' de house an'
+pick up de gossip an' git de `fo' an' behine er what's goin' on.  So `twas
+dat he see de boss, when he come in to'des evenin', tek dat heavy musket
+offn' de racks an' load an' clean her, an' he do it wid a mighty bad look
+`bout de mouf.  Den he gone up to de cupoly an' lef' it dah, an' den come
+down ag'in.  Whiles dey all is eatin', he `nounce th'ee time' dat he goin'
+be `way endu'in' de evenin'.  Den he gone out de front do', an' out de
+gates, an' down de street.  Den, su, den, suh, `tain't no mo'n a half-'n-
+'our ago, Nelse come to me an' say dat he see de boss come roun' de
+stable, keepin' close in by de shrubbery, an' crope in de ball-room win-
+der, w'ich is close to de groun', suh.  Nelse `uz a cleanin' de harness in
+de back yo'd an' he let on not to see him, like.  Miss Betty, she walkin'
+in her gyahden an' Miz Tanberry fan' on de po'ch.  Nelse, he slip de house
+whuh de lights ain' lit, an' stan' an' listen long time in de liberry at
+de foot er dem sta'hs; an' he hyuh dat man move, suh!  Den Nelse know dat
+he done crope up to de cupoly room an'--an' dat he settin' dah, waitin'!
+Soze he come an' tole me, an' I beg Miz Tanberry come in de kitchen, an' I
+shet de do' an' I tole her.  An' she sended me hyuh to you, suh. An' if
+you `uz a-goin', de good God `lmighty mus' er kep' you ontel I got hyuh!"
+
+ "No; I wasn't going."  Tom smiled upon her sadly.  "I dare say there's a
+simpler explanation.  Don't you suppose that if Nelson was right and Mr.
+Carewe really did come back, it was because he did not wish his daughter
+and Mrs. Tanberry to know that--that he expected a party of friends,
+possibly, to join him there later?"
+
+"What he doin' wid dat gun, suh?  Nobody goin' play cyahds ner frow dice
+wid a gun, is dey?" asked Mamie, as she rose and walked toward the door.
+
+"Oh, that was probably by chance."
+
+"No, suh!" she cried, vehemently. "An' dem gelmun wouldn' play t'-night,
+no way; mos' on `em goin' wid you to-morrer an' dey sayin' goodby to de'r
+folks dis evenin', not gamblin'!  Miz Tanberry'll be in a state er mine
+ontel she hyuh f'um me, an' I goin' hurry back.  You won' come dah, suh?
+I kin tell her dat you say you sutney ain' comin' nigh our neighborhood
+dis night?"
+
+"I had not dreamed of coming, tell her, please.  Probably I shall not go
+out at all this evening.  But it was kind of you to come. Good-night."
+
+He stood with a candle to light her down the stairs, but after she had
+gone he did not return to the office.  Instead, he went slowly up to his
+own room, glancing first into Crailey's--the doors of neither were often
+locked--to behold a chaos of disorder and unfinished packing.  In his own
+chamber it only remained for him to close the lids of a few big boxes, and
+to pack a small trunk which he meant to take with him to the camp of the
+State troops, and he would be ready for departure.  He set about this
+task, arid, concluding that there was no necessity to wear his uniform on
+the steamboat, decided to place it in the trunk, and went to the bed where
+he had folded and left it.  It was not there.  Nor did a thorough search
+reveal it anywhere in the room.  Yet no one could have stolen it, for when
+he had gone down to the office Crailey had remained on this floor.  Mamie
+had come within a few minutes after Crailey went out, and during his
+conversation with her the office-door had been open; no one could have
+passed without being seen.  Also, a thief would have taken other things as
+well as the uniform; and surely Crailey must have heard; Crailey would--
+Crailey--!
+
+Then Tom remembered the figure in the long cloak and the military cap,
+and, with a sick heart, began to understand.  He had read the Journal, and
+he knew why Crailey might wish to masquerade in a major's uniform that
+night.  If Miss Carewe read it too, and a strange wonder rose in her mind,
+this and a word would convince her.  Tom considered it improbable that the
+wonder would rise, for circumstances had too well established her in a
+mistake, trivial and ordinary enough at first, merely the confusing of two
+names by a girl new to the town, but so strengthened by every confirmation
+Crailey's wit could compass that she would, no doubt, only set Cummings's
+paragraph aside as a newspaper error. Still, Crailey had wished to be on
+the safe side!
+
+Tom sighed rather bitterly.  He was convinced that the harlequin would
+come home soon, replace the uniform (which was probably extremely becoming
+to him, as they were of a height and figure much the same), and afterward,
+in his ordinary dress, would sally forth to spend his last evening with
+Fanchon.  Tom wondered how Crailey would feel and what he would think
+about himself while he was changing his clothes, but he remembered his
+partner's extraordinary powers of mental adjustment--and for the first
+time in his life Vanrevel made no allowance for the other's temperament,
+and there came to him a moment when he felt that he could almost dislike
+Crailey Gray
+
+At all events, he would go out until Crailey had come and left again, for
+he had no desire to behold the masquerader's return.  So he exchanged his
+dressing-gown for a coat, fastened his collar, and had begun to arrange
+his cravat at the mirror, when, suddenly, the voice of the old negress
+seemed to sound close beside him in the room
+
+" He's settin' dah--waitin'!"
+
+The cravat was never tied; Tom's hands dropped , to his sides as he
+started back from the staring face in the mirror.  Robert Carewe was
+waiting--and Crailey--  All at once there was but one vital necessity in
+the world for Tom Vanrevel, that was to find Crailey; he must go to
+Crailey--even in Carewe's own house--he must go to Crailey!
+
+He dashed down the stairs and into the street. The people were making a
+great uproar in front of the hotel, exploding bombs, firing muskets in the
+air, sending up rockets; and rapidly crossing the outskirts of the crowd,
+he passed into Carewe Street, unnoticed.  Here the detonations were not so
+deafening, though the little steamboat at the wharf was contributing to
+the confusion with all in her power, screeching simultaneously approval of
+the celebration and her last signals of departure.
+
+At the first corner Tom had no more than left the sidewalk when he came
+within a foot of being ridden down by two horsemen who rode at so des-
+perate a gallop that (the sound of their hoof-beats being lost in the
+uproar from Main Street) they were upon him before he was aware of them.
+
+He leaped back with an angry shout to know who they were that they rode so
+wildly.  At the same time a sharp explosion at the foot of the street sent
+a red flare over the scene, a flash, gone with such incredible swiftness
+into renewed darkness that he saw the flying horsemen almost as equestrian
+statues illumined by a flicker of lightning, but he saw them with the same
+distinctness that lightning gives, and recognized the foremost as Robert
+Carewe.  And in the instant of that recognition, Tom knew what had
+happened to Crailey Gray, for he saw the truth in the ghastly face of his
+enemy.
+
+Carewe rode stiffly, like a man frozen upon his horse, and his face was
+like that of a frozen man; his eyes glassy and not fixed upon his course,
+so that it was a deathly thing to see.  Once, long ago, Tom had seen a man
+riding for his life, and he wore this same look.  The animal bounded and
+swerved under Vanrevel's enemy in the mad rush down the street, but he sat
+rigid, bolt upright in the saddle, his face set to that look of coldness.
+
+The second rider was old Nelson, who rode with body crouched forward, his
+eyeballs like shining porcelain set in ebony, and his arm like a flail,
+cruelly lashing his own horse and his master's with a heavy whip.  "De
+steamboat!" be shouted, hoarsely, bringing down the lash on one and then
+on the other.  "De steamboat, de steamboat--f o' God's sake, honey, de
+steamboat!"
+
+They swept into Main Street, Nelson leaning far across to the other's
+bridle, and turning both horses toward the river, but before they had made
+the corner, Tom Vanrevel was running with all the speed that was in him
+toward his enemy's house.  The one block between him and that forbidden
+ground seemed to him miles long, and he felt that he was running as a man
+in a dream, and, at the highest pitch of agonized exertion, covering no
+space, but only working the air in one place, like a treadmill.  All that
+was in his mind, heart, and soul was to reach Crailey.  He had known by
+the revelation of Carewe's face in what case he would find his friend; but
+as he ran he put the knowledge from him with a great shudder, and resolved
+upon incredulity in spite of his certainty.  All he let himself feel was
+the need to run, to run until he found Crailey, who was somewhere in the
+darkness of the trees about the long, low house on the corner.  When he
+reached the bordering hedge, he did not stay for gate or path, but, with a
+loud shout, hurled himself half over, half through, the hedge, like a bolt
+from a catapult.
+
+Lights shone from only one room in the house, the library; but as he ran
+toward the porch a candle flickered in the hall, and there came the sound
+of a voice weeping with terror.
+
+At that he called more desperately upon his incredulity to aid him, for
+the voice was Mrs. Tan-berry's.  If it had been any other than she, who
+sobbed so hopelessly--she who was always steady and strong!  If he could,
+he would have stopped to pray, now, before he faced her and the truth; but
+his flying feet carried him on.
+
+"Who is it?" she gasped, brokenly, from the hall.  "Mamie?  Have you
+brought him?"
+
+"It's I," he cried, as he plunged through the doorway.  "It's Vanrevel."
+
+Mrs. Tanberry set the iron candlestick down upon the table with a crash.
+
+"You've come too late!" she sobbed.  "Another man has taken your death on
+himself."
+
+He reeled back against the wall.  "Oh, God!" he said.  "Oh, God, God, God!
+Crailey!"
+
+"Yes," she answered.  "It's the poor vagabond that you loved so well."
+
+Together they ran through the hall to the library.  Crailey was lying on
+the long sofa, his eyes closed, his head like a piece of carven marble,
+the gay uniform, in which he had tricked himself out so gallantly, open at
+the throat, and his white linen stained with a few little splotches of
+red.
+
+Beside him knelt Miss Betty, holding her lace handkerchief upon his
+breast; she was as white as he, and as motionless; so that, as she knelt
+there, immovable beside him, her arm like alabaster across his breast,
+they might have been a sculptor's group. The handkerchief was stained a
+little, like the linen, and like it, too, stained but a little. Nearby, on
+the floor, stood a flask of brandy and a pitcher of water.
+
+"You!"  Miss Betty's face showed no change, nor even a faint surprise, as
+her eyes fell upon Tom Vanrevel, but her lips soundlessly framed the word.
+"You!"
+
+Tom flung himself on his knees beside her.
+
+"Crailey!" he cried, in a sharp voice that had a terrible shake in it.
+"Crailey! Crailey, I want you to hear me!" He took one of the limp hands
+in his and began to chafe it, while Mrs. Tanberry grasped the other.
+
+"There's still a movement in the pulse," she faltered.	. .
+
+"Still!" echoed Tom, roughly.  "You're mad!  You made me think Crailey was
+dead!  Do you think Crailey Gray is going to die?  He couldn't, I tell
+you--he couldn't; you don't know him!  Who's gone for the doctor?"  He
+dashed some brandy upon his handkerchief and set it to the white lips.
+
+"Mamie.  She was here in the room with me when it happened."
+
+"`Happened'! `Happened'!" he mocked her, furiously.  "`Happened' is a
+beautiful word!"
+
+"God forgive me!" sobbed Mrs. Tanberry.  " I was sitting in the library,
+and Mamie had just come from you, when we heard Mr. Carewe shout from the
+cupola room:  `Stand away from my daughter, Vanrevel, and take this like a
+dog!'  Only that;--and Mamie and I ran to the window, and we saw through
+the dusk a man in uniform leap back from Miss Betty--they were in that
+little open space near the hedge.  He called out something and waved his
+hand, but the shot came at the same time, and he fell.  Even then I was
+sure, in spite of what Mamie had said, I was as sure as Robert Carewe was,
+that it was you.  He came and took one look--and saw--and then Nelson
+brought the horses and made him mount and go.  Mamie ran for the doctor,
+and Betty and I carried Crailey in.  It was hard work."
+
+Miss Betty's hand had fallen from Crailey's breast where Tom's took its
+place. She rose unsteadily to her feet and pushed back the hair from her
+forehead, shivering convulsively as she looked down at the motionless
+figure on the sofa.
+
+"Crailey!" said Tom, in the same angry, shaking voice.  "Crailey, you've
+got to rouse yourself! This won't do; you've got to be a man!  Crailey!"
+He was trying to force the brandy through the tightly clenched teeth.  "
+Crailey! "
+
+"Crailey!" whispered Miss Betty, leaning. heavily on the back of a chair.
+"Crailey?" She looked at Mrs. Tanberry with vague interrogation, but Mrs.
+Tanberry did not understand.
+
+"Crailey!"
+
+It was then that Crailey's eyelids fluttered and slowly opened; and his
+wandering glance, dull at first, slowly grew clear and twinkling as it
+rested on the ashy, stricken face of his best friend.
+
+"Tom," he said, feebly, "it was worth the price, to wear your clothes just
+once!"
+
+And then, at last, Miss Betty saw and understood.  For not the honest
+gentleman, whom everyone except Robert Carewe held in esteem and af-
+fection, not her father's enemy, Vanrevel, lay before her with the death-
+wound in his breast for her sake, but that other--Crailey Gray, the ne'er-
+do-weel and light-o'-love, Crailey Gray, wit, poet, and scapegrace, the
+well-beloved town scamp.
+
+He saw that she knew, and, as his brightening eyes wandered up to her, he
+smiled faintly.  "Even a bad dog likes to have his day," he whispered.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The Flag Goes Marching By
+
+Will Cummings had abandoned the pen for the sword until such time as Santa
+Anna should cry for quarter, and had left the office in charge of an
+imported substitute; but late that night he came to his desk once more, to
+write the story of the accident to Corporal Gray; and the tale that he
+wrote had been already put into writing by Tom Vanrevel as it fell from
+Crailey's lips, after the doctor had, come, so that none might doubt it.
+No one did doubt it.  What reason had Mr. Carewe to injure Crailey Gray?
+Only five in Rouen knew the truth; for Nelson had gone with his master,
+and, except Mamie, the other servants of the Carewe household had been
+among the crowd in front of the Rouen House when the shot was fired.
+
+So the story went over the town:  how Crailey had called to say good-by to
+Mrs. Tanberry; how Mr. Carewe happened to be examining the musket his
+father had carried in 1812, when the weapon was accidentally discharged,
+the ball entering Crailey's breast; how Mr. Carewe, stricken with remorse
+and horror over this frightful misfortune, and suffering too severe
+anguish of mind to remain upon the scene, of the tragedy which his
+carelessness had made, had fled, attended by his servant; and how they had
+leaped aboard the evening boat as it was pulling out, and were now on
+their way down the river.
+
+And this was the story, too, that Tom told Fanchon; for it was he who
+brought her to Crailey.  Through the long night she knelt at Crailey's
+side, his hand always pressed to her breast or cheek, her eyes always
+upward, and her lips moving with her prayers, not for Crailey to be
+spared, but that the Father would take good care of him in heaven till she
+came.  "I had already given him up," she said to Tom, meekly, in a small
+voice.  "I knew it was to come, and perhaps this way is better than that--
+I thought it would be far away from me.  Now I can be with him, and
+perhaps I shall have him a little longer, for he was to have gone away
+before noon."
+
+The morning sun rose upon a fair world, gay with bird-chatterings from the
+big trees of the Carewe place, and pleasant with the odors of Miss Betty's
+garden, and Crailey, lying upon the bed of the man who had shot him,
+hearkened and smiled good-by to the summer he loved; and, when the day
+broke, asked that the bed be moved so that he might lie close by the
+window.  It was Tom who had borne him to that room.  "I have carried him
+before this," he said, waving the others aside.
+
+Not long after sunrise, when the bed had been moved near the window,
+Crailey begged Fanchon to bring him a miniature of his mother which he had
+given her, and urged her to go for it herself; he wanted no hands but hers
+to touch it, he said.  And when she had gone he asked to be left alone
+with Tom.
+
+"Give me your hand, Tom," he said, faintly.  "I'd like to keep hold of it
+a minute or so.  I couldn't have said that yesterday, could I, without
+causing us both horrible embarrassment?  But I fancy I can now, because
+I'm done for.  That's too bad, isn't it? I'm very young, after all.  Do
+you remember what poor Andre Chenier said as he went up to be
+guillotined?--' There were things in this head of mine!'  But I want to
+tell you what's been the matter with me.  It was just my being a bad sort
+of poet.  I suppose that I've never loved anyone; yet I've cared more
+deeply than other men for every lovely thing I ever saw, and there's so
+little that hasn't loveliness in it.  I'd be ashamed not to have cared for
+the beauty in all the women I've made love to--but about this one--the
+most beautiful of all--I--------"
+
+"She will understand!" said Tom, quickly.
+
+"She will--yes--she's wise and good.  If Fanchon knew, there wouldn't be
+even a memory left to her--and I don't think she'd live.  And do you know,
+I believe I've done a favor for Miss Betty in getting myself shot; Carewe
+will never come back.  Tom, was ever a man's knavery so exactly the
+architect of his own destruction as mine?  And for what gain?  Just the
+excitement of the comedy from day to day!--for she was sure to despise me
+as soon as she knew--and the desire to hear her voice say another kindly
+thing to me--and the everlasting perhaps in every woman, and this one the
+Heart's Desire of all the world!  Ah, well!  Tell me--I want to hear it
+from you--how many hours does the doctor say?"
+
+"Hours, Crailey?"  Tom's hand twitched pitifully in the other's feeble
+grasp.
+
+"I know it's only a few."
+
+"They're all fools, doctors!" exclaimed Vanrevel, fiercely.
+
+"No, no.  And I know that nothing can be done.  You all see it, and you
+want me to go easily--or you wouldn't let me have my own way so much!  It
+frightens me, I own up, to think that so soon I'll be wiser than the
+wisest in the world.  Yet I always wanted to know.  I've sought and I've
+sought--but now to go out alone on the search--it must be the search, for
+the Holy Grail--I----"
+
+"Please don't talk," begged Tom, in a broken whisper.  "For mercy's sake,
+lad.  It wears on you so."
+
+Crailey laughed weakly. "Do you think I could die peacefully without
+talking a great deal?  There's one thing I want, Tom.  I want to see all
+of them once more, all the old friends that are going down the river at
+noon.  What harm could it do?  I want them to come by here on their way to
+the boat, with the band and the new flag.  But I want the band to play
+cheerfully!  Ask `em to play `Rosin the Bow,' will you?  I've never be-
+lieved in mournfulness, and I don't want to see any of it now.  It's the
+rankest impiety of all!  And besides, I want to see them as they'll be
+when they come marching home--they must look gay!"
+
+"Ah, don't, lad, don't!"  Tom flung one arm about the other's shoulder and
+Crailey was silent, but rested his hand gently on his friend's head.  In
+that attitude Fanchon found them when she came.
+
+The volunteers gathered at the court-house two hours before noon.  They
+met each other dismally, speaking in undertones as they formed in lines of
+four, while their dispirited faces showed that the heart was out of them.
+Not so with the crowds of country folk and townspeople who lined the
+streets to see the last of them.  For these, when the band came marching
+down the street and took its place, set up a royal cheering that grew
+louder as Jefferson Bareaud, the color-bearer, carried the flag to the
+head of the procession.  With the recruits marched the veterans of 1812
+and the Indian wars, the one-legged cobbler stumping along beside General
+Trumble, who looked very dejected and old.  The lines stood in silence,
+and responded to the cheering by quietly removing their hats; so that the
+people whispered that it was more like an Odd Fellows' Sunday funeral than
+the departure of enthusiastic patriots for the seat of war.  General
+Trumble's was not the only sad face in the ranks; all were downcast and
+nervous, even those of the lads from the country, who had not known the
+comrade they were to leave behind.
+
+Jefferson unfurled the flag; Marsh gave the word of command, the band
+began to play a quick-step, and the procession moved forward down the
+cheering lane of people, who waved little flags and handkerchiefs and
+threw their hats in the air as they shouted.  But, contrary to
+expectation, the parade was not directly along Main Street to the river.
+"Right wheel!  March!" commanded Tappingham, hoarsely, waving his sword,
+and Jefferson led the way into Carewe Street.
+
+"For God's sake, don't cry now!" and Tappingham, with a large drop
+streaking down his own cheek, turned savagely upon Lieutenant Cummings.
+"That isn't what he wants.  He wants to see us looking cheery and smiling.
+We can do it for him this once, I guess!  I never saw him any other way."
+
+"You look damn smiling yourself!" snuffled Will.
+
+"I will when we turn in at the gates," retorted his Captain.  "On my soul,
+I swear I'll kill every sniffling idiot that doesn't!--In line, there!" be
+stormed ferociously at a big recruit.
+
+The lively strains of the band and the shouting of the people grew louder
+and louder in the room where Crailey lay.  His eyes glistened as he heard,
+and he smiled, not the old smile of the worldly prelate, but merrily, like
+a child when music is heard.  The room was darkened, save for the light of
+the one window which fell softly upon his head and breast and upon another
+fair head close to his, where Fanchon knelt.  In the shadows at one end of
+the room were Miss Betty and Mrs. Tanberry and Mrs. Bareaud and the white-
+haired doctor who had said, "Let him have his own way in all he asks."
+Tom stood alone, close by the head of the couch.
+
+"Hail to the band!" Crailey chuckled, softly.  "How the rogues keep the
+time!  It's `Rosin the Bow,' all right!  Ah, that is as it should be.
+Mrs. Tanberry, you and I have one thing in common, if you'll let me
+flatter myself so far:  we've always believed in good cheer in spite of
+the devil and all, you and I, eh?  The best of things, even if things are
+bad, dear lady, eh?"
+
+"You darling vagabond!" Mrs. Tanberry murmured, trying to smile back to
+him.
+
+"Hark to `em!" said Crailey.  "They're very near!  Only hear the people
+cheer them!  They'll `march away so gaily,' won't they ?--and how right
+that is!"  The vanguard appeared in the street, and over the hedge gleamed
+the oncoming banner, the fresh colors flying out on a strong breeze.
+Crailey greeted it with a breathless cry.  "There's the flag--look,
+Fanchon, your flag!--. waving above the hedge; and it's Jeff who carries
+it. Doesn't it always make you want to dance!  Bravo, bravo!"
+
+The procession halted for a moment in the street and the music ceased.
+Then, with a jubilant flourish of brass and the roll of drums, the band
+struck up "The Star Spangled Banner," and Jefferson Bareaud proudly led
+the way through the gates and down the driveway, the bright silk streaming
+overhead.  Behind him briskly marched the volunteers, with heads erect and
+cheerful faces, as they knew Corporal Gray wished to see them, their
+Captain flourishing his sword in the air.
+
+"Here they come!  Do you see, Fanchon?" cried Crailey, excitedly.  "They
+are all there, Jeff and Tappingham, and the two Madrillons and Will, the
+dear old fellow--he'll never write a decent paragraph as long as he lives,
+God bless him!--and young Frank--what deviltries I've led the boy into!--
+and there's the old General, forgetting all the tiffs we've had.  God
+bless them all and grant them all a safe return! What on earth are they
+taking off their hats for?-- Ah, good-by, boys, good-by!"
+
+They saw the white face at the window, and the slender hand fluttering its
+farewell, and Tappingham halted his men.
+
+"Three times three for Corporal Gray!" he shouted, managing, somehow, to
+keep the smile upon his lips.  "Three times three, and may he rejoin his
+company before we enter the Mexican capital!"
+
+He beat the time for the thunderous cheers that they gave; the procession
+described a circle on the lawn, and then, with the band playing and colors
+flying, passed out of the gates and took up the march to the wharf.
+
+"the flag, the flag!" whispered Crailey, following it with his eyes.  "It
+shows that you helped make it, Fanchon, it's so beautiful.  Ah, Tom,
+they've said we abused it, sometimes--it was only that we loved it so well
+we didn't like to see anyone make it look silly or mean.  But, after all,
+no man can do that--no, nor no group of men, nor party!  His voice grew
+louder as the last strains of the music came more faintly from the street.
+"They'll take your banner across the Rio Grande, Fanchon, but that is not
+all--some day its stars must spread over the world!  Don't you all see
+that they will?"
+
+After a little while, he closed his eyes with a sigh; the doctor bent over
+him quickly, and Miss Betty started forward unconsciously and cried out.
+
+But the bright eyes opened again and fixed themselves upon her with all
+their old, gay inscrutability.
+
+"Not yet," said Crailey.  "Miss Carewe, may I tell you that I am sorry I
+could not have known you sooner?  Perhaps you might have liked me for
+Fanchon's sake--I know you care for her."
+
+"I do--I do!" she faltered.  "I love her, and--ah!--I do like you, Mr.
+Gray, for I know you, though I never--met you until--last night.  God
+bless you--God bless you!"
+
+She wavered a moment, like a lily in the wind, and put out a hand blindly.
+"Not you!" she said sharply, as Tom Vanrevel started toward her.  Mrs.
+Tanberry came quickly and put an arm about her, and together they went out
+of the room.
+
+"You must be good to her, Tom," said Crailey then, in a very low voice.
+
+"I!" answered Tom, gently.  "There was never a chance of that, lad."
+
+"Listen," whispered Crailey. "Lean down-- no--closer." He cast a quick
+glance at Fanchon, kneeling at the other side of the bed, her golden head
+on the white coverlet, her outstretched hand clutching his; and he spoke
+so close to Tom's ear and in so low a tone that only Tom could hear.  "She
+never cared for me. She felt that she ought to--but that was only because
+I masqueraded in your history. She wanted to tell me before I went away
+that there was no chance for me. She was telling me that, when he called
+from the window.  It was at the dance, the night before, that she knew.  I
+think there has been someone else from the first--God send it's you!  Did
+you speak to her that night or she to you?"
+
+"Ah, no," said Tom Vanrevel.  "All the others."
+
+Mrs. Tanberry and Betty and Mr. Bareaud waited in the library, the two
+women huddled together on a sofa, with their arms round each other, and
+all the house was very still.  By and by, they heard a prolonged, far-away
+cheering and the steamer's whistle, and knew that the boat was off.  Half
+an hour later, Will Cummings came back alone, entered the room on tip-toe,
+and silently sank into a chair near Mr. Bareaud, with his face away from
+Miss Betty.  He was to remain in Rouen another week, and join his regiment
+with Tom.  None of the three appeared to notice his coming more than
+dimly, and he sat with his face bowed in his hands, and did not move.
+
+Thus perhaps an hour passed, with only a sound of footsteps on the gravel
+of the driveway, now and then, and a low murmur of voices in the rear of
+the house where people came to ask after Crailey; and when the door of the
+room where he lay was opened, the four watchers started as at a loud
+explosion.  It was Mrs. Bareaud and the old doctor, and they closed the
+door again, softly, and came in to the others.  They had left Crailey
+alone with Fanchon and Tom Vanrevel, the two who loved him best.
+
+The warm day beyond the windows became like Sunday, no voices sounded from
+without in the noon hush, though sometimes a little group of people would
+gather across the street to eye the house curiously and nod and whisper.
+The strong, blue shadows of the veranda pillars stole slowly across the
+white floor of the porch in a lessening slant, and finally lay all in a
+line, as the tall clock in a corner of the library asthmatically coughed
+the hour of noon.  In this jarring discordance there was something
+frightful to Miss Betty.  She rose abruptly, and, imperiously waving back
+Mrs. Tanberry, who would have detained her--for there was in her face and
+manner the incipient wildness of control overstrained to the breaking-
+point--she went hurriedly out of the room and out of the house, to the old
+bench in the garden.  There she sank down, her face hidden in her arms;
+there on the spot where she had first seen Crailey Gray.
+
+>From there, too, had risen the serenade of the man she had spurned and
+insulted; and there she had come to worship the stars when Crailey bade
+her look to them.  And now the strange young teacher was paying the bitter
+price for his fooleries--and who could doubt that the price was a bitter
+one?  To have the spirit so suddenly, cruelly riven from the sprightly
+body that was, but a few hours ago, hale and alert, obedient to every,
+petty wish, could dance, run, and leap; to be forced with such hideous
+precipitation to leave the warm breath of June and undergo the lonely
+change, merging with the shadow; to be flung from the exquisite and
+commonplace day of sunshine into the appalling adventure that should not
+have been his for years--and hurled into it by what hand!--ah, bitter,
+bitter price for a harlequinade! And, alas, alas! for the brave harlequin!
+
+A gentle touch fell upon her shoulder, and Miss Betty sprang to her feet
+and screamed.  It was Nelson who stood before her, hat in hand, his head
+deeply bowed.
+
+"Is he with you?" she cried, clutching at the bench for support.
+
+"No'm," answered the old man, humbly.  "I reckon we all ain' goin' see dat
+man no mo`."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"On de way, honey, on de way."
+
+"The way--to Rouen!" she gasped.
+
+"No'm; he goin' cross de big water."  He stretched out his hand and
+pointed solemnly to the east.  "Him an' me we cotch de boat, an' yo' pa
+mek `em taken de hosses on bode.  Den we git off at Leeville, five mile'
+down de rivuh, an' yo' pa hol' de boat whiles I rid back alone an' git de
+news, an' what de tale is you all is tole, f'um ole Mist' Chen'eth; an'
+Mist' Chen'eth, he rid back wid me an' see yo' pa at Leeville, an' dey
+talk in de shed by de landin', an' yo' pa tell Mist' Chen'eth what
+`rangements he goin' make wid de proprety.  `Den he git on de boat ag'in
+an' dey sto't her agoin'; an' he ain' wave no good-by, ner say no mo'
+wu'ds.  Mist' Chen'eth rid back whens de light come; but I res' de hosses
+an' come back slow, `case I ponduh on de worl', an' I mighty sorry fer yo'
+pa, Missy.  He am' comin' back no mo', honey, an' Miz Tanberry an' me an'
+Mamie, we goin' take keer er you.  Yo' pa gone back dah to de F'enchmun,
+whuh he `uz a young man.  He mighty sick, an' he scairt, honey; an' he
+ain' goin' git ovah dat, neider.  `Peah to me, Missy, like he done had a
+vizhum er he own soul, when he come an' look down at dat young man layin'
+on de grass, las' night!"
+
+The old fellow bent his back before her in a solemn bow, as a feudal
+retainer in allegiance to the heir, but more in deference to the sorrow
+written upon her, and respecting its magnitude.  With no words of comfort,
+for he knew she wanted only to be alone, he moved away, with infirm steps
+and shaking head, toward the rear of the house.
+
+Miss Betty threw herself upon the bench again, face downward in her arms.
+And still the house lay in silence under the sunshine.
+
+An hour had passed, and the shadows slanted strongly to the east, when the
+stillness was broken by a sound, low and small at first, then rising
+fearfully, a long, quavering wail of supreme anguish, that clutched and
+shook the listener's heart.  No one could have recognized the voice as
+Fanchon's, yet everyone who heard it knew that it was hers; and that the
+soul of Crailey Gray had gone out upon the quest for the Holy Grail.
+
+Miss Betty's hands clenched convulsively round the arm of the bench and a
+fit of shuddering seized her as if with the grip of a violent chill,
+though her eyes were dry. Then she lay quiet.
+
+A long time afterward, she became aware of a step that paced the garden
+path behind her, and turned her face upon her arm so that she saw, but
+made no other motion.  It was Tom Vanrevel, walking slowly up and down,
+his hands behind his back and his hat pulled far down over his eyes. He
+had not seen her.
+
+She rose and spoke his name.
+
+He turned and came to her.  "Almost at the very last," he said, "Crailey
+whispered to me that be knew you thought him a great scamp, but to tell
+you to be sure to remember that it was all true about the stars."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"Goodby"
+
+It was between twilight and candlelight, the gentle half-hour when the
+kind old Sand Man steals up the stairs of houses where children are; when
+rustic lovers stroll with slow and quiet steps down country lanes, and old
+bachelors are loneliest and dream of the things that might have been.
+Through the silence of the clear dusk came the whistle of the evening boat
+that was to bear Tom Vanrevel through the first stage of his long journey
+to the front of war, and the sound fell cheerlessly upon Miss Betty's ear,
+as she stood leaning against the sun-dial among the lilac bushes.  Her
+attitude was not one of reverie; yet she stood very still, so still that,
+in the wan shimmer of the faded afterglow, one might have passed close by
+her and not have seen her.  The long, dark folds of her gown showed
+faintly against the gray stone, and her arms, bare from the elbow, lay
+across the face of the dial with unrelaxed fingers clenching the cornice;
+her head drooping, not languidly but with tension, her eyes half-closed,
+showing the lashes against a pale cheek; and thus, motionless, leaning on
+the stone in the dusk, she might have been Sorrow's self.
+
+She did not move, there was not even a flicker of the eyelashes, when a
+step sounded on the gravel of the driveway, and Vanrevel came slowly from
+the house.  He stopped at a little distance from her, hat in hand.  He was
+very thin, worn and old-looking, and in the failing light might have been
+taken for a tall, gentle ghost; yet his shoulders were squared and he held
+himself as straight as he had the first time she had ever seen him.
+
+"Mrs. Tanberry told me I should find you here," he said, hesitatingly.  "I
+have come to say good-by."
+
+She did not turn toward him, nor did more than her lips move as she
+answered, "Good-by," and her tone was neither kind nor cold, but held no
+meaning whatever, not even indifference.
+
+There was an interval of silence; then, without surprise, he walked sadly
+to the gate, paused, wheeled about suddenly, and returned with a quick,
+firm step.
+
+"I will not go until I know that I do not misunderstand you," he said,
+"not even if there is only the slightest chance that I do.  I want to say
+something to you, if you will let me, though naturally I remember you once
+asked me never to speak to you again.  It is only that I have thought you
+did that under a misconception, or else I should still obey you. If you--"
+
+"What is it that you wish to say?" Her tone was unchanged.
+
+"Only that I think the hardest time for you has passed, and that--"
+
+"Do you?" she interrupted.
+
+"Yes," he returned, "the saddest of your life. I think it has gone
+forever. And I think that what will come to you will be all you wish for.
+There will be a little time of waiting--"
+
+"Waiting for what?"
+
+He drew a step nearer, and his voice became very gentle.  "Cummings and I
+reach our regiment tomorrow night; and there in the camp is a group of men
+on the way to the war, and they all go the more bravely because each one
+of them has you in his heart;--not one but will be a better soldier
+because of you.  I want you to believe that if all of them don't come
+back, yet the one whose safety you think of and fear for will return.
+For, you see, Crailey told me what you said to him when--when he met you
+here the last time.  I have no way to know which of them you meant; but--
+he will come back to you!  I am sure of it, because I believe you are to
+be happy.  Ah, you've had your allotment of pain!  After all, there is so
+little to regret: the town seems empty without its young men, yet you may
+rejoice, remembering how bravely they went and how gaily!  They will sing
+half the way to Vera Cruz!  You think it strange I should say there is so
+little to regret, when I've just laid away my best friend.  It was his own
+doctrine, and the selfish personal grief and soreness grows less when I
+think of the gallant end he made, for it was he who went away most bravely
+and jauntily of all.  Crailey was no failure, unless I let what he taught
+me go to no effect.  And be sure he would have told you what I tell you
+now, that all is well with all in the world."
+
+"Please!" she cried, with a quick intake of breath through closed teeth.
+
+"I will do anything in the world to please you," he answered, sorrowfully.
+"Do you mean that--"
+
+She turned at last and faced him, but without lifting her eyes.  "Why did
+you come to say good-by to me?"
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"I think you do."  Her voice was cold and steady, but it was suddenly
+given to him to perceive that she was trembling from head to heel.
+
+An exclamation of remorse broke from him.
+
+"Ah! You came here to be alone.  I--"
+
+"Stop," she said.  "You said good-by to me once before.  Did you come to
+see--what you saw then?"
+
+He fell back in utter amazement, but she advanced upon him swiftly.  "Was
+it that?" she cried.
+
+The unfortunate young man could make no reply, and remained unable to
+defend himself from her inexplicable attack.
+
+"You have not forgotten," she went on, impetuously.  "It was in the crowd,
+just before they gave you the flag.  You saw--I know you saw-- and it
+killed me with the shame of it!  Now you come to me to look at the same
+thing again--and the boat waiting for you!  Is it in revenge for that
+night at the Bareauds'?  Perhaps this sounds wild to you--I can't help
+that--but why should you try to make it harder for me?"
+
+>From the porch came a strong voice: "Vanrevel!"
+
+"God knows I haven't meant to," said Tom, in bitter pain.  "I don't
+understand.  It's Cummings calling for me; I'll go at once.  I'd hoped,
+stupidly enough, that you would tell me whom it was you meant when you
+spoke to Crailey, so that I could help to make it surer that he'd come
+back to you.  But I've only annoyed you.  And you were here--away from the
+house----avoiding me, and fearing that I--"
+
+"Vanrevel!" shouted William. (Mrs. Tanberry had not told Lieutenant
+Cummings where to find Miss Betty.)
+
+"Fearing?  Yes?"
+
+"Fearing that I might discover you."  He let his eyes rest on her
+loveliness once more, and as he saw that she still trembled, he extended
+his hand toward her in a gesture of infinite gentleness, like a blessing,
+heaved one great sigh, and, with head erect and body straight, set his
+face manfully toward the house.
+
+He had taken three strides when his heart stopped beating at an ineffable
+touch on his sleeve.  For, with a sharp cry, she sprang to him; and then,
+once more, among the lilac bushes where he had caught the white kitten,
+his hand was seized and held between two small palms, and the eyes of Miss
+Betty Carewe looked into the very soul of him.
+
+"No!" she cried.  "No!  Fearing with a sick heart that you might not
+come!"
+
+Her pale face, misty with sweetness, wavered before him in the dusk, and
+he lifted his shaking hand to his forehead; her own went with it, and the
+touch of that steadied him.
+
+"You mean," he whispered, brokenly, "you mean that you--"
+
+"Yes, always," she answered, rushing through the words, half in tears.
+"There was a little time when I loved what your life had been more than
+you.  Ah, it was you that I saw in him. Yet it was not what you had done
+after all, but just you!  I knew there could not be anyone else--though I
+thought it could never be you--that night, just before they gave the
+flag."
+
+"We've little time, Vanrevel!" called the voice from the porch.
+
+Tom's eyes filled slowly.  He raised them and looked at the newly come
+stars. "Crailey, Crailey!" he murmured.
+
+Her gaze followed his.  "Ah, it's he--and they--that make me know you will
+come back to me!" she said.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Two Vanrevels, by Booth Tarkington
+
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